Hope everyone enjoys this one! Malls are always an amazing experience to explore. Its crazy to see how consumers are changing from massive Malls to online shopping.** To explain the ending a bit, we heard noises and left quickly. When we shot the drone up when we got outside we saw 5 cop cars in the parking lot! We made a narrow yet successful escape. That being said, thumbs the video up! And I'll see you guys around ✌
My favourites are powerplants and factories for the decaying part. Malls and holiday resorts are just all things interesting. Hospitals and asylums are the creepiest. And so many more are curious, interesting, question raising, even sad to see. Thx for this great explore.
I have to say it is so sad to see so many malls closing down because I spent so much of my younger yrs in them but now as I am edging near middle age & have health issues I prefer to shop online.when I go to places with crowds of people they r so rude.I walk with a cane & I get pushed like its my fault they ramed into me.I have noticed in my area some of the smaller malls closing but some have grown & r thriving with stores like 5 below replacing JC Pennies & Sears.I drive by but never stop.I love that you,Dan Bell,& The Proper People r showing these malls before they r demolished showing a part of history that 1 day may never excite.thanks for another amazing video & I can't wait till the next :-)
Enjoyed this video! The history that you add is what makes it so interesting. To imagine it as a thriving community center and seeing the vintage commercials is what keeps me tuning in. Without that, it’s just mortar and steel. Great job in this video!
My mother was born in 1945 and grew up Detroit in the 50's and 60's. She always told me that being seen at Northland was the pinnacle of success back then.
I didn't realize that was a national chain. We had one in Albany, NY until the mid 2000s. Bumper boats, snake coaster, everything. I'm guessing they all went under at the same time since ours slammed shut and a few months later was a Planet Fitness.
This my grandmother's favorite place to shop, so I drove her to Northland Mall about twice a month during the warmer months. So many memories of my time shopping with her at Northland. Her favorite store was Macy's.
Nobody will bother to read me? In 1952, I lived at the corner of Rutherford and Midland. I was just finishing the eight grade at I. Crary on Puritan. Two of us rode our bikes out Greenfield to see the construction at eight mile. Back then, Greenfield was only two lanes. We were both 14 and just couldn't imagine what was being built? Four years later when Northland opened, my family had set up home in Beverly Hills. Oh, from September 1952 until January 1954, I attended Cooley, now just another ruin in my home town. Now at 81+, I spend a lot of time watching You Tube on Dish. If I was just a hair weaker, I would probably cry at all the destruction I see in Detroit. To be very honest, I am so glad, I AM JUST DRIFTING!
Yeah, it isn't completely gone. Google just took street views near the mall in November, and there is still parts of the mall there (parts that will be repurposed for other things). A bit misleading, basically.
I remember going to Northland Mall when I was fourteen years old, my friend Chris and I bought a 29 cent sub at the five and dime and sat on a bench and enjoyed our treat. It was delicious and years later Subway was born and the rest is history. On Saturdays it gave us something to do and meet people and get plenty of exercise. Years later, I went back with my Mom in 1980 and remembered the "good times". It seemed like yesterday, but it was actually 50 + years ago when I first step foot in Northland Mall at fourteen years old.
Never went to Northland Mall, but used to drive by on 75 on our way to Rochester Hills to see my favourite Aunt & Uncle, whom are both gone. This one really hit hard.
I remember when this was an "outdoor" mall, I saw Bozo the Clown at Northland when I was six years old. This mall has long ramps on both side that go underneath it, that is for the DOT (before SEMTA) bus station in the basement. There is also a fall out shelter down there since this was during the age of the cold war. One of the rooms was used as the first command center for the "Oakland County Child Killer" task force. The Boy and the Bear sculpture is now in the Southfield Public Library. When I was a porter at a local Chevrolet dealer, we used to put the new model cars in the mall, I drove cars thru this mall!
This is my childhood mall. I grew in Oak Park, which is about a 6 min bike ride from Northland. I remember going shopping with my family, hanging out with friends, some of my best memories are in that mall. Jeepers, Radio Shack, the statue of Mowgli and Baloo. I experienced my first Black Friday at Northland. This mall played a huge role in the childhood of so many Metro Detroit kids. Watching this takes me back but also reminds me of how tough a hit my hometown has taken.
This made me genuinely sad. So many memories of Jeepers, and hanging out at Northland. Sad to say, but I think Fairlane may have the same fate in the next 10.
Man this just made me so emotional. I spent a lot of money in this mall. Take me back. This was my favorite mall. And the kids play spot was called Jeepers. Why did they have to do the mall like that 😡
shatonna wade I felt sad too. I worked at GANTOS, Winklemans, and Susan Terry all throughout my high school days. I loved hanging out around a Man oh Man. Used to get my Mack on! Lol lol. So sad!\
It's really sad to see this mall go after all these years, this was the only mall I would go to growing up. Jeepers, A&W, Target, Auto's, Macy's, Ce' LaVe, RadioShack, Payless, etc. that tattoo place where I got my navel pierced at 19 was kinda my last memory. It was a good mall while it lasted.
R.I.P. McKenzie he was a close family friend. I remember when that happened we were all hurt-especially my brother they grew up together. Northland had some good memories man.
I've been in that mall a couple of times. The Macy's was originally Hudson's first branch store. It was four floors and at the time it opened was the largest non-flagship department store in the world. Hudson's was bought out by Marshall Field's in the 90s and it later became Macy's. Another fun fact, the mall was not enclosed when it first opened. That didn't happen until the 70s.
Close, but Hudson's was never "bought out" by Field's. The original Dayton-Hudson Corporation simply changed the name of the company to 'Target Corporation' after the discount store (originally launched as an experiment by Dayton's in 1962) emerged as their most profitable and high-growth brand. Target's department store division consisted of Hudson's (Detroit), Field's (Chicago), and Dayton's (Minneapolis). The original core corporate management of Hudson's hadn't changed since the merger of Dayton's & Hudson's in the late '60s. With the intent of selling off the entire department store division under one name plate, Target re-branded all 3 of the department stores as Field's, since, internationally, it had the highest name recognition & reputation. Only the name changed, the rest was perception. Try pulling up www.hudsons.com, or www.daytons.com , and you'll be redirected to www.target.com. Target eventually sold off Field's to May Company stores. Within a year of that sale, May merged with Macy's. Also, Northland Hudson's was nowhere near the "largest non-flagship department store". At over a 1,000,000 sq fit, the Macy's in Brooklyn is roughly half the size of their Herald Square flagship, and the Brooklyn branch is more than double the size of the former JLH Northland. Another oft-repeated myth by Metro Detroiters is that "Northland was the first suburban shopping center". It wasn't. Northgate, Seattle (1950), Stonestown, San Francisco (1952), and Lakewood Center, Lakewood CA (1951) are just a few of many suburban shopping centers that preceded it.
I did a lot of shopping in Northland. It was where I got school clothes and stuff I bought my suits and work wardrobe here. I shopped there until the bitter end (Target). RIP Northland I will miss you.
I worked there years ago. I went to visit the week it closed in 2015. About everything was gone . It was sad to see it so dark and closed up. Seeing this video really shows the desolation. Thank you.
I am really impressed how respectful you and your friends are. Not one time have I seen you damage, steal or make fun. Keeping the video moving with no annoying chatter.
Love the music during the intro. I miss Northland Mall. So many good memories there & very convenient. It’s a shame that this good mall went to waste leaving those with access to a vehicle or money for public transportation without access to a mall. There was a lot of politics behind it’s closure. Thank you for creating this content.
Hi, Metro Detroit native here. As someone who was born and raised in Southfield, it's so surreal to see Northland Mall and its history covered by fresh eyes from out-of-state. Even as I was coming up (the mid to late 1990's), Northland showed signs of being a shadow of its former self, accentuated even more so by the new millennium. Every so often I would tag along with my mom to go to Hudson's - later Macy's - to go shopping or maybe the salon or what have you. There weren't whole lot of other chain stores that we'd frequent there. I might have visited that Target a very small number of times, not the greatest location if I recall correctly. I spent many a preschool and kindergarten field trip going to the Jeepers! located on the property. Having an arcade with an indoor roller coaster was such a novelty. One of the courtyard sculptures from the mall (a bear and a boy) was preserved and put in the Southfield Public Library, so at least a piece of Northland will live on. Even though Northland wasn't exclusively a go-to in its later years, it was nice to know that it was always around (not to mention mere minutes away from my grandparent's house further down on the Lodge). Thanks for covering this! It was nostalgic in the most bittersweet of ways.
Another amazing video. I grew up outside Detroit and our family would go there every year and end up seeing relatives and always getting into a family fight because one of us would get lost and spend 6 hours there lol
WOW.. thanks for posting this.... I live on the east coast now, but in the 80's I worked there.... Northland was upscale when it opened.... I think it was one of the only Hudson's stores outside of the downtown Detroit store for a long time....
McKenzie Cochran, 25, died at the Northland Mall in the Detroit suburb of Southfield in January. A day after he had been asked to leave the building over suspicious behavior, Cochran returned and reportedly told a worker at a mall jewelry store that he wanted to kill someone.
Thank you for this! Growing up in Detroit, Northland was the pinnacle. It was the very first mall for many of us I was born in the 60s so I experienced Northland basically in its beginnings. So many memories! It's a shame we still don't have a film industry in Michigan any more. You can bet if we did, Northland would be rented out for various things. The whole thing could have been turned into a production house with soundstages and more. Such a shame that it will all go to waste.
I agree with your statement. I driving past this building every day to go to work and its crazy that its just sitting there empty. This should have been developed into something
Very interesting and nicely produced video. The background information to the mall's early years was appreciated too. Thank you for sharing with us. Padraic. Halifax U.K.
I Have Not Cried This Much In A Long Time. I Spent 11 Years Working There. I Know Every Place You Went. I Could Tell You About Every Store... with My Eyes Closed. I so Wish I Could Have A Peice of The Mall to Put in My House....a Sign or Something. 😞😞😞😞Thank You So Much For This.
I like how you put the old Macy’s commercial in. I like to see clips of the malls in their heyday and then see them in their current state, even though it’s sad.
The city of Detroit didn't buy the mall, the City of Southfield (the city the mall is in) bought the property. Macy's isn't so much the significant part of that mall other than the fact they bought Hudsons (the original anchor store at the center) and converted it to their store. So basically when Macy's closed it finally closed Hudson's.
The underground portion of the mall is slated to become a marijuana processing plant. It was bought from the city of Southfield for 25 million dollars.
From the beginning I read the comments you did something very special by posting this video for a lot of people ❤️ as they shared beautiful memories here in this place 😊 the mall we had back in the day isn’t demolished but is used as individual stores now but the movie theater still remains which is a great thing here in Mississippi because we don’t have much 🤦🏽♀️... so Thank you for this video 😊❤️
So many memories in this place. If Detroit was smart they wouldn’t tear it down. They would reopen it. It’s been long enough. People would flock to it.
Quentin Dennard it’s not a Detroit mall though. Definitely sits in Southfield. Nor will Detroit buy it because the city is still focused on Downtown coming together and frankly it SITS IN SOUTHFIELD.
Everyone keeps screaming ITS IN SOUTHFIELD , just because when you walk across the street and the street sign says is Southfield it's still DETROIT frfr.my father owned a store here for years before it closed ..it's on Greenfield and 8 mile .3 minutes from 7 MILE and Greenfield where the news calls THE HOOD !!! where all of Detroit identifys as the WESTSIDE OF DETROIT . This mall was usually 85 percentage blacks ...... When we ( ppl who live here ) go somewhere and it's 50/50 or more whites THEN we will call it Southfield lol. But this mall was definitely our Detroit mall,no matter what the street signs said.we all hung out after school here .
Yes it was. I worked at that exact store from Sept, 2004 until August 2005. Great times and good money made selling Sprint Cell Phones. Even greater memories from my childhood at this mall. It's sad seeing it this way.
They started demolishing Northland Mall about 2 weeks. I worked there as a teen & shopped there as a young adult, until I moved further away. I hope 12 Oaks Mall is safe from closing, for now anyway.
It was also an open air mall, it wasn't enclosed. The roof didn't come until around 1970. Life magazine did a story on it in 1954 and the color photos are amazing. It also had solid concrete tunnels that were difficult for the wrecking crews to deal with.
Think this is my favorite so far, great commentary, you have such a smooth voice that draws you in! Drone footage was wonderful, and loved the music you picked. xx
Loved this. PLEASE try to get one in the recently closed Eastland Mall. I believe it was closed Dec 31, and is awaiting demolition. I'd love to see inside the old Hudson's/Macy's one more time before they destroy it forever.
Back in the day, it was, technically, a two -story mall with a post office, shoe repair, mall security offices and an optometrist on the lower level. I went to the mall back in the 50s and 60s so its history for me includes more into than the narrator reports. It was an open-air mall originally. Macy's was Hudson's back then. This "historical" presentation lacks a lot of research. For instance, before Target there was a Mervyn's. Narrator never mentions JC Penney's which, at one point, was purchased by a church which never occupied the building. There was a Kroger's with a conveyor belt that delivered groceries outside to the parking lot on the Greenfield side. Research = info.
I went to Northland is a child in the 60s when it was all open not enclosed it was a totally different place and it totally different era when people had respect and class
People whom are not natives call anything 15 miles for Detroit, Detroit😭😅 I had someone tell me they were from Detroit, but I asked there exactly were and then they said woodhaven, Carr and Ann Arbor🤣
I really like that you spoke in a low voice during this video. There were also times of silence so we could experience it with you. The quiet and eerie silence was spectacular! Great job showing this. Thank YOU for sharing this experience with us!!
I actually walked around Northland on the last day and took pictures. It still breaks my hear that this mall closed. This was our childhood hangout spot😢. RIP Northland
I heard, "Once the inner city people with no money from detroit started to hang at at that mall and started causing problems such as fights, horse playing, and shoplifting, that's when people who were there to actually shop took their business someplace else.
Yea it had nothing to do with poor blacks. A lot of the small businesses that were keeping it running were owned by black people. Black people like to shop in peace just as much as white people do. 😒 Blame it on lack of turnover. People began to invest their money into more upscale malls such as Somerset because Northland just wasn’t the “it” place to shop anymore.
Anti Sjw People shoplift everywhere. Tf. Sounds like some blame the poor people bullshit to me. I live in a predominantly white suburb, the only little black spec in my apartment complex and white people shoplift at the local Meijer everyday. I know because I work there. So come up with a better ignorant excuse dickhead.
I use to skip school at Mumford an sit at the bus stop with ppl who use to be friends it hurt my feeling watching this so Manny members back when Detroit was fun
I remember going here in the 90s as a kid. That place used to stay packed. Right down the street it was a movie theater called “The AMC Americana.” As soon as they shut down the theater over time the mall started to go down. It’s a shame what happened to it. It was apart of my childhood.
I remember that movie theater..Me and my parents seen the Blues Brothers there..the design was ahead of its time for a movie house...It started the trend for having a movie theater positioned close to a mall throughout the usa..
I miss Northland mall. I used to shop at Targets every week and people who worked in the mall became familiar me. Another thing since this was filmed there was a fire on the J.C. Penny side around Christmas and I’m not surprised because it was rumored to still have electricity on and most likely it was a electric fire but the Mall survived the fire and it still stands.
I grew up coming to this mall here and there... there was an old man there who used to sell kung fu movies and other DVDs at a kiosk. I am Chinese speaking and I would talk to him every time I went. He remembered a lot of Chinese words he'd hear over and over again in the kung fu flicks and I taught him what they meant, and from then on he always hooked me up w good movies
Awesome job with the video recording. It's sad that they let this mall go to waste! Was born and raised in Detroit on the east side I probably been to Northland Mall three times I always went 2 East land
❤Born + raised in Detroit. Worked at the mall (Barna Bee’s for $1.40/hr, children’s clothing) 1969-1971 while in HS. Long before it enclosed. Sad to see demise. Hope original Hudson’s restored. Hated to see 12-story downtown location imploded. It was a Christmas piece of my childhood. 12th floor was toys + magical during holidays.
This makes me so sad. I LOVED Northland. It's the first mall I loved and the reason I love shopping. My mom and I used to go there a lot in the 80's and 90's. Fun memories. I went all the way up until the end. I loved the stores the boy and the bear statue. I always thought that was Mowgli and Baloo from the Jungle Book. Max Greens, Hudson's, Macy's. So much fun.
I remember Northland Mall, it opened up in 1954 then Eastland Mall opened up in 1957. I used to at Eastland Mall from 1975 until 1980,when Marshall Fields bought Hudson's. Then ,Macy's bought Marshall Fields and that is how Hudson's became Macy's.
Wow. I spent a lot of time there as a kid. Thank you for doing this. Amazing if, as you say, they did the demolition in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. I would have liked to have walked through the ruins one more time. Thank you for making this record.
Awesome drone work, I live in Chicago land area made daily deliveries in metro Detroit area , this is where I ate lunch daily before my 4.5 hr drive back home. Kids Payless this is where I brought both my daughters shoes from, kids clothes. Never brought the exotic skin shoes but I looked at the yellow, pink, apple 🍏 gators 🐊 daily. Wow I turned every turn on this Vid, didn’t know it was closed, Thank You so much for the closure, Truly enjoyed memory lane. You rock this I felt like I was there. And it was probably a ghost in the tattoo shop, mall closed over a involuntary death cause by Mall security.
I stumbled across your older videos just recently, and to see these newer episodes a couple years newer - the quality of the content is so much higher now! 👍🏼 I subbed! 😊
It’s crazy how construction workers spend all their time working on big building such as malls, just for them to stop running in a couple of years, it’s sad
A few weeks ago a friend took me to a Charlie's at a mall food court. Hadn't been in a mall in over twenty years. In twenty more years they will all look like this one. Good video guys!
There is (or was--they were filling it in after the mall closed) a whole network of tunnels and docks underneath the mall for deliveries to the stores and for the mail. There also used to be a big sculpture of a boy riding on a bear in one of the concourses. Don't know what happened with that. I didn't see it in the vid and I'm sure you would have shown it. My mother used to take me to Hudson's at that mall when I was just small. By the 80s, the little branch bank across the parking lot was always getting robbed. It was a dicey place. There was a police sub-station around the corner across from Monkey Ward's. And there was a huge bus stop area where lots of people waited for both the Detroit and suburban buses. That's been moved.
Raina Street Me too. I don’t know why I thought it was gone. I think because of whoever bought it was talking about demolishing it. Lol I’m on greenfield often and never realize. It’s sad what you overlook when you no longer go but my bff lives in Oak Park and smelled it burning from the house.
@Raoul Radio there is no Targets in Detroit. The Northland was the only one left. There's some in suburbs like Dearborn, Southfield and Warren. But there is no Targets in the city of Detroit.
Sadly, that state, particularly Detroit, was very hard hit with the demise of the Automobile Industry. That happens when people put all of their eggs in one basket, by relying on one industry to survive on. Diversity in the marketplace exists for very good reason. Malls are dying because of economic shortsightedness believing that the online market will stay, and be the economic solution to everything. Amazon being the biggest, and so much of that market for kids. That may be the downfall of Amazon, because it will be another "toy" kids get bored with in time. That's where I see assumptive marketing making a big mistake.
On CNBC a guy said ten years from now amazon will own the world. However, recently I have heard from business people that governments just might split amazon up, same as Standard Oil and NBC in the day. Standard Oil had a monopoly when horseless carriages became all the rage. NBC in radio had the Blue Network and the Red Network. The Blue Network became ABC, which doesn't have much of a radio history. Go to various amazon sites and it is on it's way to rule the world.
@@bostonblackie9503 We will just have to wait and see what happens. Amazon may be gone well before ten or fifteen years from now. People still love to interact in the physical sense one on one. Some traditions are certainly worth keeping around.
@@gloriahanes6490 I do not see a resurrection for malls. I enjoyed going to the mall with friends when I was in middle school and high school, I’m about to be 22. I dislike going to the mall now, I go for the Apple Store and to try on shoes, that’s about it. My younger sister just turned 11, it seems that kids her age have no desire to go to the mall. Most middle aged people I know, do not go to the mall either. When I go to the mall I do see mall walkers, typically elderly people. If people want to exercise the place to go is usually the gym or the outdoors, not a mall. Malls were already declining due to I assume online shopping, then with COVID malls declined even more rapidly. With anchor stores like JCPenney, Macy’s, etc. going out of business / closing stores, that’s hurting malls also. The future for malls is looking bleak!
Wow how wierd, I used to come here all the time with my grandparents. I remember running around that courtyard alot. So wierd to see it all overgrown, though it wasn't ever really maintained that nicely back when I went either
