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Hi Dan! Big fan. I grew up in this mall and this video struck me like something from the Twilight Zone. Pretty eery! I'm 33 and I remember coming here when I was around 4 or 5 and on. What you see now is exactly how it looked almost 30 years ago. Here's some info you might enjoy. This mall used to be a happenin place! There were a bunch of weird stores in there like a guitar repair shop, cobbler, tailor, dance studio, bicycle shop. But my mom would always bring me to the book shop where a lot of teachers in the area would buy books and school supplies and decorations for their classroom and stuff. It used to be packed! So though these were kinda weird stores for an average mall, this was the place to get everything done, including going to the doctor, finding a realtor, all the stuff you see now. The new Wellington Green mall opened when I was in high school and this mall stayed more like a business park. So as for all the stuff! The large tanks in the center with the fake birds did indeed used to have real birds in them. There also used to be HUGE fish tanks on either side with a ton of beautiful fish and eels. That was the entertainment when they weren't using the middle for little pageants or girl scout troops or shows for parents. It was sort of a public recreation area with four big beautiful fish tanks! As far as I can tell, all of the painted murals are original. Occasionally they would dress it up and decorate it for different seasons or events though. Or they would showcase award winning art from different schools around the area. As for all of the fish sculptures and dolphin statues and all the art, they were there from as early as I can remember. I can recognize every last thing. The fountains, the bronze sculptures of children, even the fake plants. All of the marble tile patterns, neon lights, and every carousel pony are ingrained in my memory. Even the technicolor zebra. Dan, that was nuts to watch. Thank you for the trip down memory lane!
Had to pause to read because all of this info is so cool and interesting!! I was specifically scrolling I'm hopes that someone knew the mall. Thank you for sharing your memories 💜
I got you beat :-) I'm 43 and I TRULY grew up with this mall from its beginning. The giant horses you remember from your childhood were actually "new" additions when the mall underwent a redeco in the 1990's. Dan thinks it's dead now? Ha. It underwent a very dark period for a time. Yes, they had beautiful aquariums and a fountain in the central courtyard. When the mall took a downward turn, they sat ugly empty for about two years. New management bought it and decided the huge floor to ceiling aquariums were too expensive to maintain and rightfully did the best they could to redecorate the space. Today I wouldn't call it dead at all. It has a daycare/preschool center in the back that is hopping, the Pizzazz hair salon has more millionaire clients than a Nieman Marcus, and the post office always has a line 20 deep when it is open. I believe every single space in the mall is occupied, if I remember correctly. Ah, wait, maybe one isn't. I haven't watched Dan's vid all the way through, he may prove me wrong. The bathrooms are clean. It serves its purpose. Where else would these businesses locate themselves? Tacky, oh yes. Dead? I disagree that it meets that criteria. Almost every single store has an outside entrance (except for the post office, cobbler and computer repair place) hence the lack of traffic in the inner hallways. Tidbit that predates you: the reason why Dan can't find anything online about this mall is because "The *old* Wellington Mall" is actually a myth. It used to be called "The Wellington Commons Mall", colloquially know locally as "The Commons". It was actually renamed " The Old Wellington Mall" AFTER "The Mall at Wellington Green" was built. I'll post a new comment above for Dan's benefit assuming he prolly won't see this reply to yours.
Following his retirement, & smoking cessation, an uncle of mine would sit on a bench outside the supermarket every afternoon, chewing big wads of gum & randomly greeting shoppers. Similar, but not. I want to say sitters = sad, lonely people hungry for human interaction, but mall-folk hang where odds of social encounters are few, so, that doesn't fit, either. Perhaps they want to be a part of something, yet remain apart, or mebbe they're just living in the past, man...
I know the decorations are considered to be super tacky but I like them and it's so sad that it's all going to be gone. Someone put a lot of effort and love into it at one time.
So, nobody’s gonna mention that creepy missing persons poster in the Penrose mall lobby? Just upped the creepiness of the dead mall. That woman apparently has been missing since ‘94.
I saw that, after pay-phone nostalgia passed. Brings to mind many sad/scary stories of serial killers stalking mall prey & their subsequent parking-lot abductions.
I live in Iowa and when Sears had their Great Purge a few years ago we lost ALL BUT ONE Sears store in the entire state, and that was Sioux City! I don't even know if that one is still alive. Sears, how to let Vampires take over your company and suck the life out of it.
@KingMacintosh Having tried Nord, PIA, ExpressVPN and Hotspot VPN and not liking them much. I tried TorGuard VPN and it is a great VPN and one of the few that always works with Netflix for me and is fast. Cheap too.
@@fredspofford Dont pay for these VPNs they are a scam. Not even secure half the time, don't expect to browse illegal shit and not get caught(no one should browse for anything illegal). If you want to buy your wacky tabaccy online (don't) use Tor Browser it is completely free and damn near 100% secure.
@@MrSafer Your ISP is absolutely going to moniTOR that shit. I don't pay for a VPN, but I'm also not gullible enough to believe that TOR without a VPN is more secure than TOR with a VPN. It depends entirely on who the VPN is through.
The old wellington mall has been just like it is now for as long as i can remember... i was last there around 1999... it hasnt died any *more* at least in the last 20 years.
@@indePLASTICmusic They appear to have been an independently franchised snack shop, but boiled peanuts may have been a menu item. I also discovered the owner's obituary from last year online.
We also had a peanut shack at the Mayberry Mall in Mt Airy . The mall in Reidsville looks so very similar to our mall even down to the ramp and steps at the end of the hallway. Our mall has been bought by a contractor and is slowly being remodeled.
Yes, I've lived in Kinston in eastern NC since 1992. I have seen some peanut companies in the Bertie County area as I headed towards Capron Virginia. I am familiar with how Planter's Peanuts started in Suffolk VA and have seen their plant from a distance.
I don't know what's more hilariously depressing, the buckets or all the old people with their walkers walking through the place lol. Should rename this place the Buckets & Walkers Mall
Yes! I normally roll my eyes when people talk about things being their spirit animal, but if I were to choose a spirit animal then pirate dolphin would absolutely be 1st choice.
Poor Jenny Jones. After the murder she was poison in Hollywood, and made a pariah by the hypocritical media. She was no bigger shit peddler than the rest of "them", she just got her tit caught in the ringer.
That Welllington Mall in FL is amazing 😁 Also if anyone is curious that track at the very end of the video is from the album "Liquid State Drive" from body end tag. The track is titled "Chipset".
I absolutely LOVE this series. It sounds odd, but these videos are so nostalgic to me. I grew up in an area plagued with dead malls and I remember walking through eerie, storeless corridors just like these ones. The hum of fluorescent lights and the uneasy feeling of a desolate mall is so unreplicable. Thanks Dan for keeping those memories fresh!
If you want something that gives you a feeling similar to this, looks up “the backrooms” it’s super good and it deals with the topic of the fluorescent light hum, stained carpet, yellow rooms, etc. that are typically found in the back of old malls
@@bandolierboy1908 I really just about died laughing 😅 when you said that comment about the "Golden Girls" I remember watching that show when I was young and in my early twenties. I mean the reruns that they constantly played over and over again on the Lifetime channel are the ones I saw.
This video already has more views than the Wellington Mall has seen in years. Once the Mall at Wellington Green opened, this place became a ghost town. Also , my understanding is this is referred to as the Old mall, since the Mall at Wellington green was so much more popular after it opened on 2001, that people would get confused as to the location stores and things were located. Like the Post Office for example, if people saw the location online as the Wellington Mall, a large portion would go to the Mall at Wellington Green. Back when I lived in Wellington I’d go to the Old Wellington Mall if I was stressed, or having a panic attack. The emptiness, along with the aesthetic was just very relaxing for me.
I feel like the Wellington Green mall is starting to struggle now as well and are looking for ways to revamp. I was just there last week and so many stores that have been there for YEARS have closed. The Nordstrom closed and they want to build apartments and restaurants there, apparently. The movie theater where the furniture store used to be was a good move, tho.
That clip of Jenny Jones cooking at the end is so weird. It's like, "Someone died because of how scummy my producers and I were, but here I am...cooking".
Wow! I grew up in Wellington. I went to elementary, middle, and high school there. Class of 96. I’m 40 now and still live nearby but not in Wellington. The mall has ALWAYS been like this. Even before Wellington Green was built. It’s just drab and quiet but kept clean. My first job was at the Checkers out front of the mall there. Also my dentist from childhood had an office in a building next door. Not good memories there.
i grew up in wellington too! i'm 24 now, but i used to go to that checkers all the time! i miss the blockbuster from across the street and the silver screen movie theatre. where else can you watch movies for cheap just after their theatrical run?
Dan Bells dead mall videos are one of those videos that even though you seen all of them you can rewatch each one over especially at night and still gives that first time feeling. Never stop these!
Im in love with this mall....pleaseeee take me back to the good ole days. Thank you for letting me experience this and escape my 2019 reality, even if for just a few moments!
The owner of Woody's embraces my interior decorating style right there.😂😂😂 People say I have... "gaudy taste and I need sunglasses to enter your house." My hubby has somewhat 'tamed' me as he loves gothic pieces so it's a mix but the Xmas decorations are all MINE😈😈😈
Wellington is a really nice and affluent community nowadays. Back then, it was just a swamp when the mall was built (like most of Florida). They built the mall at Wellington green to reflect their rich population. They’re very big into horses there as well, hence the weird horse statues. Such old creepy Florida vibes- I love it 😭 Also, if you’re in south Florida again, check out Mizner Park in Boca Raton Florida!! They’re trying to revamp it, but it’s becoming more stuffy and less popular. Cool outdoor mall with nice fountains, nice cars and weird boutique shops
I live right by Mizner Park, but I never really got the impression that it was becoming less popular, although I rarely ever see them use that amphitheater anymore. Some of the restaurants there are still doing good.
I was raised 25 years in wellington fl and let me tell you, that mall WAS HOPPING in its day.. That mall died after the "mall of wellington greene" opened around 2004ish time frame... In the late 90s that "old wellington mall" was the absolute hot spot for hanging out after school and taking a date there to various places.. That used to be such a highend excellent area (Wellington as a whole) but after 05 hurricane season with 4 hurricanes coming thru, and the housing crisis of 07-09.... all the original residents who loved that area left due to increasing taxes and the cost of living in that area SKY ROCKETED, houses were selling for rock bottom prices in the housing crisis and brought all the riff raff in, and that area will never be what it once was.. I moved out, and nearly 100% of the originals did too.. I went back to wellington back in 2015 to visit friends, and OMG.... TERRIBLE CRIME AREA, population changed 100%... not the places to raise an all american family like it once was... SAD AS HELL, cause that was an amzing place **EDIT** what you dont know Dan, that mall used to NOT be a mall, it was a "Welcoming center" for the original planned and private community called Wellington..... I moved into wellington back in 1988 and once you became an official Wellington resident, in that "Welcoming Center" (what is called Old Wellington Mall) you had all sorts of places that offered perks for us residents and little boutique shoppes. Was a very highend area once (up until 2007) Wellington was once a planned and private community, but is now its own city with its own operating governments, police, fire, taxes, etc....
Interesting. Just where was/is this mall? I looked at property in Wellington in 1974. On the south side of Forest Hill there was a big clubhouse which was at the time the real estate offices. We rode a little west from there on a golf cart to look at a lot for sale. Pretty much nothing was built there yet and I never bought that corner lot in the center of town for eight grand! Probably worth several hundred grand today.
Dude no offense but don’t speak on subjects you know nothing about, 2018 was the lowest violent crime rate in Wellingtons history since 1996, so the crime rates at an all time low
ScratchThat2009 yes I was just there about a month ago when I went to visit my family in FL and I got confused when I read the title LOL. Didn’t know there was an old Wellington mall
I've been going to the Mall at Wellington Green my whole life, most people just call it the Wellington Mall now. I've been to the old wellington mall once or twice, I remember lots of weird/cool/creepy decor, and most of the retail spaces were empty or housed offices of some kind. Great video!
Hi Dan Bell! Thanks for doing this. I grew up in the mall era. These are important things to document. I wish I would have had the forsight to video record our Gateway Mall before it started going down hill amd was torn down. It had a senior spa complete with a swimming pool and floor to ceiling tinted glass windows, grecian statues ar the entrance and throughout and I am imagining work out equipment and who knows what else. A dime store with a diner in it, an actual dinner theatre, a metaphysical store for the hippies, anchors were JByrons, Zayres, the Woolworths, an Eckerds Drug store, a Publix-with detatched bakery, and a bank. It had a water fountain to throw coins into and a Gem festival annually in the main thru fair! It was waaaay better than what thwy tore it down and have now. When I was still a team and the store started closing I still would have never imagined that this place whatever not exist. I still miss that place. And wish my kids could have been able to experience and enjoy it, you still have some malls thank God but nothing were like this when it was considered a smaller Mall. so thank you for recording these places for future Generations. I wonder why they arent considered historical at this point?
I think that deep down, we all yearn for that idealized version of the 80's and 90's we have etched into our brains as a time of true abundance. Malls and other brick and mortar stores seem to be the best way for us to experience that consumerist comfort. I think we all secretly resent online shopping for taking away that experience.
The “new” mall at Wellington Green is showing signs of struggle. One anchor location has a discount furniture store, and Nordstrom closed earlier this year.
It's the only decent mall in the area though. The last time i was there was probably a year ago and it was decently busy, but it gets super busy around the holidays. The gang violence from the east part of the county is slowly making it's way west though. It's sad. The whole area is dying.
I live a couple miles down the street from the old wellington mall, its been exactly like this video showed since I was a kid in the early 2000s. A mucher larger standard department store mall opened up a few miles down the street putting a death sentence on this mall, my dad actually had an office in this mall in 1989-1990 and said it was a dead mall even back then. The decor has been the same forever as well, it is not a deal with that woody's store, that shit has always been there its a very weird place lol
These dead mall videos always remind me of when my "local" mall was under construction but still open. Southwest Plaza Mall is still very much so open and alive but the months it was under renovation were so empty and surreal. I remember being 12 and wandering around the hot topic and staring at the torn open wall across the corridor for a few seconds before going back to looking through the clearance tshirts.
Wellington resident here! I’m surprised you found our old mall as this isn’t the largest city. The “parrot cages” were actually amazing fish tanks back in the day, with 4 foot long parrotfish that would swim around, they lived for decades (at least it felt that way). It’s actually still used, and while it’s mostly dead, some businesses still run within the mall. It’s biggest hits are the post office, bike shop/repair, and the “Nuttin Fits” tailor shop. The rest of the businesses are primarily directed for polo and equestrian people, who flock to town in the winter.
Something else about the Tavern: that restaurant changes frequently, it used to be a really popular Irish themed place, but that closed in 2012 maybe? Ever since it’s been all over the place.
One more reply bc I love to share the knowledge with everyone: The weird horses? They’re common around town bc we’re an equestrian area (equestrian capital of at least the US, if not the world). A bunch of artists have painted them and they’re all across Wellington.
i've lived in wellington for nearly my entire life, and my last visit to the mall was a few months ago. i've gone there a lot at peak mall hours to use the post office and even though i kind of knew it was dead when i saw basically nobody, i wasn't used to going to malls so it didn't stick out to me as surreal. so crazy to see it on here!
Hey Dan! I live out in Savannah, Georgia and I have been watching your videos for a long time! Our biggest mall, the Savannah Mall, has been hit hard by the addition of the Oglethorpe Mall and our new outlet mall, Tanger. The Savannah Mall is quickly becoming vacant and upkeep has stopped. Pretty soon, it may very well be an abandoned mall. It would be so cool if you checked it out!
I was literally at the old Wellington mall for the first time yesterday and I got to say that it was the first actual dead mall I have ever walked through!
dan you should have let me know you were in my backyard, the wellington mall has been like this for years, i cant go in there and not feel my life blood drain away.
I'm so happy that you went to the Wellington Mall!! I grew up there and I've been hoping you'd visit since I started watching this series. If I recall correctly, some of the horse and dolphin statues there were from city-wide art projects back in the mid-2000's. Local artists would make different themed animals and they'd put them all over town and it was fun to go around and try to find them all. Some of them ended up in the mall afterward. And yes, the bird cage did used to have real birds in it! I don't remember ever seeing the mall busy, for the most part it's just a really aesthetic post office at this point.Love your work, thanks for making this! :)
bro ive been waiting on a video on the old welly mall. i live in wellington and im real gald ppl get to see the old mall bc i honestly love going in there. the rest of wellington sux.
I used to live in Welly and there are bassicly 2 sides of it west side (less modern) and east side (more modern) and the Welly green is on east side, while the old Welly mall is on West side
Jennifer I worked at the Town Crier, a local newspaper he showed in a clip. There were never any anchor stores to work at. There really aren’t any interesting things goin on there and haven’t been forever. Wellington used to be real small until around 2000 when the new mall was built. It just consisted of mom and pop shops for its entire life and I have no idea how it stays in business.
I went exploring yesterday and wadded so hard onto the cement floor of the very first building, very first doorway😂. Got a nice stiff bruised knee today
