DEAD MALL SERIES : • Dead Mall Series MUSIC : / drip133 SHOP : www.ShopDanBell.com SUPPORT : / thisisdanbell FB : / thisisdanbell TWIT : / thisisdanbell IG : / thisisdanbell Photographed and Edited by Dan Bell
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!
The customer service lady has the best job. Just sits there all day unbothered with no customers getting paid and can eat at the food court when hungry
I imagine it'd get kinda depressing for most types of people. Not me. I'd have plenty of time to catch up on my backlog of good books to read, that I never seem to get enough time for.
Being in a building every day that was designed for heavy traffic, and seeing it empty, is depressing. There is nothing else for it. You will feel like society is dead, but in reality you are just camping out in a ghost town and everyone else is shopping in more popular locations.
I have so many memories made in this mall as a kid. I kissed my first girlfriend there, going to the toy store as a toddler, playing in the arcade, buying my first gta game, and getting all of my cds there. This met a lot to me growing up, and it's so sad seeing it slowly die.
Mark Aotic do you remember there being a movie theatre??? he mentioned one in this video but i have absolutely NO recollection of there ever being one. Did i just forget about it?
@@hauntedharper To my understanding, the theater closed permanently in 2008. It had previously been closed and reopened in 2005 under new ownership. There’s a video titled “Abandoned Tri-Cities | The Bristol Mall (Abandoned Movie Theater)” which shows the interior of the abandoned theater. It’s pretty much the only thing I can find on the internet relating to the theater, so I highly recommend watching it.
I remember the movie theater that was located on the lower level of the Bristol Mall. There was a Record Bar record store at this Mall location, too. I remember buying cassette tapes from that sore as a teenager during the 1980's.
@@hauntedharper yep. I saw Jedi here in 1984. My mom is from Bristol and her parents lived until 1987 and 90, so I spent a lot of time here and at THE TRAIN STATION,
robinsss You know those shoes with the little wheels on the heels of them? They were hugely popular with kids several years ago. People used to skate around with them nearly anywhere. I guess the Bristol Mall ended up banning them for whatever-likely for safety reasons.
as far as I know from my visit a few weeks ago, Spencers is gone, china shuttle was closed, the broad restaurant is no longer there, lense crafters is also closed. the escalators are also now out of service. Also, all of the tiny kiosks all over the video are no longer there. we saw only 5 stores open: sears, the dress shop, the kids play area, bath and body works, and a calendar store.
+James Roth - Somehow ironic that something so specialized as a store for calenders is among the few still standing. I would have thought it would be among the first to exit. Amazing.
I could name so many stores in that mall based on what was there in the 80s. In 1984 I was 14 going here all the time to movies or to hang out. The entrance with big walking ramps by the theatre were enclosed into a department store at some point which is crazy to me. I remember where Orange Julius was and the musician shop across from it. I remember where spencers was which is where i got my left ear pierced which almost got me kicked out of the house LOL. My mom worked at the Piccadilly restaurant and my ex girlfriend was in a Mall Fashion Show at Piccadilly in 1985 🤣😂. I remember where County Seat was and Chick Fil A and the Pizza place that had the most AMAZING cicillian pizza. And of course the original record store on the first floor. I also bought my first of many Swatch watches at that Belk. And last but not least I remember the Gold Mine Arcade. I was an 80s kid all the way! It was hard to go back home and see this Mall. I was in it right before it closed and it was just as this video shows. I am glad I got one last visit in before it met its final day.
All these failing malls surprise me. I have a mall near me that is always busy and full of people, especially during seasonal sales. It has grown more and more over the last few years.
Brian Lee I got to visit Marley Station last week and it was packed! I wasn't sure if I should have been happy it was doing better or disappointed the only dead mall I managed to get to wasn't empty.
+Chris Cancelliere That is an interesting question you pose there! I guess it works both ways, but I do want to visit a dead mall, must be a weird experience to be somewhere that was once lively, in such a dead and quiet state.
I think it's actually pretty calming. I don't know why. Possibly because I went to several malls as a kid that I watched come and go. Reminds me of my childhood getting dragged from mall to mall
Well, from what I saw with Marley Station, it was relatively out of the way, and I didn't see too many entertainment oriented businesses along the way. The mall near where I grew up (Simon Mall Burlington MA) is located on a strip of road with restaurants hospitals and other various amenities that draw a crowd; I can't foresee it going out of business in the near future even if the anchors failed.
People need jobs, social interaction, and cities need taxes. If there are no businesses to carry the tax burden, you yourself will have to. I try to shop local as much as I can. What you save in the short term, you'll pay for ten fold in the long run in increased taxes to make up for the lack of local businesses.
You know it's really bad when it turns into some off brand candle store and a Chinese herbal medicine shop with neon signs in the windows. "Massage $10!"
If I had a billion dollars I would probably make the mistake of buying a dead mall and using each store as a separate part of a home. I'd get scared at night, wouldn't sleep, get depressed from the large empty spaces, and probably kill myself for making such a stupid decision. So why do I still want to buy a dead mall? : /
I love ALL of Dan Bell's videos, but there's something about the dead mall videos that is so eerie and disquieting...other people shoot dead malls, too, but Dan's filming style and the way he uses music and his brilliant opening and closing sequences seal his place as the master of this documentary sub-genre. With these dead mall videos he really creates the sights, sounds and sense of unease that you usually only get in actual nightmares. Just so superb. Dan Bell is BOSS.
OMG, the intro. I feel like I'm now viewing 80's fashion atrocities through the eyes of my Grandparents at that time, and now I understand the confused, disturbed looks they used to give me.
I'm having an insane nostalgia trip to my childhood in the 2000's. I used to come to this mall a few times a year, I used to get my glasses from the Lenscrafters right at the entrance. The Pinnacle has taken over the job of this lovely mall but I will definitely miss the place dearly. RIP Bristol Mall 💖💜💖
Update: The temporary casino has done so well in the old Belk section of the mall, plans have been changed. Hard Rock has now demolished 80% of the existing mall from Sears beyond JC Penny and will be building a larger main casino floor and resort than originally planned. The existing Belk temporary casino will become the non-smoking gaming section. A concert area, indoor go kart track, up to 8 restaurants and 30 shopping areas are planned as well. So the majority of the mall we all hung out in as kids and teenagers is now gone, bitter sweet.
The Pinnacle on the Tennessee side was the death blow to the Bristol Mall. I remember this mall being popular when I was a kid, and I'm 22 so it went downhill fast. I been in it once when it was almost abandoned and all I could envision was just the mall being packed with people in the food court, going to Game Stop, JcPenney, Belk, FYE, etc. This mall closing had been something I could never imagine. It was officially closed last August when the final store KSS closed. You can't even pull into the parking lot now because every entrance to the lot is barricaded off.
Are shopping malls in the US really disappearing? What's going on? It seems really sad but at least it means you will always have a Dead Mall video, Dan :D
Cadva malls in more populated cities are def not dying out. Like where I live we have huge malls (3-5 floors) and u can still find any room to walk bc theres so many people! These malls are just dying out because of the locations they're in.
Cadva, it is the economy that has been in a "depression" in this country for a few yrs now. People are shopping online and many of the bigger stores are usually several bunched together one next to another and people have to enter each store individually from the outside. I live in the 20 mile NYC tri-state area, which has an economy better than most parts of theU.S., and you would not have known it was the Christmas season for the amount of people shopping in Paramus Park the other day. The anchor stores are Sears, which is always dead as Dan points out, and Macys. This was a mall that all the celebrities would visit when they would come to NY in the 80s, like Christina Applegate proudly announced when she had hosted SNL back then.
Cadva I think a lot of it is American millenials not being as social as they should be. Without teens/20s going to malls, a huge base of the malls is lost.
Lets see, just locally to me.. Dover DE (old & new), Christiana DE (Newark DE area), Salisbury Centre MD, Salisbury Mall MD (closed), Rehoboth Beach DE, all malls with no fountain. And if I remember right Crystal Mall (Waterford) CT does not either but its been awhile so I may be wrong on that one.I've been in quite a few malls that do not nor ever have had fountains, it may be a west coast thing or midwest to have them but many of the malls on the east coast I've been to do not. I cant remember the true name but the big mall in Virginia Beach VA didnt have one I think. And I'm not talking strip malls either.
Just an update: The Bristol Mall is now fully closed but there is going to be a casino moved into the building along with other stores to go along with the casino. It has really brought some excitement to the town and they’re renovating like 3 or 4 buildings to turn into motels for this casino.
The music is really creepy and I got silent hill 3 vibes from the video. Its nice that at least the building is still well maintained and not just left to rot.
Creative- Name I work near this mall. The mall lost all its tenants to a new shopping center called "The Pinnacle". Once that went up, everything left. Since this video, it's lost everything else except Games top, KSS, misty Mountain, and bath and body works. Sears is closing soon.
Knight32121 That sucks. why not downgrade it into a shopping block? tear down the walls and have the stores be free standing. That would probably be cheaper to maintain. Seeing malls like this is kinda sad because it's like somebody had a dream, but that dream didn't work out. It's like what if Disneyland didn't attract as many people as it did? It would be a dead amusement, like the one close to chernobyl.
It is wild to see the building in this shape, it has now been converted into a temporary casino on the bottom floor that's nearly unrecognizable from this video. The permanent casino is supposed to be top and bottom floor of the mall with the addition of a hotel. I love looking at old photos of the Bristol mall and trying to figure out what it is now.
Those first 10 seconds feel like the start of the most depressing rollercoaster ride ever. The anticipatory sadness once you get to the top of that escalator and take in the deadness of this mall... 😢
@@TheBeaver50 I wonder what it is like now, just about 2 years later... Demolished, or just abandoned? Probably a mess if the buildings are still there.
These dead mall videos really show a shift away from mall shopping. There are many reasons(online shopping, too many malls built, store downsizing, store mergers, and many others).
Well, as of today (January 4th), Sears is closing - the employees got the news today. The anchor tenant since 1976, it's done. The mall will be gone within a year.
@almighty_luigi Damnit, I gotta spend that gift card I have. I can't imagine it closing at my mall, but if the company is going down, it won't even matter.
I worked in this mall from 80-85. Those were some great fun years. Sad what has happened to so many malls now. Cell phones and internet have replaced the real face to face social interaction people used to experience going to places like malls to meet up with friends, eat out or just stroll around and shop.
This really brings out the feels. I used to frequent this mall as a teenager. I was in Bristol in late 2017 with my wife and we thought we'd check out the mall. I was so dissapointed to see it had closed. I love your series and it is amazing that you got to film this one so close to me.
Update: It has been over a year since this mall officially closed its doors with every single store gone. As of today, it has been debated by the town of Bristol whether to turn it into a Casino or a CBD/Hemp grow.
I like to imagine that the custodians of these living dead-malls watch Dan's videos - and that they smile whenever Dan acknowledges that they've done a good job of looking after the plants.
I always felt the Bristol Mall was outclassed by the Johnson City and Fort Henry Malls in the Tri-Cities area. Then came The Pinnacle which put the nails in the coffin for the Bristol Mall.
who is the woman from the intro? so familiar. NM. It's Donna Mills from Knot's Landing. Some of the footage is from her 1980s makeup how-to video, "The Eyes Have It".
Manic -- In a humorous way you point up something that we take so for granted. Here we have vast "meccas" of consumerism, and many of them are dying on the vine. My goodness, but these are no longer "chic" enough for our millennials. From all I've heard, even industrious North Koreans simply have no real options on where and what to spend their money on. Here we have 1,200 indoor malls, many of them like this (or already "shuttered")... North Koreans would literally swarm malls full of open stores with shelves full of consumer goods to buy.
That would be a nice idea because then the building wouldn’t go to waste. It would be different from the way other apartments are made. I mean, imagine that each store could fit 1, 2, or 3 apartment homes for each person or family? The food courts will feed people, plenty of parking...dude, you’re a genius!
Dan, I am from Abingdon, VA and I remember being an 8th grader in 2011 here going to the mall with friends, raising hell, having fun.... now it's all done for. SAD! Thanks for uploading this.
Loving the series, Dan! It's beyond disappointing that people today did not get the opportunity to visit these vintage retail gems in their prime. Keep up the good work!
For those curious about more recent news with this old mall, it's been sold and they're converting it to a casino... Rather it is a casino now and they're working on making a Hard Rock Cafe on the property. So it's not dead. It's taken on a new life in a sort of zombie way now.
My favourite series by far on the whole of RU-vid at the moment. Everything from your narration, to the music and all the clever editing is just brilliant. Keep them coming 😊
i live in Virginia(although this is Tennessee) and have gone to this mall all my life. The city opened a bigger shopping center 10 minutes away. Its sad for me personally, but the pinnacle(new shopping destination) has all the shops that were in this mall but has been growing exponentially :)
This mall failed because a new shopping center emerged extremely close by called "the pinnacle" which is where almost all the vendors in the Bristol mall moved to, including chik-fil-a, rack room shoes, and several others. Take it from a Bristol Native, this mall really declined.
Everyone hits up the Pinnacle now. The Bristol VA's idea of copying the Pinnacle with the Falls looks like a colossal failure at the moment other than Cabelas and Bdubs.
As a Meadowview native, I'd always go here to play arcade games at Tilt or to the theater to catch a movie. I actually worked at that Sears from 2012-2013 right as it was starting to die. It was the easiest Black Friday ever. Good times, easy job :(
james pringle Which one? The one by the Monmouth Mall? Or is that the one you're talking about? The quality of the stores there are pretty sad. I work at Jcpenny atm as a temp job and it's pretty dead
Its so weird seeing the Bristol Mall here, because whenever I was in there I thought it'd be so fitting for this series. Its probably one of the most depressing places I've been in
When I was a teenager before the 08 economic mess it was a pretty cool place. Always packed and good stores. After 08 it was just slow decline. By 2013 it was obvious it wasn’t going to make it.
I live in Bristol. I used to come here all the time with family and shop for my birthday or some sort. It used to be packed all the time but, now it’s just sitting there abandoned.
They should take these dead malls and turn them into homeless shelters (for those cities where homelessness is abundant)...or hotels or apartment complexes...
With what money? You can't just open doors and say have at it. They have to retrofit the building to meet habitation standards, you have to hire people to run the place (leave it unattended and heaven forbid it will be a drug den, there will be rapes, murders). Fact of the matter is it's just easier and safer to abandon them and let cops drive out anyone who ventures in.
lac92576 ooops i said the same thing, sorry wasnt stealing ur idea. ☺ i have seen a few shelters in Toronto, & it seems many r just cots in a big room, with access to bathrooms, & some kinda sandwich making area, but i guess if its way out of town & there's no public transportation or job prospects its just turns into a ghetto.
Yes I agree with this idea. Unfortunately this country is so full of government restrictions about this issue. The Mall property is zoned for commercial retail use, not residential. this kind of thing. Life is tough.
lac92576 These buildings are better suited for commercial use like storage, and office spaces. Running these just costs too much for residential purposes.
man I remember going there when I was younger and I remember going in one of the last days they were open it was sad to see only a few stores open.....that poor mall so many strange but good memories there
I used to go there a lot when I was a kid and a few years ago. It really hits home seeing this. I loved going with my parents and like to Gamestop and other little quirks. I will always love this mall.
This makes me unutterably sad. When I was a kid, this was the place I always wanted to go. Back then, in the mid-70's to late 80's, it was packed with stores and people and it was easy to imagine that this cathedral of commerce (believe me, it looked MUCH different in its glory days, full of gilded fixtures and amber lights and dark wooden rails and bannisters) was the future, instead of on its way to being the past. I spent many hours there, but never as many as I wanted, going to the toy store (back before Spencer's moved from its previous location to where it is now), to the movies-- I saw FLASH GORDON and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and THE MUPPET MOVIE and SILVERADO and many others there. I pined for Mego superhero figures and Star Wars toys at Sears. I rode my first glass-front elevator in that mall-- a terrifying, yet exhilarating, experience for a five year-old with an insensate fear of heights. I listened to children's stories read over red telephones at several castle-shaped kiosks scattered throughout the mall. Later on, I dropped many a quarter playing Asteroids and Space Invaders and Tron at the Gold Mine arcade (its mine-entrance facade and dark interior making it live up to its name) as well as in the miniarcade set up almost like a speakeasy in the back of Sears. I remember going there with my cousins the nights we saw FLASH GORDON or THE WRATH OF KHAN, walking down the massive (seemed that way, anyway) wheelchair ramps at the mall's main entrance-- the ramps descended on either side of a central staircase and switched back, making them perfect for young boys who wanted something to run down at breakneck speed. And then we'd eat pizza at the New York-style pizzeria on the second level, or the glorified meat-and-three meals (and heavenly soft rolls) at the Piccadilly on the first. Later still, as a teen, I spent lots of time and money at the B. Dalton bookstore (which also moved from its first location) and at the two or three record stores -- Port o' Call on the lower level, Tape World on the upper -- and instead of going there with family (though I still did that on occasion) I went there with friends. We ate hamburgers composed of compressed sawdust at the Orange Julius by the theaters before going to see ALIEN NATION or PET SEMATARY or BATMAN or LETHAL WEAPON 2, and my friends, proud band geeks, always had to visit the music store near the theater to find sheet music for the latest pop tunes. The mall's last hurrah came in the mid- to late-90's, when we'd go there for movies (though in 1998 the Abingdon Cinemall finally rendered the Bristol Mall's theater superfluous, on both technical and accessibility levels, for us Marion folks) and to haunt the remaining music stores for CD's and VHS tapes; and you could tell even 20 years ago that whatever future we'd imagined the mall represented, whatever gleaming cathedrals of commerce it portended, had already passed us by, and was dying even then. And now this. It's like seeing the grave of a friend. They're not there; those times, that place, they're all gone. I wish I could go back one more time, on a crowded December night in 1980 or so, and ride that glass-front elevator down to the theater after looking at Star Wars toys and go to the movies; I wish I could put a coin in the castle-shaped kiosk and listen to one more story.
Probably. The big malls may have surprised people with their successes around 1980 -- but there's a dirty little secret. Many of the people 'dining' at the food court or buying books or records (compact disks served the same function) were employees of the stores -- especially the anchor stores. They also bought the clothes that they needed to wear at work, and they were expected to look successful even if they were economic losers, like people with the 'wrong' college degrees. Such people were still living with their parents. They were smart enough to know not to steal from the till, and they could communicate fairly well (which is one sure effect of a college degree unless one is a 'legacy'). Whatever falsehood the shopping mall represented, its workers at least created a secondary economy. But that is over. The commonplace advice against certain college majors is "you might get a job in retail with this degree". But people no longer believe in the mall. It's a dated and expensive phenomenon, a relic of a time when Americans were uncritical shoppers buying stuff on impulse. people shopped at such places because they were bored, and for th3e last fifteen or so years the shopping mall has become a bore. It may survive in high-income areas, like college towns and the more prosperous suburbs, but people who might have shopped in such places twenty years ago are now going to dollar stores.
holy fuck I can see that. earthbound was a fucking legitimately creepy ass game too. especially the ending with being put into a robot at the end of time. wat in the actual fuck that's part of the point of the game, its a parody of American culture. the mall in earthbound at least was pretty busy
wait link me to the song you are talking about. I do remember a song like the one here on earthbound I just forgot where lol. the statue u are talking about is the mani mani one if I recall correctly
I appreciate how, without using sarcasm at all, the humor comes through still. Such a great way to memorialize this phase of American life! Thanks Dan.
I was looking super hardcore for the intro song on drip-133's SoundCloud but I couldn't find it! Could you let me know the title of the song anyone?/dan. Thanks!
the internet is the main driving force behind large shops like this closing. Why run expensive malls when people happily shop online and get the same stuff for the cost of running a warehouse.
mrh112 This one in particular closed due to a newer one opening up: "The Pinnacle" Edit: The Pinnacle isn't a mall, but a shopping area with multiple buildings
I could not understand why J C Penney pulled out of its profitable but unglamorous stores in small towns. Sure, they got their volume selling underwear and generic dresses, shirts, and slacks. But those were not mall stores that JC Penney wanted rescued. A hint: if you have a profitable but unglamorous business, then keep it. It might survive the 2010s.
Holy crap what a time capsule! That food court! Spencer gifts! Brooms! CARPET! I am seriously jealous of your skills- these vids are a pleasure to watch (no shaky cam). As a dead mall nerd, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for these.
