The Fulton Mall

The Fulton Mall

Located in downtown Fresno between Inyo and Tuolumne Streets, the Fulton Mall is a pedestrian only zone that stretches for six blocks through the heart of Fresno’s central business district. The Fulton Mall boasts breathtaking Italian Renaissance, Basque, and industrial architecture that led Dickinson Weber, author of Early Tall Buildings: A Sentimental Sketchbook Collection, to assert that it “could probably not have been duplicated outside of California.” During your stroll along this marvel of 20th Century architecture, you can observe statues and fountains commissioned specifically for the mall’s construction, including pieces by Seattle’s George Tsutakawa, local artist T. Newton Russell, and renowned French impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir. Currently, the Fulton Mall operates as one of Fresno’s most unique interactive museum experiences.

First proposed in 1958, construction on the Fulton Mall began on March 30, 1964 and was dedicated the following September. It is the brainchild of notable Austrian architect Victor Gruen, the man who, in the mid 1950s, was responsible for giving America the gift of the modern shopping mall, and named by The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell as having “may well have been the most influential architect of the twentieth century.” His work in Fresno is no exception, as the Fulton Mall is an exemplar of the true mall aesthetic as well as a living, breathing museum. Interactive exhibits on the Fulton Mall include shopping at discount clothing stores of all varieties, including farmwear, tasteful urban fashion, and quinceañera boutiques; getting coffee, food, or a drink with friends; or simply taking a stroll and enjoying the open air, the architecture, the artwork, and interacting with the true-to-life performance artists you are sure to meet along the way, from businessmen and -women, gentrifying hipsters, and down-on-their-luck hobos, vagrants, and addicts.

Attractions and Special Events

On Thursdays one can enjoy lunch from a variety of local food trucks, and be sure to keep yourself apprised of the many music, art, food, and beer festivals that utilize this historic space for their events. The first Thursday of every month sees the Mall transformed into a veritable wellspring of art and culture for Art Hop, where one can take a leisurely stroll through two historic landmarks (the Bankers Ballroom and the Pacific Southwest Building), a coffee shop, and a public house and observe the work of local artists. Multiple participating art galleries and museums are located very near the Fulton Mall.

The Mall offers something for sports fans as well. Chukchansi Park is located at the south end of the Fulton Mall where visitors can watch exciting reenactments of minor league baseball games by the cast of the Fresno Grizzlies, Fresno’s one-time Triple-A farm team for the San Francisco Giants.

In order to make the Fulton Mall experience as authentic as possible, plaques and signs have been completely removed from the premises to better recreate the tone and style the Fulton Mall exemplified when it was still a running, functioning mall, and to better achieve architect Gruen’s original intention, and not, as he once referred to the contemporary corporate shopping mall, as one of “those bastard developments.”

Note: Because of the Mall’s authentic recreation, visitors should be wary of undisciplined cyclists, stray dogs, motorized wheelchairs, carrying cash on their person, and interacting with the performers for too prolonged a period of time.