When I was a kid,my mother would drag me into World Bazaar in our local mall,and I would fidget waiting to go to the toy store in the mall called Toy Parade.(The reward for being good in there was getting to go to the toy store).I hated to admit,I enjoyed some of it,and she bought a beaded curtain there and a papa san chair(hippies).It always smelled of incense and bamboo.I haven't thought of it until now.THANK YOU for the video,but especially for taking me back.I'm going to call her and apologize for fidgeting when I'm done commenting.Oh,and always tell your mom you love her...
Here's my theories on what is killing malls: 1) Rise of Online Shopping 2) Store Mergers that have happened over the years. If you look at how many retail chains have merged to Macy's over the last 50 years, it isn't funny, for example (over 30 other chains I think). Similar mergers have impacted with many other store chains over the years. With each merger there ends up being store closures. Often this happens if there are two stores in the same mall or very close to each other. Sometimes closures are mandated by the justice department or SEC too. 3) The economy declines in a town or the average income of the area falls dramatically. A common cause of this is a major employer in the area pulls out or closes up shop leads a mall to fail with it. 4) New malls opening up in an area puts a strain on older malls in the area. 5) Death of an anchor store often causes smaller stores in the store to lose business and close down. 6) Changes in tastes and preferences takes business away from a store and gives it to another leading to closures. 7) Sometimes malls close for other reasons. These include tragic incidents like shootings or crimes, natural disasters, damage or wear to the buildings, safety code violations, or upkeep getting too expensive for the owner.
The thing is there is no one specific reason malls have closed, same as there was not one reason action shifted to malls from downtowns. But it would be interesting for someone from another planet or dimension, seeing all these dead malls, wondering what on earth happened.
In the long shot I quipped ''soon to be closed Sears''. Once he got close enough to see inside - sure enough there's the black and yellow ''Everything must go!'' signs. It's a well-preserved mall corpse, clean, no buckets, and retains that vintage look. Looks like another one where the ''food court'' is vending machines.
You can always tell when the mall was developed by Jacobs: look at the floors they always have a light color terrazzo style floor in the mall concourse trimmed with a dark brown marble looking tile along the storefronts just like this mall, Euclid Square, the quickly dying Chesterfield Mall in St. Louis, and the dead Jamestown Mall also in St. Louis.
I grew up when this mall was the PLACE to be in Middletown. When it opened it had a York Steakhouse, Cassano's pizza, camelot music and was FULL. It originally had a fountain in the middle (where the vending machines are now). McAlpins was bought out by Dillards, but it was a high end clothing and retail store. This Mall never had a JC Penny, don't know who told you that. I remember at Christmas time traffic around the mall was a MESS. I worked at the Sears there and the KB Toys.
McAlpine was a Cincinnati based department store that was bought out by Dillard's. They was located where Burlington and Gabes are currently and they also had the first two stores going into the mall on each side one sold teen male clothes and the other side sold teen girl clothes. I don't know what is to become of the actual mall but they have opened numerous out lots within the last 3 years.
I grew up in this mall during it's peak.. I can tell you every store that was once there if you're interested.. And other facts.. Very sad either way..
Reminds me of our local mall, which I've become fond of over the 6 years of living here. But it is not doing well, having stores opening and closing rather quickly. Now one of the stores that gets the most attention in the mall is closing in September and I honestly think it'll probably kill the mall, since only one interesting store, one anchor store, a GNC, Victoria's Secret and a Bath & Body Works will be left when it closes. This mall is 1975 and this mall I'm talking about is 1976, which would explain why they look so similar on the inside. Their store situation is also similar. I give it less than 10 years before it closes its doors completely, honestly. That may or may not put me out of a job, if I'm still working there at that point. I don't know if they would close the anchor or not, since it actually gets a regular amount of customers... on Saturday, and still quite a few on every other day. But who knows what'll happen? This mall occasionally gets upspikes of activity and it could still hang on. But once that one store goes, I predict less customers in the mall.
Looking forward to your next two upcoming videos on the malls that you mentioned. I liked this one and I would like to see those two coming up. Keep them coming.
When you were mentioned the benches at this mall and commentary you did later in the vid, it made me wonder if Euclid Square also was built by the Jacobs Group, like they did with Towne Mall? Good video as always, and I do wonder if this mall isn't succeeding more because of competition from other shopping centers and malls nearby, or if because of jobs moving away? I'm sure it's a little bit of all those factors, as to why Towne is struggling. Interesting Burlington updated their signage here, and I guess that may be a sign they'll be sticking around for a while. Much as I do like the inside look here of this mall, I do worry it might be demalled in the future, due to how few stores seem to be left here. This mall even makes Northfield Square near Kankakee look thriving, in comparison.
If you ever head back to IL you should check out Concord Mall in Elkhart IN, They announced they will be tearing down the mall and turning it into a "Town Center" The mall looks awesome inside as well! There is little chance I could get to it before construction in 2018.
When is Concord Mall closing, to begin tearing down the hallways into a lifestyle center? Maybe I should visit there, before that project begins! Always had heard about this mall, but never quite got a visit in to there.
Did that article say any particular month, when the last stores will close their doors at Concord Mall? And that if the anchor stores(i.e. Carson's/Elder-Beerman before that) will remain open?
Intro was nice. Music was good. Very 80's feel. I watched Malls R Us a Canadian made documentary on the malls closing down in the US. Get this, they actually said the US economy was one of the reasons malls are closing and dying. At least they said that much. In the US internet shopping is the scapegoat used by the media here. That damned evil internet shopping is doing it. Not that people have no money to spend. Another favorite is the "they built too many malls" meme. The media likes that one to. Yet I remember when I was a kid me and my family would go to multiple malls in one day. It was called mall hopping. It was popular in the 90's. Of course the effects of NAFTA and all this glorious world trade and Globalism hadn't kicked in fully yet and gas was still under $2 a gallon. But yeah malls served these small areas, now you have to drive halfway across the damned state to find a mall. Try mall hopping when your nearest mall is 20-30 minutes away and there might be another one that is also far away.
Really loving the improving production quality you have now! The camera is getting steadier and the volume for the background music is just right. You probably don't like to hear this, but I think you used the same music Dan Bell did in a few of his videos. Nothing wrong with that (in fact it works great!), but just a heads up.
We use the same artist sometimes, but i have never used the same track,and its fine, the comparisons dont bother me at all, and thanks, just trying to get better
Ace's Adventures Thanks for the reply! Just one more thing: the intro with footage from China don't really fit the dead mall vibe well. Might be because I can read Chinese haha but something else might fit better. Just an suggestion from a fan ☺
do you have the name of the particular track you used in the intro? i looked up waterfront dining on bandcamp and there were at least 30 albums listed.
See, when you said you were doing 'Towne Mall' I thought you meant the Towne Mall (aka Cascade Galleria) in New Castle, PA..... which may be too small to even do a video about, as only half the building is an indoor mall, but it's also incredibly empty, outdated, and creepy.
with the online shopping craze there's really no more need for malls and people say they're so sad to see these malls go but yet we all keep fucking shopping online there are very few malls that are doing well left why doesn't everybody go down to their local mall just for the hell of it to see what's there you might just find something you like
Amico617 im sorry that you want to hare me, im a nice person who just loves malls, i tried to be friends with dan and he ridiculed me, you're always welcome here
bath and body works is a death sign for malls lol, i picture it being the only store open in a mall somewhere, and the only sales are from employees LOL
