Original Release Date : June 2, 2015 Schuylkill Mall Frackville, PA UPDATE : Mall completely demolished. Clayco Construction built a warehouse on the site for storing building materials.
Memories : The mall manager was FURIOUS at the time that this video was made. I received a message threatening a lawsuit if I didn’t remove the video. I knew it was a bluff so I ignored it. They mall was torn down three years later.
😂 so funny (but also quite sad)! Thank you for remastering these abs reuploading. This was one of the earliest videos of your I watched and don’t even get me started on that jingle. 😂
I've never understood why mall managers think that their very public business centers are immune to being filmed. I realize they dont want potential visitors to see how run down and empty their malls are, but this is the 21st century where everyone has a portable video camera on their phones.
@@starfield1874 I think its mostly to control there image. Most companies don't want customer pictures taken on their property unless it helps build good marketing. Also let's be real, if he knows its ONLY taken to show how much its broken down it is (the worst publicity outside of violence at the mall) he would try to do something to hide it, Streisand effect be dammned.
If you tell the truth and not the "media narrative" they call their lawyers. I keep hearing Amazon is the reason malls are dying but malls thrive in Asia, South America, and Europe.
The Chik-fil-A was one of the original stores, as was Spencer's. There was also an orange julius, mcdonald's, bavarian pretzel, Long John Silver's, a pizza place, the chinese place was originally a Bonanza. Radio Shack was there since the beginning. Gap, Hess's (anchor), Phar-Mor (anchor as part of addition to the mall), Savings and Loan Bank, Record Town, Barbara Moss, Chess King, Deb, Taxi, McCrory's, Waldenbooks, Kay-Bee toy store, a pet store, several jewelry stores, hallmark. You could actually complete all your Christmas shopping there. Loved going there Friday and Saturday nights in middle school - it was the place to be. There was an arcade next to the movie theater with payphones outside of it. Kids used to call the payphones and other kids would answer. $1 movie night on Tuesdays. I saw Top Gun there. I hate that it died, but it's a symptom of the whole area. Frackville's main street is decaying rapidly - hard to see it. I grew up there and remember what a huge deal it was when the mall opened in 1980.
used to troll this mall with a close friend. found it both depressing and interesting. watched it die. lost my friend to a stroke. she did not die, but all memory of me and our good times were erased from her brain. but i still have good memories. and some day we will meet again and she will know me. God willing.
Every time I think of this mall I remember its smell. It wasn’t a bad smell, it was similar to licorice. This was my favorite mall to visit growing up. So many memories are now demolished.
I catch myself humming the jingle still to this day thanks to your original video on Schuylkill Mall. Still one of my favorites. The fountains and planters are so great.
Sal’s video from when this place was being torn down is a great follow up to this video from Dan. He was able to just walk thru the entire demolition site. This must have been the place to be back in the day.
I love those fountains! And that coal miner statue was really cool too, I had to look it up to find out if it had hopefully been moved to a new location and it has. In 2017 it was relocated it to the Knoebels’ Anthracite Mine Museum nearby.
Been bing watching these videos tonight as nobody is live , great seeing them again , glad u go the footage when u did as a lot of these places are gone now....
I grew up in the Skook. And every Friday this was the place to be. Teenagers from every nearby town went there (I was one of them). Such a bummer that it closed and is now demolished. Kids these days will never know the fun of going there and hanging out at the arcade and walking around meeting or seeing a movie.
Back in the day the Schuykill Mall was your stereotypical 80's mall with the brick facades, shrubbery/fountains, common stores, etc.., To me it reminded me of the Viewmont Mall right up the highway about an hour away. There was a sense of familiarity on the rare occasion I was there and going to a different mall put me in awe, if you will. I recall on one end having a Bonanza across from a music store (The Wall maybe). Talk about an odd memory.
The last tenant to close in the Schuylkill Mall was Pearl Stadium 8 Theatres, which closed January 15, 2018. The property is owned by Northpoint Development, who bought it out of Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2017. It demolished the mall beginning on January 26, 2018 and this was reportedly completed by September 5, 2018. The development company built an industrial warehouse called Clayco as a replacement for the mall.
My grandmother lived (more like used to live) in nearby Mahanoy City so when we visited her (when I was younger) we'd often swing by the local Cracker Barrel and then take a walk around this mall. This wasn't my hometown mall, as I lived near Reading (the Coventry Mall is my hometown mall) but I always loved the unique 80's and 90's vibes the Schuylkill Mall gave. I also remember there being a very cool model train setup being around for a time and the Chinese restaurant here (China Palace?) was surprisingly really good. Such a shame this mall had to close though as it reflects the crumbling infrastructure and dwindling population of Schuylkill County's coal region. Many consider the Schuylkill Mall to be one of Crown American's finest works.
I will always remember this mall because the cracker barrel next to where it used to be was the first restaurant our whole family went to after COVID and we just wanted to do something normal. The warehouse was under construction at the time.
I love it! Always have, always will. I cannot count how many times I've watched the original of this, the Burlington Center Mall and the Rolling Acres Mall videos. Thank you so much for everything you do and for inspiring me and so many others to go out and document dead malls.
I think this is my favourite video in the series. The little jingle that they made for the mall back in the day, plays in my head from time to time lol Edit: Also, the old carnival sounding music is the background throughout the video is so awesome as well :)
My wife and I first visited this mall in 2006 on the way back, from all things, our honeymoon in the Poconos (we're weird like that) and found it to be a charming time capsule since it hadn't been updated, like, ever. But when we stopped again 10 years later (soon after this video was made), it was depressing and we thought we were going to get mugged in broad daylight.
love seeing malls that still have that old 80s ecstatic takes me back to when i was kid and going to the malls was special they would often have fountains and cool displays hanging , then in the 90s most remodeled and become booing taking away all the cool stuff and just leaving a lot of beige in its place ...that combined with online retail in the 2000s was the kiss of death for many malls ... some are still doing well and remodeled since to fir more modern times and places were students can hang out and study with lots of long fancy couch benches and free wifi . giving them a feel of being a really big Starbucks with a few stores ... lol Not my cup of tea but if it brings people in then good i guess..
It reminds me of the Longview Mall before it was renovated, here in my home town of Longview Texas. It opened in 1978. It had all the brown tiles, and a pyramid shaped fountain. Had trees/plants. Use to be actually a lot nicer I thought with the retro look. Sadly that is all gone and looks so plain and boring. I worked in the mall as a teenager for several years but remember before that as a little kid it being so different looking.
This is one of my favorite episodes of the series (though I love everything that's uploaded) and even though I have to be at work by 7:15 AM tomorrow, that friggin jingle will be in my head all night now that I may just stay up😄🎵🎶 Thanks Dan!
This was my favorite mall as a kid. It was also the place to be on the days my friends and I would skip school for the day lol There was a Kay Bee Toy store near the Bon Ton. I remember one year a freak snowstorm came through, and the Bon Ton stayed open until the roads were safe enough to drive on. Thanks for this trip back in time to my favorite mall.
There was one mall near where I grew up that installed a two level carousel. Since 2010 the place went downhill, but in 2014 when they took out that carousel, it went from bad to worse. The place even had a couple of gun point muggings, two of their anchor stores closed, and it just progressively got worse. I moved from SoCal, but from what I’ve heard it’s really far gone.
Frackville Mall was better then the Fairlane Mall in the 1980 - 90"s. Now the Fairlane Mall is starting to go downhill. Soon won't be anywhere to shop in the area except for WalMart and I hate WalMart.
How exactly is the Fairlane mall going downhill? It’s freaking thriving, dude. Four years ago it was as bad as this one but it’s doing great compared to a lot of malls.
@The World Of Budget Vinyl Records you have a great channel Sir. I remember going Willowbrook mall in Wayne NJ in the 70's it was always sad to see many malls have closed or closing. When I got older as a Trucker I delivered to some malls it was a lot of work lugging boxes through the freight hallways the store rear entrances. All the best to you
So sad the owner of the movie theater put a lot of money into the place just before the mall announced they were closing. That was the nicest place of the entire mall
All the planters used to be fountains. They wouldn't dismantle the one that is actually working, they would just turn it into a planter. The jingle isn't original to the opening of the mall because PharMor actually came many years later. I think it was an entire new addition.
@@joshallen128 the mall on Transit is Eastern Hills Mall. Summit Mall is located in Niagara Falls. McKinley would also be a good option, especially given how much it’s been on a steady decline for years.
@@jazzcatt-uc6bw McKinley Mall is scary I shop around there at JCPenney because I got coupons. The place near where Sears used to be is scary. I remember as a kid they had a island well surrounded by water fountains and the food court you had to walk down stairs to eat. I think the renovations ruined the mall along with internet access. JCPenney and best buy are still in business there because of convenience. But most of the stores are on the outside near savers
Hay Dan maybe you could do a series of a revisit to some of these places to see how thay have gotten along since your last video, just an idea, maybe stupid but i know your looking for new ideas and content, SOOO.......... Love your Vids, Thumbs up as always
Hello Are you anywhere near the Virginia Beach VA area right now? Very early in January Pembroke Mall will be DEMOLISHED and senior citizen housing will be built. The inside stores have until December 31 to vacate. The perimeter stores with outdoor entrances will stay. I'd like to see you do a video of this mall before it's gone.
@Dan Bell Really, really curious at what all is involved in remastering your videos. The output quality is amazing. I do notice the lag (so to speak) when the video is panning. While I can't financially help, I have a quite powerful system with 32 gigs of ram. I am more than willing to help in the remastering process should you be interested. -Daniel
I don’t get what was wrong with management. It seemed like there was serious BS going on. I know Sears was paying like $50,000 per month for rent not including utilities so of course it left. Other store owners who relocated I heard rent just kept going up. How can management be so atrocious if not on purpose? I heard loans were taken out and not spent on the mall at all. It was abysmal and crappy and took the county’s only movie theater down with it.
If a pipe burst or a sewer backed up, is there anyone actually working or visitng the mall that would notice? Seems a general theme accross North America that malls greater than twenty years of age are yesterday's news. Plate C
Place SUCKED even when first opened, the layout was the problem, it was awful... And it always felt and looked very dark and abandoned even with all the stores in it... Would of been better if a double decker , smaller footprint... I remember thinking, just to walk it to window shop was awful, took way to long to go from one anchor store to the other ..
Music 🎶 playing in a dead or dying mall makes me think of the classic horror movie the shining, I expect to see Jack Nicholson's character to come around the corner screaming here's Johnny!
