Grew up during mall culture as a male, great days, Jeff Bezoz wiped it out, with all the dead malls out there.
Flame away.
Grew up during mall culture as a male, great days, Jeff Bezoz wiped it out, with all the dead malls out there.
Flame away.
I’ve seen the Dead Malls site, and there seem to be quite a few such malls around the country.
I remember Landover Mall, in the Washington, DC area, opening in the 1970s. I remember my father said, that the mall would face difficulties. It’s probably verboten to say why he concluded that, but I recall him observing there were too many of certain types of people. He said they would not be good customers of the stores there, plus he said they would scare off good customers.
Eventually that mall was torn down, after a long decline in which major retailers abandoned the place.
Amazon did wreck many malls. I sure do miss the two now-closed ones near me. Amazon wrecked many small independent businesses, too.
On the other hand, here’s a rather dull story I’ve told before:
A couple of years ago I found myself in need of a simple tie clasp. I like to shop local, so I went to four different local variety stores looking for one. Three didn’t have any. One had a solid silver clasp for something like $90.
So I went to Amazon. There were hundreds of different tie clasps to choose from, all reasonably priced. I bought one there.
Whaddaya gonna do?
We still have a busy mall in Franklin TN.
It was already dying before Bezos created Amazon.
We still have five or six large and thriving malls near us in the Silicon Valley area. I rarely go there, though.
Nice picture. Brings back memories, particularly of Orange Juilius with a raw egg in the drink. Those were the days!
We’ve got one near Greenville, SC. Still pretty busy on weekends.
Since the early 80’s, we’d go to the “Gallery”, downtown Philly. We had good times there.
Haven’t been back since the 90’s.
The King of Prussia (KOP) Mall in PA is still nice but the foot traffic is not there like it used to be...
Malls died because of changing demographics in many areas. People didn’t feel safe with groups of thugs and gangs hanging around.
I think Bezos keeps “teens” on staff to destroy malls, and walgreens, and shoe stores, and waffle house, and Popeys, and KFC, and Walmart and....
Not all malls are dead,palm beach gardens mall is nice and had a Santa around Christmas time when I went to that mall.
First on in about 12 to 15 years.stoped going because of crime where I lived, movie theaters too. To much crime inside and in the parking lots,went to boot barn and work wear stores.
one of the biggest mall killers has been bus lines extended from inner cities to the suburbs; Chris Rock once joked: “There are two kinds of malls: malls that white people go to and malls that white people USED to go to” ...
but the diversity of goods via online shopping in general plus online reviews and near instant delivery and hassle-free returns, as well as lack of time to drive, park, walk for miles and then not find anything worth buying for a reasonable price at covered malls were all major factors as well ... covered malls that covered acres with many more surrounding acres of asphalt parking lots are dinosaurs from another era ...
Bezos didnt wipe out malls.
Oversaturation of malls in finite markets is a big factor.
Bad decisions by certain stores is another.
The rise of superstores that people could get everything in one place, is another.
Online shopping is another factor.
Malls having security and safety problems with gangs and problem people is another, causing stores to leave for places not dealing with urban crime issues that weren’t addressed correctly.
I remember going to Century III when it was first built. The site was a slag pile, basically a dump for the waste material from the steel making process. At the time the mall was built, all the experts predicted the ground would collapse under the structure within a few years. Seems the change in economy not the slag did it in.
Century III Mall was one of my main hangouts growing up. As another poster said, it was built on a slag dump - piles of slag were visible all around as you drove toward it. Was a pretty good repurposing of wasted land. I haven’t been back to the ‘Burgh area since the 90’s so I didn’t know it was closed, let alone being demolished. What do you do with a used slag dump?