After a very festive week of announcing Fifty Years of Giving on Wednesday and celebrating our birthday with all-day happenings on Saturday, there’s no doubt that NorthPark Center is a truly special place.

NorthPark’s uniqueness has been apparent from the very beginning. Two days before the shopping center opened in 1965, The Dallas Times Herald ran a short but fascinating article highlighting some extraordinary tidbits, titled “NorthPark’s ‘Specialness’ Invites Close Inspection.”

Here’s a list of the most impressive facts about the original shopping center, noted in the article:

• “The Empire State Building, placed on its side, would fit comfortably into either of the two wings [of NorthPark].”
• “NorthPark’s air-conditioned mall covers approximately twice the area covered by the Great Pyramid of Khufu near Cairo, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.”
• “One final point about why NorthPark is so special: The 5,000,000 bricks used in building the center would, if placed end to end, line the entire Gulf Coast of Texas with enough brick left over to build pillars at either end that are one-foot square and 1,359 feet high.”
• “Now that the center is virtually complete, there are 1,524 light fixtures totaling 464,900 watts of electricity in NorthPark’s public areas alone, which of course don’t include the approximately 100 stores.” (Today, NorthPark has over 230 stores.)