Sunday, August 8, 2010

Mall of America Imagination Center Grand Opening Photos

Name of photo set: LEGO Imagination Center Grand Opening Aug 11, 1992
Photos by: Garth Danielson
Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32515058@N02/sets/72157624540253918/with/4810157257/
Details: It's time to step into the time machine and have a look at LEGO's first retail outlet in the United States at it's grand opening in August of 1992. That's right - after 18 years, photos of the Grand Opening of the original LEGO Imagination Center at the Mall of America have finally surfaced. A full 75 of them are in this flickr set, covering what looks like most of the store. The displays featured a variety of sculptures representing both sets from (and in the case of the pseudo-futuron spacemen to the left, before) 1992 and completely original characters. The theme seems to be classic LEGO whimsy, with giant LEGO elements all over the place - but there are plenty of dinosaurs and spaceships there for good measure. Some things you see in these photos are still in the LEGO Imagination Center to this day, but others didn't last too long. See if you can spot some of the new for 1992 kits mixed in to the displays.

1 comment:

Cavorter said...

It should be noted that the last of the original pieces are just about to go away. Starting in a couple of weeks they're doing a complete rebuild of the store and according to the employees in our LUG (TwinLUG) they're taking down everything including the big clock tower.

OTOH - We're supposed to be getting a really enormous PaB wall.