Attention! Completely remastered episodes of the Dead Mall Series are now being archived in 4K at ru-vid.com/show-UCfCM_TfrSDMkkMpKuLNWuXA. The remasters have gone through an extensive AI Enhancement process as well as proper sound mixing and colorization. This Dead Mall Series Remastered project has been made possible through viewer support on Patreon. Go over now and watch in glorious 4K. ENJOY!
@@shoyuramenoff I see you're a person of culture! Been subscribed for a while since I reside on Phoenix. Those malls, plazas and marketplaces are documented well on RA.
You know, it's been so long since we've seen a dead mall video I was hoping that conversation meme would die.. along with many of the past malls filmed!
@@kevina2052 I'm sorry you are dissatisfied with my comment. Would you rather I wrote it out in the form of a short story instead of a concise, easy to digest comment? Please advise:(
I knew Tyler. We were both diagnosed with cancer around the same time. Him with Brain Cancer, and I with ewings sarcoma. My family knew his family and when he was diagnosed we wrote each other letters frequently. One of the only positive memories of being in the hospital room was writing and receiving those letters. I wrote a speech at his funeral and directly after I just remember sobbing. I've been a fan of yours for years, and when I watched this video I thought it would be cool to share that memory with you.
I see these elderly mall walkers and imagine them walking through their empty malls reminiscing back to the 80's when they were younger with their family, and their children when the place was packed and everyone was running around shopping, smiling and hanging out, but now they look around and everything is dead their children are grown up and never call them and all their old friends have passed or gone and they walk constantly in circles having flashbacks and seeing ghosts of their pasts at certain abandoned stores and tables as old 80's and 90's music plays off the intercom and echos through the empty halls. How disturbingly sad.
Those mall walkers spook me a little. They look like robots. It feels like they're doing their thing in a paralell universe that accidentally ovelraps with ours
Hey Dan :) I want to say thank you for sharing these high quality footage of dead malls. I am from Germany but I think these malls are not only abondand property or infrastructure but back in the days they were the symbole of the american way of life for generations. I personally like the small details in this buildings which remained there the last 40 years or so.... Thank you for your great work
"In the 2000s, crime skyrocketed at this mall." And there's the problem for so many of these places; you could be talking about a thousand different malls right here.
Yea crime did skyrocket in that general area at that point was shootings daily and now from what I hear it’s a very run down area grew up less then 10 minutes from here was very middle to upper class was a lot of new homes being built ect haven’t been back in over 15 years so
GNC often has survived at otherwise-dead malls by having VERY long (often multi-decade!) leases which allow them to pay much lower rent than other stores do. Don't know if it's the same with Bath & Body Works or Claire's though.
Loved hearing Magic by Olivia Newton-John starting at 23:05. I'm being transported back to the glorious 80s! That was the peak decade for malls. It was a community hub for commerce, entertainment, and socializing. Now it's just a fading relic of a time gone by. This phenomenon is happening all across the country, and only a lucky few malls are actually profitable thanks to prime locations and also having unique/popular draws (certain stores/restaurants/entertainment complexes like Dave & Busters, etc.) that aren't found elsewhere.
Dan - great series! BTW in the malls that still have a few remaining stores open, do you ever just speak to them (off camera) and get their impressions about what it's like to be working in a dying place?
I’m from Jacksonville and I agree Regency has always been dead 💀. I remember growing up going to the Palatka Mall. really cool seeing my neck of the woods being represented 🤙🏽 great video as always
Sparka this comment is why I regret wasting two years in racist Jacksonville. Back to a big city for me with great education, opportunities, and culture 😘
The St Johns Town center came way after the decline of the Regency. It was the Simons Avenues Mall down Southside that took all of the business. The Regency mall was previously a poorly lit, dingy, dark brown tile mall. They were slow to renovate it into the pastel cliche mall we see now. The slow renovations, crime, white flight, and general decline in mall shopping killed it off.
Orange Park Mall is still hanging on, probably thanks to the movie theater. Sears anchor is still open there, but never has any customers and only a few cars in its massive parking lot.
@@TheRmm1976 what are you talking about? I go to Orange Park every week and it's always packed. Not Sears but the rest of the mall is. The reason why OP is still hanging on is because of the big flop of the Oakleaf town center which was suppose to be like St. John's but became a huge fail.
When I heard Olivia Newton-John singing softly in the background, it was like 80's childhood flashbacks of trudging through the mall with my mom and big sister; tired, hungry, bored, with my head hurting from those lights.
I remember the Regency Square mall in its heyday. It used to be THE mall. There was another one, The Avenues, and it was always the little brother. Nice place, but smaller. There were a trio of factors that killed the Regency Square Mall, though: 1) The movie theater moved out of the mall and into its own building in the parking lot, and the adjacent arcade closed too. Foot traffic was way down, so they redid that whole area into the food court, erm, Galley. This was mid 90s... maybe 97 or so? 2) As you mentioned, it eventually turned into a hub of crime. Fights, occasional gunshots, drugs, theft... It got so bad that there was a police substation there. Last time I went there was to see The Lego Movie, so what like 3 or 4 years ago? When we left, as we were walking to the car a giant fight broke out. We quickly noped outta there. 3) Death Blow: The St Johns Town Center. This open-air mall is a retail mecca. Like, this is a MALL that is the size of a small CITY, and it is still growing rapidly! It has *literally* everything. The Town Center is located about 10 minutes from Regency. It never stood a chance. And yet The Avenues thrives. I was there recently and it was bustling and full on a weekday. It is also close to the Town Center and yet it lives on for a few reasons. It's in a pretty stalwart area of town. Lots of offices, lots of wealthy neighborhoods nearby, and importantly, lots of traffic that passes by on commutes between Jacksonville and St John's county. The Regency Square Mall is located in a neighborhood that is the suburban equivalent of a dead mall.
Duuuuuude. I'm ecstatic that you came to visit the lovely ghost mall that is Regency Square. I'm not gonna lie, it's heartbreaking the way it is now. Many a days during my middle school summer vacation were spent in that mall. We'd go to the arcade, Tilt, and play DDR for hours before heading over to the Disney Store, Hot Topic, and BDalton's. It wasn't much but we always had a ton of fun there. Oddly enough, this was during that mentioned time in which crime skyrocketed. Thankfully we never ran into any bad experiences while we were there. Seeing it on video is so strange, it's like looking at my memory through an HD lens. Thanks for visiting!
I'm a new fan all the way from Singapore (born in '87 so a 90s kid through and through) and just discovered your dead mall series, it's real creative that you make the music sound like they're background music played in malls cause this is EXACTLY how I remember hearing music like these in the old malls of Singapore in the 90s as a kid (that aren't even around anymore they're all torn down or completely rebuilt) - the EXACT same songs, muffled with a certain kind of static and echo. It's extremely relate-able and nostalgically sad for some reason, and I didn't even need to be born in the US. It's crazy they took the same mall concept and put that in Singapore in the 90s wow
@@kevina2052 yah he was slower near side burns, idk I naturally have sensitive skin so shaving my legs fast spooks me idk how he does it on his face but if it works it works haha
I was in 4th grade in 1986. We went out on the playground after watching the Space Shuttle blow up. Im from New York originally and all my Texan classmates were laughing at the way I said Ball when we decided to play Wallbawl
You couldn't buy a shirt without them. Even t-shirts had them. I used to cut them out of every shirt I owned. I had a drawer full of them thinking they must be good for something but I couldn't think of anything. Eventually I just threw them out.
@@lisa9867 Jesus, me too. I don't know what I thought I'd do with them all. Create a horrific plush toy stuffed with shoulder pads? Pad out my (already too prodigious) bra? Use them as protection during extreme sports? I'd totally forgotten about this--and the horrifying fact that TSHIRTS HAD SHOULDER PADS. Thanks for the memories....
I made that mistake once when my local mall was teetering towards death. Huge mistake. Almost broke my teeth. Surprisingly, that mall came back to life. It was in a mall purgatory for a long, long time when the recession hit and I was so sad to walk the empty walkways. But then, I came back a few years later and it was like nothing ever happened. It's now busier than ever, maybe due to the cinema opening. But now they got bedbugs, soooo.... 🤷♀️
It was very good older footage, but it was confusing to me (with no context), as it was added to this Florida video. Maybe that video had something to do with his friend that passed.
Yessss Father Bell. I am seriously so excited to watch this. Sorry to see all the dickheads in the comments on here and on the FB group complaining about you not uploading fast enough. We are getting this content for FREE whereas it takes money for you to make these videos. Take as long as you need Dan, life gets in the way but it is always more important to take care of yourself.
They are not "dickheads," but fans. If people did not care about Dan Bell's videos, they would not take the time to comment wishing for more content. People clamoring for more of Dan Bell's works is a testament to his creativity.
@@Eternal_Tech the people I am taking about are most certainly dickheads. It's mostly people on the Facebook group he moderates but people are getting really nasty about him not uploading consistently or uploading exactly what they want when they want it.
omg someone’s finally covering the regency square mall!!!!!! i grew up in jax going to that mall. it’s sad to see it in such shitty shape when it was ~the~ pinnacle of high school hangouts. so crazy i’ve been watching you for years now and you’re covering my home terf!
Thank you, Dan! The Palatka Mall with all that open space makes me want to put on some roller skates and go to town. OMG, that would be some much fun!!!
Wow, I used to frequent Regency as a teen. Kinda sad to see this, but thanks for the vid! Oh, they did remodel the mall back in the late 80s, early 90s I believe.
@@Chipajock I fucking remember that! Maybe my first memory. Didn't and still don't realize I had even possessed this recollection. Some nebulous little mind thing going on there...
Went to my first dead mall. It was in dallas, TX. Only thing was open was the movies and a random Chinese store that sold decorations. It was really cool. They had a bottom floor but it was blocked off. What made it cool/spooky was that I went at night and you can see the bottom floor. It was pitch black but you can see the stores.
if caught he'd also have the weapons charge if he was on probation he'd probably be put away for a very long time the majority of his life the shoplifting wasn't what he was worried about regardless a whole buncha donts lol
Malls were the shit in the 90s. Hell even early 2000s I remember going to the local mall and spending my nights there with friends. It really is something that is gone now. I work at that local mall now..and it's slowly dying. It's sad to see and I do feel neat getting to have lived during the last days of the mall rat hayday.
@@KrissyMeow if you feel nostalgic, come to Europe, malls are still the shit here. Lots of people in our malls everyday. I watch Dan's videos to feel how deserted and dying mall feels like, it's a strange and very interesting feeling, where I live it's completely impossible to find.
I remember spending summers in Jacksonville while I was in school. I was trying to find a mall there, looking around for one and stumbled this “gem” haha. Almost completely forgot about that strange experience
