China Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 The Life and Death of the American Mall The indoor suburban shopping center is a special kind of abandoned place. I've visited hundreds of abandoned places in my life—factories to asylums, schools to churches—but suburban malls might be the most surreal and striking. They captivate the imagination in a way few other types of environments can: with an almost imperceptible layer of fog that forms between the first and second floors of an atrium, endless reflections of vacant storefronts, or a chance encounter with a groundhog in the remains of a food court. Stripped of signage and wares, they are nearly perfectly liminal spaces. Malls have become a part of the modern collective unconscious, through both the haze of half-buried memories of any American over the age of 20 and their ubiquity in popular media. They reflect the American consumer’s identity, and to see a suburban mall in ruins warps nostalgia into something nightmarish and forlorn in a way that abandoned factories, hospitals, or even churches don’t quite do. We are all, to some extent, intimately familiar with the mall experience. Many of us in America had an indoor shopping center that was “our mall” at some point in our lives. Those memories are shared, because even though we weren’t all going to the same mall, we were: franchise stores—Auntie Anne’s, Sbarro, The Gap—share the same layout and inoffensive color palette and logo lettering across the country. To know one of these malls is to know them all. It’s a powerful magic I’m not sure I can fully explain, even after wandering the deserted storefronts of many vacant shopping hubs. Much has been written on the phenomenon of the collapse of the American mall and the reasons for it. The most obvious—the rise of online retail—is undeniably a significant factor, but it also masks a rot that had been spreading before Amazon gutted brick-and-mortar. It’s hard to think of any comparable social institution that cost so much and covered so much physical space and then imploded so quickly. As always, the story is far more complex than any tidy summary can encompass. As an explorer of abandoned places, though, I go to dead malls, with their problematic history of devastating downtown districts, in an attempt to reconcile their spotty legacy with the fond memories I have of them: reading comics in Waldenbooks, gazing longingly at K·B Toys, playing Street Fighter 2 in the arcade in the basement, and petting puppies and kittens in the pet store. My mother worked at a John Wannamaker store with a giant eagle statue perched by the railing in front of the second-floor entrance, gazing down at the shoppers below. I vaguely recall winning a Halloween costume contest at our mall when I was six or so—I was a pirate, by the way. These empty malls I see, by virtue of their similarity, are my mall, too, and they are stuffed with the same kinds of memories: ear piercings at a cart, first jobs at the Orange Julius, love connections at the Sam Goody’s. Compared to a thriving galleria at its zenith, big box stores and online retailers seem shabby and isolating. There’s nowhere to sit, no fountains or planters, no people-watching. Perhaps as a culture, we have outgrown the mall, but it is an emotional loss. We may not have always wanted to go them, but we miss them when they’re gone. Click on the link for the full article 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
China Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 I usually enjoy Atlas Obscura, but could do without reading a baby journo waxing rhapsodically about the hole in society’s collective heart because there are no more Sbarros and his mom worked at a Pottery Barn. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TradeTheBeal! Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Man…Springfield Mall in the 80s was just a castle of majesty. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Poltergeist, RED DAWN, some Orange Bowl pizza and a new Judas Priest patch at the Hong Kong Bazaar. We were gods. 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skinsmarydu Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Truth about Springfield Mall. I loved that place as a kid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Springfield Mall is now a Target and 11 iPhone repair places. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CousinsCowgirl84 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Lynnhaven mall still popping… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skinsmarydu Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 2 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said: Springfield Mall is now a Target and 11 iPhone repair places. Don't kill my reverie. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
China Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 WhiteFlint Mall (now gone) is where I saw Logan's Run when it first came out in 1976. Complete with Jenny Agutter and Farrah Fawcett: 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ixcuincle Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 (edited) depends where you go. when I went to Florida my first stop was the mall and it was hardly dead. other hand places like Reston town center are dying and that is the closest to me. I don't think I've ever seen Potomac mills dead but the Nike store there always has a crowd. 50 dollar shoes 😂 Edited January 12 by ixcuincle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 The best thing that could have happened to my quarter of ALX was the leveling of Landmark Mall to be replaced by a huge mixed use development that is going to take like a decade to build. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skinsmarydu Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 I remember when Landmark opened. My grandmother covered her face with a Reader's Digest when Mom was driving there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCSaints_fan Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 I grew up really close to Fair Oaks, which is still around, but haven't been there in a long time. I do remember some of the stores in the 80s/90s like Kay-Bee, K&K. My older siblings were into D&D and I also got into it a bit so spent a fair amount of time at Whats Your Game and My Hobby, and remember them going out of business in the early 90s marking an "end of a era". Also remember Chess King (clothing store) for some reason ... I remember the last minute Christmas shopping runs we would go on. Went to TJ for high school, I remember for football pre-game we would sometimes go to Landmark. They had that food court and arcade. I remember playing Virtua Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom, WWF, Time Crisis, and Terminator. Would dump like $20 in hour sometimes. Landmark actually had a decent interior, at least compared to Fair Oaks which was kind of bland, I think there were trying to pull of some sort of Buck Rogers / Star Wars Cloud City / Rollerball futuristic look but it just never worked for me When I went back for a reunion a few years ago I noticed the whole thing was pretty much shut down. I had been out of the area for some time, so didn't pay attention to that stuff. I also remember some malls in California dying while I was there from 2010-2020. Would also go to Springfield, especially since some of my friends lived around there. Also there was that arcade, had the Bally's pinball machines I liked to play. Also had Another Universe and that comic book store, I interned around there in college as well and one of my co-workers liked going there, but wasn't really into comics. The thing about those malls is they used up alot of space, honestly I think they should have been converted into green space (especially Landmark) which is desperately needed in these very built up urban/suburban areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ixcuincle Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 funny cause I go to fair Oaks occasionally. they have a seafood buffet now 👀 Reston is the one I see with shuttered shops, they closed Popeyes and chick fil a Simon malls like the Leesburg outdoor outlet mall, Potomac Mills and the Florida mall in Orlando are active even today in this internet age. Maybe I'm just old school but going to the mall for outlet deals that you can get immediately /not be scammed with heinous online shipping charges plus walking exercise, that's why malls aren't dead some of the outlet deals for Nike **** you could never find online because the product isn't there, only clearance stores Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabidFan Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 1 hour ago, TradeTheBeal! said: Man…Springfield Mall in the 80s was just a castle of majesty. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Poltergeist, RED DAWN, some Orange Bowl pizza and a new Judas Priest patch at the Hong Kong Bazaar. We were gods. Loved me some Time Out 1 and 2 there but she was a trek for me. I was a Tysons (1 now) kid. Played the sit down missile command at Lums, put what must be Goodell's salary in quarters on the arcades (including late starter Dragon's Lair) claiming "next" at People's Drug store, saw all the great 80s films, perused the adult area with posters in Spencer's Gifts.....Gods we were and that is why I love the Stranger Things series as it takes me all back to the best pre teen era in American history. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 The mall out near me is depressing as ****, I do whatever I can not to go there. It's like a time warp back to 1999-2001. Quite frankly, I'm not sure how a place like White Flint is abandoned while the mall here is still on life support somehow. Anyway, apropo of nothing but related: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabidFan Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 "Pier One Imports.....the new Oldsmobiles are in...there's a lot of space in this mall...." one of my fav movies though interesting how Akroyd and Belushi hated Landis after this citing he left so many funny scenes on the cutting room floor. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsFTW Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 I used to think that malls we're dying everywhere but the cold places like in Minnesota but then I went to the Philippines. They have the busiest malls I've ever seen and when we visited Manila me and my wife checked out several of them. One is actually called MegaMall and it's ginormous but there are actually a couple others that are bigger. Last month we went to Pensacola and the mall there was very busy. The entire parking lot was packed full. Here in Tennessee most of the malls are kinda dead though. I think Florida just has a lot of visitors who like to shop. Was the same way in Miami and Orlando a few years ago. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fergasun Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Straight to Babbages...do not stop at Time Out. I swear I can still picture the walk to Babbage's at Springfield Mall (2nd floor, I think we always parked at JC Penney entrance?). TIL: Babbage's became Gamestop... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerPacker Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 12 minutes ago, Fergasun said: Straight to Babbages...do not stop at Time Out. I swear I can still picture the walk to Babbage's at Springfield Mall (2nd floor, I think we always parked at JC Penney entrance?). TIL: Babbage's became Gamestop... It was EBX for me... which became Gamestop. I really hate how we've let everything get bought up by megacorps to kill competition. There use to be laws against that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCSaints_fan Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 8 hours ago, PokerPacker said: It was EBX for me... which became Gamestop. I really hate how we've let everything get bought up by megacorps to kill competition. There use to be laws against that. Babbages wasn't anything great ... basically just a Walden books for games/software. No playable systems out, I can't even remember demos running. Of course they focused on PCs (and Amiga while it was still popular) and not consoles. At least the one in Fair Oaks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhead36 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Fair Oaks is still poppin. As is Tyson's, especially since it has metro access now. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lombardi's_kid_brother Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Monroeville Mall is famous for Dawn of the Dead. It's still hanging on. It's old and is in a hideous location, but I think the location keeps it viable in some weird way. You can't build anything else in Monroeville so let's just leave the mall open until it plunges into the earth. Pittsburgh does have my vote for all-time Mall collapse champion however. Century III Mall - Wikipedia This mall opened in 1980. It was an hour from my house, and we went to it like a tourist attraction. It had five anchor stories. It had a truly massive food court. It was decorated in pure DeBartalo splendor. Golden glass elevators. Gold escalators. Random stages for God knows what events. White marlbe. Plants. It was like the Tony Soprano house of malls. By 2000, it was dead and decaying. In 2019, it was ****ing condemned. (It was an insanely confusing mall by the way. It was three levels and built into an old slag pit. Becauase of the weird geography, every level had entrances and exits to the parking lot. I think the main entrance actually took you into Level 2. It was very easy to get totally lost). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
China Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 1 hour ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said: Century III Mall - Wikipedia This mall opened in 1980. It was an hour from my house, and we went to it like a tourist attraction. It had five anchor stories. It had a truly massive food court. It was decorated in pure DeBartalo splendor. Golden glass elevators. Gold escalators. Random stages for God knows what events. White marlbe. Plants. It was like the Tony Soprano house of malls. By 2000, it was dead and decaying. In 2019, it was ****ing condemned. (It was an insanely confusing mall by the way. It was three levels and built into an old slag pit. Becauase of the weird geography, every level had entrances and exits to the parking lot. I think the main entrance actually took you into Level 2. It was very easy to get totally lost). So it was like Chongqing, China? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerPacker Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 7 hours ago, DCSaints_fan said: Babbages wasn't anything great ... basically just a Walden books for games/software. No playable systems out, I can't even remember demos running. Of course they focused on PCs (and Amiga while it was still popular) and not consoles. At least the one in Fair Oaks That was in Fair Oaks? Don't remember it. Maybe that's what became the EBX I knew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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