Wow, this is insane. My mom had her store here and I used to mess around on one of the ridable elephants. The thing I remember most about this place is the May's Gourmet Kettle Corn booth because there used to be a guy with a curly mustache who sold grill cheese' and they were actually not half bad. It is kind of sad to see places like this become gradually forgotten overtime, but it is what is.
Thanks so much for checking in on this old mall again. I used to be a taekwondo instructor at this mall back in the late 90's / early 2000's. The old studio was in the first antique store you went in to. It's so surreal to see this location again and realize that I've been in that exact spot. Time. What a trip.
As a teen, I got one of those Radio Shack Repeat - Simon knock-offs. I didn't play it for long because I mastered it too quickly. As for Vanity Fare, they must be struggling; their original location in West Reading, PA just closed for good on Christmas Eve night. The Passing of an Age...this area was once the Outlet Capital of the World (tm)!
Petrie!!!!❤️ I love these antique store visits. I had a similar two colour lava lamp back in the late 90s. Jesus, to think that these are now popping up in antique stores....😭😭🧓🧓🧓
Oh, man! At 9:30 you pan past the Fisher-Price teaching clock. I hadn't seen that since my childhood - in the 60's. I had to look it up and I see it's been re-released a few times (and used to good effect in some video game). I was surprised to see how many people have fond memories of the melody it plays. It, however, brings me to tears. It had to be the saddest song ever used in a children's toy. The clock plays the refrain: Ninety years without slumbering (tick, tock, tick, tock), His life seconds numbering, (tick, tock, tick, tock), It stopp'd short never to go again when the old man died. It's especially sad as the mechanism winds down to a stop. Link to Wiki with full lyrics. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Grandfather%27s_Clock Brings me to tears every time. I think this is what introduced the concept of death to me at a young age. One of my strongest memories. I had to leave the room to let it wind down.
Oh wow thats like a plot of the twilight zone episode where the mans life is connected to the grandfather clock. When it winds down, he gets ill, when it stopped he like collapsed ,he was really worried because if it stopped for good, he died.
Celestial refers to the sky. I had that Voltron as a kid! I remember my mom got it for me at Toys R Us and it kept me entertained while we went grocery shopping. It’s a pet peeve of mine when businesses call themselves antique shops when they don’t actually sell antiques (usually things over 100 years old), but vintage items from the 1950s to 1990s.
Sad to see malls fading away...I miss malls, thankfully here we still have 3 malls that are always busy still, only two actually dying due to the areas they were in...one in my city and one in the next city over. But we are a HUGE navy/military area
25 years ago was the Blizzard of 1996 on the east coast. The weight of the heavy snow caused a section of the roof of Potomac Mills Mall to collapse. This mills mall was only 10 years old at the time and was the biggest mall in northern Virginia. It may have had 150,000 shoppers. The Mills Mall is like Arizona Mills Mall and currently owned by the Simon Group. The mall is still doing well
Wow haven’t been to that mall in like over 10 years when I lived in that area. Nice to see it’s still up and running. My go to place was the toy store that was in it for all the old discounted Kay bee toys.
I'm pretty sure they aren't just small, they are low quality meat that has been soaked in meat tenderizer so you can at least sink a fork into it. I got suckered into buying one of these packs when I was young, first married, and we needed some cheap food. It was cheap, no doubt about that.
@@sarjim4381 You are spot on with your assessment, and everyone has fallen into that trap at some point in their life...saying that however, this “bargain” price even defies normal water injected meat. If I lived in the area, my curiosity would get the better of me, and I would want to see what one would get for their $29...
Yes The First Retail Archaeology Video Of 2021 I needed this particular after the embarrassment that happened on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Thank You Erik for this, I am excited and looking forward to new material in 2021.
Seeing the Petrie puppet brought back memories. My grandparents had bought the Ducky one and used it as a dog toy for their little dog. When we visited them one day, I fell in love with the puppet and 'rescued' it. I threw it over the fence before we left their place, made sure to pick it up and stuffed it in the car real fast. Very cool antique stuff. I should go visit some here in Tucson.
Aw, nice, good to see Power Square still going! Though a butcher shop is an interesting choice. Also, picking through antique stores is fun and strangely relaxing. There's an antique mall in the Denver area that I've only been to once but it's a good time.
Hey man, I stumbled across your channel a few days ago and have watched a handful of your videos. Just wanted to say that you do a GREAT job and provide a great deal of nostalgia for guys in our age group. I also like that you use your daughter as a decoy! Keep up the great work man. I'm glad you're having RU-vid success - you deserve it.
If you in an "antique" (often defined as something more than 100 years old) store and remember when an item came out, you are old (or dead). However, if you are in a so-called "vintage" store where the items can be from a variety of eras, you might not be that old, likely just pre-millennial. Considering I was living here before the mall itself was even built in the first place, I am old...er. Thanks for another walk down memory lane. These are great videos.
I grew up in Mesa my whole life, had no idea it existed, and randomly found an antique I wanted to buy on offer up and it was in this god awful place! I went in and I thought I was in some weird ass time warp, cracked me up you filmed this just a month later and here I am watching this video!
Funny enough, I went to this mall just after Christmas too and I thought "it would be pretty rad if the Retail Archeology guy was filming this location again." I must have JUST missed you!
Right before Pittsburgh Mills really fell off the map, there was a meat shop. They sold various vacuum packed cheese filled meats and flavored sausages. I think it was nice to see a local business do their own spin on Omaha Steaks, but only so many folks will head to the mall for meat shopping.
Northwest Connecticut has long had many antique shops, often selling high-end vintage stuff. Traditionally they did a large part of their business when affluent people came up from the city on weekends. They also traditionally had two sets of prices, weekday prices and weekend prices. Care to guess which were a lot higher?
VF has changed its name and business model a little as well. The name is something like the Wrangler Outlet now and they sell fewer super discounted items. I thought the one nearby was closing forever, but it turned out they closed both their main store and overflow (a few weeks before COVID) in order to redesign the inside. When I was there recently and asked how they were doing I was told they closed non-profitable stores but took advantage of state ordered closings to remodel.
My dad bought me one of those old radio shack electronics kits when I was 6 or 7 (1991) It was a radio and once we built it, we would sit in the backyard and listen to approach control and the tower frequencies at Sky Harbor. We lived in West Mesa - Alma School and 8th Street (Rio Salado, now). Great memories!!
We had a factory outlet center that looked almost exactly like this. Same little food type stalls. Even An Antique store in it. I took the kids in there ever so often as there was a Toy outlet there. Think of a flea market toy stall, but inside. Still fun though for when they were younger. This place also had a VF outlet as well. Complete with Racks in the "mall". The mall has been repurposed a few times. Now an all Star Bowling, Floor and Decor, and a few other things are on the outside. I'm not sure that you can even get into the mall itself. I'll try sometime.
That is a nice, little mall. Seeing the Christmas stuff makes me wish Christmas was a year round thing. And seeing the antique stores were nice, too. And seeing stuff from the 90's in there made me feel old, too.
I remember those Land Before Time puppets from Pizza Hut, the only one I ever had was Little Foot as well. It's odd seeing stuff you grew up with now in Antique stores but I guess every generation has gone thru it. Would be interesting to see a chemistry set from around the 50s wnd 60s because they say those contain dangerous stuff but I bet most of it's gone off and lost it's strength by now. I'm shocked the Outlet store that sold Lee jeans was gone, because that place used to be known by the name of that Outlet and it was always packed in past videos when you went.
Hey,you should make a video showing all the stuff and antiques...you definitely have some interesting things from all this thrift stores. Btw love the channel and happy new year
Could you do the Cityscape Mall in Downtown Phoenix at sometime? Not sure if there is still construction going on there, but just curious to see how it compares to the Arizona Center Mall being a little bit more centrally located.
9:30 -- the Fischer Price clock! (At the back of the shelf) I had that as a young child in the early-1970s, but I don't think that it was new even then. I have not seen one of those in decades.
Wow this is so sad. As a kid we used to go in the toy store that was there and I also enjoyed the book store and the kitchen store that was there. I was depressed 5 years ago when my buddy and I went in and played chess at the mesa library branch but I swear it only seems to get sadder. Also can I just say that I think the food thing that's gonna be a butcher is an SCP cuz I swear I have never actually seen it open and serving food in the last 20 years.
In the UK it's not unusual to have a butchers shop in a mall. Many have an indoor 'market' with shops having their own store fronts. My local mall has a butchers with a games shop on one side and a jewelers on the other (guess the shop I frequent!). Though all grocery stores are much more common in malls here than appears to be the case in the US.
I remember those Land Before Time puppets. My brothers and I had Littlefoot, Spike, Ducky, and Cera. That was the original set. Petrie was part of the second set. I don't remember the others in the second set.
My oh my. You must have liked it quite a bit. I myself was raised on VHS tapes and the early days of DVDs. As we get older, we realize that the really old tapes that still work should only be watched sparingly to make sure it lasts as long as possible. Speaking of the Land Before Time, I actually picked up the fifth movie (along with the Sandlot) at Salvation Army earlier today.
I don’t know how I feel seeing a toy I had as a kid in that vintage display, since I was born in 1990. It was that dog with the wheels around the 9:28 mark. I remember it had a string you pulled and it making a sound that I guess was supposed to be barking. I’ve had actually forgotten about it till I saw it In your video.
6:04 There are stars IN THE MOON on the sign. That's not what happens. Unless I suppose you have a Celestial Moon full of stars, maybe that's the joke.
