The Mall Wood Green is a large shopping centre and residential complex in Wood Green, North London. It is generally still referred to by its former name of Wood Green Shopping City; the signage on the building still uses that name.
The Mall is the largest shopping centre within the North Circular, with just over 100 retail shops, seven of them anchor stores, 45 market stalls, and an average of 221,000 customers per week.The centre and the adjoining shops on Wood Green High Road constitute the commercial hub of Haringey and its surrounding areas.
The centre was built in the 1970s as “Wood Green Shopping City”, on the site of the former Noel Park and Wood Green railway station. Initially it included a number of unusual features, most notably a giant wooden climbing frame in the shape of a frog.
The centre was opened on 13 May 1981 by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
Unusually for a shopping centre, the A105 road runs directly through the complex, allowing many of the stores to have entrances directly onto the street. The two halves of the mall are linked by bridges at first and second floor level. The centre is six storeys high, but only the lower two floors are occupied by shops; the upper floors make up a housing complex known as “Sky City”, where in 2006, the badly decomposed body of a woman was found. Her name was Joyce Vincent and she had died three years earlier, her body lay undiscovered. Joyce’s life is the subject of the film Dreams of a Life.
The centre suffered badly in the 1990s recession, with many of the established shops leaving and being replaced by pound shops and charity shops. It was also the location for the short-lived and controversial 1998 game show Beat the Crusher.
