My favorite abandoned mall was the COTTONWOOD MALL, which had very creepy brass statues of 1950's style children playing in a bunch of plant displays. The plants were long-dead tho. The only remaining stopres were a pog shop, which I realize now must have been selling paraphernalia, and a pet shop! So this huge, hollow mall of death was filled with the echoes of your own feet and barking dogs.
These things have such a Romero vibe, I adore them. Tell me of your abandoned malls.
― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 06:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― jergins (jergins), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 06:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― am0n (am0n), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 07:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― am0n (am0n), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 07:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― the car, the hole, and the peekskill meteorite (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 07:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 07:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― jergins (jergins), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 07:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 08:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― the car, the hole, and the peekskill meteorite (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 08:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 08:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 09:10 (seventeen years ago) link
Posted November 20, 2006 (user submitted October 7, 2006)
Demolition on Dixie Mall has halted.
The developer is not to be found and has not paid contractors. Developer moved out of offices subleased from Demolition Contractor United Demolition on Kostner Ave. Illegal removal of asbestos has Atty General looking into developer. Il. Dept of Public Health and Il. EPA have issues with work completed by developer.
― the car, the hole, and the peekskill meteorite (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 09:15 (seventeen years ago) link
As stated on the CLUI website: "Criminal acts in the mall include more than simple vandalism: multiple rapes and at least one murder have occured there over the years." I'm glad I made it out ok.
It wasn't much to see, mostly garbage and piles of dirt. Rumor was there were packs of wild dogs living there. I only found some semblance of transient dwelling and saw a man staring at me from down a hall. Then I went to a Harvey thrift store and bought a nice couch.
― derekerdman (Derek Erdmany), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 09:24 (seventeen years ago) link
When I first went to the Newtown Shopping Center in Birmingham (UK) in the early 80s I thought it was abandoned but it was just that the stores very rarely put their shutters up. I have no idea waht it's like now but back then it was pretty bleak. Not so much crackheads more like poor people.
― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 11:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Pete W (peterw), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 12:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― -- (688), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 12:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― It's the lazy and immoral way to become super hip. (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 13:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 13:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ste (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 13:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― -- (688), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 13:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― It's the lazy and immoral way to become super hip. (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― It's the lazy and immoral way to become super hip. (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 14:03 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~ld/buf/t.gif
It's right downtown, and the only thing that keeps it open is the food court which caters to Buffalo's banking crowd. It does indeed have a Foot Locker, along with a place that will airbrush a t-shirt for you.
http://www.buffalorising.com/city/archives/mpmdjffnbbwfbn-thumb.jpg
― molly d (mollyd), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 17:55 (seventeen years ago) link
Six Flags Mall - ten years newer than Forum 303, took away most of the business, wound up faltering when a new mall was built in 1989. Had a resurgence in the '90s, when it got the first stadium-seating theatre, but now it's all gone except for airbrush shops and a pet store, plus the theatre. I haven't been in ages, I don't want to leave my truck unattended in the parking lot.
― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 18:52 (seventeen years ago) link
ihttp://www.ffgeeks.net/malls/Euclid/000_0027.JPG
― lk (lawrence kansas), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Milkmaid (82375538-A) (The Milkmaid), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― molly d (mollyd), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link
Buckingham Square
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link
Seeing boarded up stores is one thing, but an abandoned Dippin' Dots is just heartbreaking somehow. The future is dead.
― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 21:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― molly d (mollyd), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 21:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 22:30 (seventeen years ago) link
http://static.flickr.com/24/101931310_9b89abc477.jpg?v=0
― molly d (mollyd), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 22:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 23:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― nate p. (natepatrin), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 23:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 23:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 23:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 23:54 (seventeen years ago) link
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v209/Mandalion/lakeside2.jpg
― molly d (mollyd), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 00:03 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm trying to think if there's any malls in Australia that are at least semi-abandoned (ie very undersold for shops) but I cant easily think of any..
It seems here that the existing ones just get far larger, like the Blob, rather than new ones being built to siphon away business.
― S- (sgh), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 00:10 (seventeen years ago) link
They just fancy up all the malls here, keep them up to date. I can still remember the insides of the strange old mall Canberra had in its city centre in the 70s. Instead of it going to seed though they just rebuilt it and did it up. I miss the old mall, it had weird tiles and a strange brown colour scheme, and a really cool cafe by the ABC shop that did the nicest burgers.
― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 00:14 (seventeen years ago) link
Manda, I remember when Rolling Acres opened in the '70s -- it was supposed to be the destination mall, but I think all the Fairlawn/NW Akron folks were uneasy with the racial makeup of that area, and when Montrose started to blow up in the mid-'80s, that was the end of RA.
― Jeff Wright (JeffW1858), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 04:38 (seventeen years ago) link
The downtown Redding mall was creepy, I used to walk through it to get to La Cabana for the spicy shrimp burrito. No inhabitants but a Rite-Aid and a police substation, and a few dozen zombified senior citizens shuffling around in the air conditioning for what little exercise their tickers could stand. Oh, and a custodian who rode around on his silent electric golf cart, sneaking up on people and scaring shit out of them.
― Joe Isuzu's Petals (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 05:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― am0n (am0n), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 05:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― gbx (skowly), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 05:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― am0n (am0n), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 05:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― am0n (am0n), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 05:14 (seventeen years ago) link
Yeah! I told the owner of the printing company I worked at that he should buy the mall property and create North America's biggest indoor skate park. If he'd listened to me instead of embezzling every dollar out of the company, he might not be in the pokey right now.
― Joe Isuzu's Petals (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 05:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― jergins (jergins), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 07:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― gunther heartymeal (keckles), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 13:50 (seventeen years ago) link
I will say this: "Dress to the nines, Spend to the Fives"Also, the DEB store is still open.
― The Milkmaid (82375538-A) (The Milkmaid), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 13:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 13:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Milkmaid (82375538-A) (The Milkmaid), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 13:55 (seventeen years ago) link
The American ones all look creepily... LIGHT and CLEAN!
http://static.flickr.com/104/303526390_1877987a0f.jpg?v=0
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 14:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 14:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― -- (688), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― molly d (mollyd), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 14:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 14:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― -- (688), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 15:05 (seventeen years ago) link
Photo is practically a pixel-for-pixel copy of the mall in downtown Columbus. Not quite on the brink of zombie rampage, but so close you don't want to go there, even for the photo booth.
― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 15:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Milkmaid (82375538-A) (The Milkmaid), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 15:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― nate p. (natepatrin), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Columns/The_Fabricator/2005/08/25/100_Oaks_Climbs_in_Rankings_of_C/index.shtml
― molly d (mollyd), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 15:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― molly d (mollyd), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 15:53 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76944759@N00/sets/72057594071409861/
― mike a (mike a), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link
It was right across from my high school and if it weren't for all the teens flooding the place in the mid-afternoons it'd have been permanently abandoned. Half the shops were just plain empty - the food court was wasted with maybe 40 percent of the slots in use, only thing I can remember about that was a pizza joint. otherwise that mall had a few anonymous department stores, a crap record store (Maxie Waxie's? Sam Goody's? I don't remember), a store selling cheap Asiatic objects/paintings/whatever, a Toys'R'Us megastore, a kiosk shilling aeromatic oils, a Bank of America, a tiny comic book store, a Marshalls, and a few other odds and ends lost to the ravages of time. Oh right, there was a sports card shop too and an arcade for a while. But at best 50% of the place's commercial space was utilized - it's sort of amazing that it lasted as long as it did.
Still living malls visibily creeping towards extinction are almost as chilling as dead malls (cf. Owings Mills Mall)
(Arundel Mills Mall is totally opposite this, thriving and crowded and awesome.)
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link
Latham Circle Mall - one of the first malls I ever visisted.
Northway Mall - this was dying even as long ago as the 80s. It was right across a busy highway (with no crossings) from the Colonie Center - why bother?
Mohawk Mall - this place has been torn down? Just shows you how long it's been since I left Upstate NY.
It's weird, the cycle of which malls survive and thrive and expand, and then eat up the clientelle of surrounding malls. The Colonie Centre put paid to a lot of surrounding strip malls - and then Crossgates Mall knocked the Colonie Centre for 6. And we thought Crossgates wouldn't last - too many shoe stores.
The architecture looks so dated now. Not that it ever didn't, really... but it's kinda creepy the way malls across America all look so similar.
― Breaking Under The Crush (kate), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 16:18 (seventeen years ago) link
Also meant to mention: drove by Wonderland Mall in Livonia, MI a couple years ago and it appeared to be on the critical list.
― Jeff Wright (JeffW1858), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 17:51 (seventeen years ago) link
That Phoenix Sears looks just like the Pasadena Sears, which is still open and doing OK.
― nickn (nickn), Wednesday, 22 November 2006 19:04 (seventeen years ago) link
"The Potter's House Christian Fellowship bought the abandoned mall for $4 million in 2002. The church then converted the old Sam's Wholesale Club building into a 4,000-seat sanctuary, a 600-seat children's church, nursery, classrooms and offices."
I remember this single-anchor mall being a big deal on the Westside of town when I moved there in 1984 (1 of 3 single-anchor malls flourishing then).
Then I remember it basically being a dollar theater and a game room for teen-weekends, with virtually nothing else but a Christian bookstore for daytime hours before becoming boarded up in the 90s.
To see pictures of it revamped as a church is O_o
(although the Grand Boulevard Mall on the rich side of town was converted to a branch of the community college w/o ever boarding up long before I left Florida!)
― Flea Kuti (PappaWheelie V), Monday, 24 August 2009 20:57 (fourteen years ago) link
my good friend and bandmate greg schaal has been documenting the dead malls of MN:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregschaal/sets/72057594096281909/
― cheddar burress (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, 24 August 2009 21:05 (fourteen years ago) link
dead malls really are fascinating.
this thread got me thinking about when all K-Mart's used to have a lunch counter.http://www.the80sshop.com/WindowsLiveWriter/k-mart.jpg
― Flea Kuti (PappaWheelie V), Monday, 24 August 2009 21:45 (fourteen years ago) link
the dead malls series on youtube by dan bell (not the techno dan bell) is fascinating
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 29 April 2017 02:06 (six years ago) link
and also awesome
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 29 April 2017 02:07 (six years ago) link
This one's epic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lWZLYa8FoM
The Corpus Christi one, too. Almost makes me want to watch The Legend of Billie Jean.
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 30 April 2017 16:53 (six years ago) link
https://heisenbergreport.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/teaser.png
These 21 retailers are closing 3,591 stores -- who is next?Number of distressed U.S. retailers at highest level since Great RecessionThe collapse of retail chains is leaving America's shopping malls emptyA third of American malls will close soon
http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54da22f8ecad04ed701f0fc5-1104/snowy-deserted-empty-mall.png
― behavioral sink (Sanpaku), Sunday, 30 April 2017 19:09 (six years ago) link
Somehow I never posted this here. The mall has since been completely closed, not sure if it's been knocked down yet.
http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/a-requiem-for-maryland-s-owings-mills-mall
This was hard to scroll through.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Abandoned-Mall-Photos-Owings-Mill-Mall-Maryland--412570033.html
― Let’s just do it and be legends, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 1 May 2017 00:22 (six years ago) link
The dead malls video of owings mills is definitely the most depressing we've watched so far.
― El Tomboto, Monday, 1 May 2017 00:26 (six years ago) link
http://img6.photobucket.com/albums/v16/Celedux/msuic1.jpg
― calstars, Monday, 1 May 2017 00:28 (six years ago) link
I'm looking it up now, though I shouldn't. That's my childhood/young adult mall.
― Let’s just do it and be legends, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 1 May 2017 00:28 (six years ago) link
Well, this was soul-destroying to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCj2hRc_F6Y
He should really bring along a few people who grew up with these malls when he shoots the videos, but then again, maybe he shouldn't.
― Let’s just do it and be legends, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 1 May 2017 00:39 (six years ago) link
A friend just shared this one with me, from North Carolina.
http://skycity2.blogspot.com/2011/08/lenoir-mall-lenoir-nc.html
― Let’s just do it and be legends, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 1 May 2017 00:43 (six years ago) link
Its astonishing how much/how rapidly this is happening in the US. Whats changing thats causing this? We dont seem to have this problem in Aus. But then again I dont think we have quite the massive proliferation of malls? We still have a lot of local community/village strip shops and such.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 1 May 2017 02:02 (six years ago) link
Punctuated equilibrium. Malls hung on for as long as they could. Strip malls cost a lot less to keep up than the big indoor suckers, but they'll die too.
― your cognitive privilege (El Tomboto), Monday, 1 May 2017 02:12 (six years ago) link
i think the widening gap between the upper middle class and lower middle class is a huge factor--in an internet shopping environment there's room in b&m for low-cost retailers and attainable luxury retailers but malls always kinda lived in the middle.
where i live there are a small handful of malls that have upscaled sufficiently; i think the rest are fucked.
― call all destroyer, Monday, 1 May 2017 02:14 (six years ago) link
The malls that survive are all going mixed-use with residential and office space mixed in, including the urban ones. It'll be interesting to see how long Pentagon City holds out.
― your cognitive privilege (El Tomboto), Monday, 1 May 2017 03:49 (six years ago) link
I'm not sure Australia experienced the role the mall played in American social life. The old world certainly didn't.
American suburbs are all less than 70 years old, they never had town squares or other common places like well frequented social boulevards. For people my age and younger, they may have been the only place to meet others in youth outside of school sanctioned events.
I never enjoyed them (as noisy, shallow exemplars of the craving for status tokens). But I spent a good portion of a summer in the video arcade at one (which is now a refitted as a satellite community college).
However, without the mall, American suburbia is just endless cul-de-sacs and pointless lawns, stretched along unwalkable avenues with their grocery and convenience stores. Where I grew up in the sun/bible belt, there were no pubs, no well-populated parks, and very little to make anyone to feel attached to place. I can easily imagine that malls, over the last 4 decades, played this role for many. Perhaps other have megachurches (many occupying former malls) to fill this void, but for me, its all flyover territory.
I wouldn't be surprised, that when the historians and archaologists are done picking over our remains, they'll ask why Americans couldn't value investments in community that could preserve their neighborhoods. The town square, the friendly pub, hell the neighborhood football club. It was all facades of commerce, piety, or professional sports, that could be abandoned as easily as they once were built.
― behavioral sink (Sanpaku), Monday, 1 May 2017 06:38 (six years ago) link
There are some areas of outer suburban aus cities like that - the huge mall/shopping centre is the hub of life and the surrounding suburbs dont have much else on. But yes, even despite this most areas here at least have small community areas in each subrban cluster - a single street or 2 with a row of local grocers, or an Aldi, some parks, pubs, cafes etc.
I suppose it never occured to me large areas of the US arent like that, and I suspect car culture might be one reason why?
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 00:32 (six years ago) link
American suburbs are all less than 70 years old
a lot of smaller cities have neighborhoods that were former suburbs that are quite a bit older, but became incorporated with the city proper rather than becoming rural area-bordering exclaves!
― a landlocked exclave (mh), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 00:38 (six years ago) link
Americans got rich, relatively speaking, during the heyday of the automobile. In future histories people will learn that some of the idiosyncrasies of US urban planning (exurban planning?) were basically because the height of middle class economic activity coincided with the broad utility of the car, and they fed off each other until you had 3-car households and highways that all but exited directly onto cul-de-sacs surrounded by mansions. There's no room in that model for a town square - parking would be a bitch! So you build a new kind of town square, a mall, a GALLERIA even, with surface parking as far as the eye can see. Next to a highway. Tomorrow we're going to talk about the rise of personal computers, and the "dot com bubble!"
― your cognitive privilege (El Tomboto), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 02:26 (six years ago) link
This is just making me want to go home and play Sim City.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 03:01 (six years ago) link
Tiny Tower is more appropriate imho. vertical, mixed use, fewer pixels, etc.
― your cognitive privilege (El Tomboto), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 03:07 (six years ago) link
LOL I'd forgot about that one.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 2 May 2017 03:11 (six years ago) link
Not uncommon I realise but wild to me he could just get in and film this and the stuff just left in therehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV_c_c_RZdE
― nashwan, Wednesday, 13 March 2024 21:45 (one month ago) link
I'm interested in malls that find a life after death, like the Gwinnett Place Mall in suburban Atlanta, which was used as a location for the mall scenes in Stranger Things.
When I was a kid, Cinderella City in Englewood, Colorado was, to me, the height of opulence. Its decline is a case study in the death of a mall.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 13 March 2024 21:50 (one month ago) link
I heard about one in downtown Portland that was not quite abandoned, but almost.. so they started having like a Thursday night street walk kinda thing, with pop-up comic shops, guitar stores, food stands, etc.
― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, 13 March 2024 21:59 (one month ago) link