Posted on 04/28/2017 6:15:53 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Back to the Crabtree Mall. It was the best thing going back in the early 1980s. The main anchors were Ann & Hope, Lechmere and Zayre's with a nice food court that included the ubiquitous Orange Julius, Mrs Field's cookies, Auntie Jenn's Pretzels and some Chinese fast food joint in which you could get a heaping plate of rice and meat with Chinese women standing outside of it offering free samples of stuff on toothpicks. What was not to like?
Another anchor was Sears & Roebuck which was quite the store and they had dungarees, lawn mowers, washing machines and a huge section full of Craftsman tools as well as a huge furniture area and a bunch of TVs all tuned to the same station with some of them showing the picture constantly scrolling and in need of a v-hold adjustment. Remember the knob in the back of the TV in which you had to turn to keep the picture from scrolling? The Sears was so huge that they had escalators going to three levels.
The exterior corridor of the mall housed Pier 1 Imports, La-z-boy, Service Merchandise, Waldenbooks, Tape World, Brookstones, Pizza Hut, Ace Hardware, Jewelry store, Hickory Farms, Denny's, a video game arcade, Hallmark Cards, Spencer's Gifts, some candle store, CVS, Radio Shack, a multi-plex cinema showing movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and a bowling alley for bowling.
A lot of space in this mall...
This place has got everything.
Have they changed?
I actually have not been in a mall in over 20 years.
Great place to hang out with your school buddies if you weren’t working. My favorite mall had a slot racing track for model cars on the lower level where I’d spend hours.
I was actually interacting with other people of all ages and speaking to them. Imagine that.
Many are dying because they are filled with thug wannabes looking for trouble. Hickory Hollow Mall in Antioch, TN is one of them. The whole area is filled with illegal aliens and black thugs.
Shopping malls were a family destination back then. Now, they are a hunting ground for feral gangs and a place for muslims to operate their crappy cell phone accessory business kiosks.
Oldsmobiles?
There is a mall near me with a food stand in the Food Court — the stand is called “Texas BBQ”.
They serve: Eggs rolls, Pork Lo Main, General Tsao’s Chicken, and Sweet and Sour Chicken. You know: typical Texas stuff.
But I don’t go to malls very often — most of them have too many young Amish hoodlums.
Thanks, that would keep me away.
The last time I was in a mall was about 5 years ago to get some help with my (then new) Samsung cell phone. It had been at least 20 years since I had been to a mall.
It felt sort of surrealistic - kind of like the movies where people at the Coney Island amusement park when it's closed.
Ahh, the local malls... THE place to pick up chicks if you were a yute back then.
...until they decided to run the bus lines in from the inner city...
There are some very upscale malls that don’t have those problems that I noticed. One I visited was in Naples, FL, and another was in Schaumberg, IL. I also remember a very upscale one near Kansas City, of all places!
When I was a little kid around 1950 we lived in the country. I can remember us getting Sears orders in the mail. Particularly recall everyone getting something but me. That was because it was school clothes and I didn’t go.
Maybe once a month all 7 of us would drive to DeFuniak Springs to shop. It seemed Daddy knew half the people in town and he would constantly stop on the sidewalk and talk for maybe 10 minutes. It really irritated me but nothing I could do but stand there.
There was a truck which came by maybe every two weeks. It was called the “rolling store” and he had many necessities. He also took produce in trade.
A different world but maybe the ordering part has returned.
Funny thing is, they were allowed to trash that mall because it had already closed. It was finally torn down only a few years ago.
CC
That’s sad to hear as I went to Hickory Hollow when I visited Nashville back a little over twenty years ago. I remember also the Rivergate one up north of the city.
I would love to take a time machine back to a 1980s mall and just take in the scene.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.