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Oak Park Mall (1982)
Out On The YouTube ^

Posted on 02/20/2021 12:05:29 PM PST by SamAdams76

This is an excellent 1982 documentary of mall culture in America.

Could it have been so long ago (nearly 40 years!)?

Before the Internet. Before cell phones. MTV was just getting started and most youngsters didn't even know what it was, much less have it.

I remember those days well. The mall was the place for teens and young adults to hang out. It was where boys and girls dated. They'd start off at the Orange Julius at the food court and make their way to the multiplex, where they might see "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" or maybe "ET". Then they might end at the video arcade to sling a few quarters into Pac-Man and Space-Invaders before finding a makeout spot in the corridor where the Things Remembered and Radio Shack stores were while waiting for their parents to come pick them up.

Maybe you are thinking by now that I know of this mall culture all too well...anyway, check out this video. Excellent time capsule of American culture in the early 1980s, just as President Reagan was turning around the economy.


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: america; culture; malls
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1 posted on 02/20/2021 12:05:29 PM PST by SamAdams76
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To: SamAdams76
1982?

We had the Columbia Center Mall in the Tri-Cities, WA in 1969, and when I went to Tech School in Denver in early 1972, Cinderella City was already thriving.

2 posted on 02/20/2021 12:13:56 PM PST by G Larry (Authority is vested in those to whom it applies.)
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To: SamAdams76

“On the Road” with Charles Karuit, great family viewing before both were history


3 posted on 02/20/2021 12:17:53 PM PST by Bell Bouy II
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To: SamAdams76

Oak Park Mall is still there, hanging on, but barely.

They’ve had a couple of shooting in or just outside the food court, you know the drill, somebody disrespected somebody else.

The mall where I used to shop, Bannister Mall, lasted 22 years, then it was shuttered and torn down. In its prime, it had wonderful little shops and restaurants, besides the big chain stores. Now, it is the “campus” for Cerner Corp.

Now we have big outside shopping areas, made to look like old-timey downtowns. Not the same and they’ll be gone when the tax credits run out.


4 posted on 02/20/2021 12:19:43 PM PST by LSAggie
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To: Bell Bouy II

Teenage girls wearing Blue Oyster Cult T-shirts.....Good Times!


5 posted on 02/20/2021 12:19:54 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: SamAdams76

Anybody here remember Eastland Mall in Charlotte, NC? I learned how to ice skate there! Many many fond memories of that place.


6 posted on 02/20/2021 12:23:46 PM PST by MissEdie (Be the Light in Someone's Darkness.)
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To: SamAdams76

The hair was a bit fluffed or puffed, I don’t know how to describe, but you don’t see hair that way too much anymore.


7 posted on 02/20/2021 12:24:27 PM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: SamAdams76

Teen age fun.

But the mother ship was the Galleria in Sherman Oaks, center of the planet for the Valley Girls.


8 posted on 02/20/2021 12:26:40 PM PST by Regulator (It's Fraud, Jim)
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To: SamAdams76

Just a few minutes ago I was going through some old books and found a receipt from the Two Guys (from Harrison) camera department. For flashbulbs.


9 posted on 02/20/2021 12:26:51 PM PST by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: SamAdams76

Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whZuz5Dwtw8


10 posted on 02/20/2021 12:27:10 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: MissEdie

How about Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh?


11 posted on 02/20/2021 12:27:13 PM PST by nesnah (Liberals - the petulant children of politics)
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To: LSAggie
There is a website called Dead Malls that I am strangely fascinated with. Some of the malls I used to frequent are on there.

Always been a fan of super-malls and my grown children are as well. We have made special trips to places like Mall of America in Minnesota and Palisades Mall in West Nyack, NY.

I'm thinking they are all in their death throes now. We went to the Danbury Fair Mall (CT) recently and it was a ghost town. Only the Apple and Microsoft stores had any kind of traffic.

12 posted on 02/20/2021 12:29:06 PM PST by SamAdams76 (By stealing Trump's second term, the Left gets Trump for 8 more years instead of just four.)
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To: SamAdams76

Yup, I remember going to the mall on a regular basis. Then after hours in the winter, it was a great place to do donuts in the snow. Made us all better drivers really but the cops would run us off eventually.


13 posted on 02/20/2021 12:30:39 PM PST by Pollard (Bunch of curmudgeons)
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To: LSAggie
Here is the Dead Malls page on Bannister Mall

Some of these dead malls are creepy.

14 posted on 02/20/2021 12:31:56 PM PST by SamAdams76 (By stealing Trump's second term, the Left gets Trump for 8 more years instead of just four.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
The hair was a bit fluffed or puffed, I don’t know how to describe, but you don’t see hair that way too much anymore.

It was probably the hair dryers. Everybody used them, even the boys. For a while, I was looking like one of the Bee Gees.

15 posted on 02/20/2021 12:34:50 PM PST by SamAdams76 (By stealing Trump's second term, the Left gets Trump for 8 more years instead of just four.)
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To: SamAdams76
There's a great mall a couple of miles from me.I go there in bad weather to walk...and I do some shopping there as well. It's got a number of upscale shops (Gucci,Louis Vitton,etc).

Even before the lockdown it was in trouble...many stores,including Sears and JC Penny had closed. But now it's a ghost town.It seems that about half the stores are closed...including Lord & Taylor just recently. I cut through Nordstrom's to to the "walking trail" and it's *always* deserted...except for staff.

I just hope it lasts until the day I'm confined to a wheelchair...or walker...but I don't see how it can.

16 posted on 02/20/2021 12:35:00 PM PST by Gay State Conservative (Trump: "They're After You. I'm Just In The Way")
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To: SamAdams76

The difference is that a few judges decided that malls are PUBLIC PLACES and with that, they can no longer kick out undesireables.

That’s how much power judges have and that’s why it’s so important to have people like TRUMP nominating them.


17 posted on 02/20/2021 12:37:47 PM PST by BobL
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To: Bell Bouy II
Yah,and little did we know that that wholesome-as-all-outdoors Kurawlt had a little "piece" on the side to whom he left about half of his estate. His widow fought it in court and lost.

Turns out he was just another showbiz piece of excrement.

18 posted on 02/20/2021 12:39:23 PM PST by Gay State Conservative (Trump: "They're After You. I'm Just In The Way")
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To: SamAdams76

My first job after college was Assistant Manager at Jeans West at Oak Park. I was never a huge fan of the mall - my heart was always at Metcalf South, RIP.


19 posted on 02/20/2021 12:40:49 PM PST by peggybac (My will is what I wanted. God's will is what I got.)
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To: Gay State Conservative

and who cares ?


20 posted on 02/20/2021 12:42:46 PM PST by Bell Bouy II
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