Beautiful malls from the ‘80s!

The mall used to be so therapeutic for me. As a kid in the 80's it was like a fucking wonderland. GONE NOW. ALL GONE.

I wish they had photos of my beloved Woodfield!

This doesn't even show the under-the fish pond glass ceiling, or the slide. Good time to be a kid/teen.

Anyone else remember The Mall Game? I used to love this as a kid.

I miss the times of fewer people around in general. When you could go to the mall and there weren't families of 16 - 18 people en masse hogging up the aisles.

Somehow malls lost all the things that were special and unique about them in the 70s and 80s and became bland and dull by the 2000s.

R5, because all the mall anchor stores and mall shops all started selling cheap crap imported from China, the same crap Walmart and Target were already selling.

Crap is crap. So what difference does it make if you buy it at the mall or buy it at a big box store, it's still crap.

Jack Scalia was a beautiful male from the ‘80s. Those Jordache ads sent me on a beeline from in front of the TV with my family to private teen time in my bedroom.

[quote]Anyone else remember The Mall Game? I used to love this as a kid.

Sorry ... I was busy playing Mystery Date.

R6 exactly. You said it.

Also you could get a salespersons knowledge and attention, in many stores. A guy could go to SEARS or PENNYS or MACYS and someone would help him buy some basic curtains or a casserole set, for crissakes. Anyone could go buy a washing machine and it was a decent machine that fit the customers' needs. A 12 year old boy with only his tiny budget could go buy some presents and some nice salesladies might steer him to the right products at the right prices.

R9- When I was in college from 96-2000 I worked at Sears in Appliances. For a college kid it was a GREAT job at that point. I was on my own and Sears paid full medical if you worked 25 hours a week. At that time, all departments other than clothing were commission based and had good to decent sales reps- Even Sporting Goods/Tools! At that point it was good paying gig for a college guy and a great experience in my life.

Malls lost their charm when they abandoned the water features and tropical plants and replaced them with carts manned by aggressive sales people

[quote]Malls lost their charm when they abandoned the water features and tropical plants and replaced them with carts manned by aggressive sales people

Mall culture is alive and well in developing countries. This gorgeous place is in Medellín, Colombia. I have seen malls in Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, and even Guatemala City that put contemporary US malls to shame in terms of design and features. I blame Simon...their malls are all bland, interchangeable, soulless shitholes.

That's nice R10. I bet you were cute! It's like another world. Might as well be talking about the 60s!

I have many fond 70s-80s memories of Landover Mall in Landover, Maryland. Hugh spacious beautiful mall with 4 major department stores, beautiful water fountains, especially the one in the middle, one of the first movie multiplexes, and the awesome Farrell’s ice cream parlor/restaurant.. You could spend the whole day there. Unfortunately, like most of P.G. County, MD, it got ghetto and eventually was torn down.

I remember growing up there was the White Flint Mall and they called Landover "Black Flint Mall" due to its ghetto nature. SAD!

Many of you guys molested in the changing rooms of your local malls?

Spill those deets!!!

Correct, late-70’s/early-80’s was when indoor mall design really flourished. They were generally lush with greenery and water fountain designs that traversed the walkways. Space to burn. Visual features galore. Things were cheaper to build back then, and the main goal seemed to be to draw people in.

r15 Now they're both dead.

R15 White Flint TOO! NO!!!!!!!

That cry of NO!!!! was meant for R18. Sorry!

There was a cathedral-like quality to malls back then. They seemed designed that way intentionally. Just wandering around the vast spaces, letting your eyes wander, and your ears gently soak up the echoey, ambient sounds. There was something peaceful about it.

White Flint

r15, that’s not true. Landover Mall wasn’t always ghetto and White Flint Mall was not all that.

My cousins lived in Maryland and going to malls the day after Thanksgiving was an 80's tradition when we'd visit. I was a kid so White Flint seemed fancy to me. They coined Landover "Black Flint" but I'm not sure when that happened. Also whey does the demo picture of WFM fill me with such sadness R22?

White Flint Mall was all that in it’s first 3 or 4 years. Sadly, the honeymoon didn’t last long. I think Mazza Gallerie/Western Avenue area was competition for White Flint and that’s gone now as well.

I was in the White Flint Bloomingdale’s fragrance section sometime close to 1990 and there was a man pleasuring himself. The cosmetics ladies were all atwitter and security escorted the man out. My mom never wanted to go to White Flint after that.

My hometown: HAWTHORNE PLAZA…a very poorly-planned mid-70s redevelopment project. It opened just as I was in high school, and it was already a disaster when I was away for college. I worked at The Broadway…oof. One of *the* most notorious ghost malls…

Well he wasn't sniffing Angel, one assumes.

Even the less spectacular malls 70’s and 80’s editions were always better than their 90’s renovations.

R28 Angel Dust, maybe.

The 80s was such a better time to be alive.

Well, except for that AIDS thing.

Meh. I experienced the tail end of the 60s, then the 70s, then the 80s and 90s. Malls were OK but down town shopping districts were better. 70s.

We used to drive the hour-and-a-half to Phoenix twice a year to go to Metrocenter, which was then on the north edge of town. What a great place! Then it gradually became gang infested and I haven't been there in decades.

I also liked those "outdoor malls" of the 70s. There was one in Connecticut. It has a nice ambiance even in winter.

The mall that I went to in the '80s still exists. The only anchor store is Macy's. (There used to be a Sears and a JC Penney's as well.)

I enjoyed the Cinnabon Chillattas (came before the Frappuccino) and the soft pretzels from that mall.

Now, in addition to the food court (walk up to the counter) vendors, there are multiple sit-down restaurants. A bank or two, Verizon, very few clothing stores. That mall seems to be thriving, but just a lot different from when I grew up.

I think the DMV used to be housed in that mall, but I don't see it in the directory anymore.

[quote]I think the DMV used to be housed in that mall, but I don't see it in the directory anymore.

That's what they should do with empty malls. Consolidate a bunch of federal and state government agencies all into one place so you can get all your shit done at once or at least easily find where you need to go when you need to find the IRS, DMV, Social Security, VA, etc.

They could also incorporate low cost health and dental services while they're at it.

R38, yes, I totally agree. The malls have tons of parking spaces and are usually handicapped accessible. It would be super convenient to have all of those places (DMV, Post Office) in one central location.

I honestly cannot understand why malls have been replaced with open air "lifestyle" centers. I live in the South, that means that lifestyle centers are only shoppable, unless you drive to each store, for a few weeks every spring and autumn. The rest of the time it is too hot to walk from store to store, or too cold(well at least to us, it is too cold). There are very few places where I would imagine an open air mall to work, year round. Basically Southern California, Florida, Hawaii, and maybe parts of Texas. Everywhere else has too many days where it is either too hot, too cold, or a mixture of both to make it make any sense. Not to mention rain and storms. Give me an enclosed climate controlled mall, any day over a lifestyle center.

Yes, it’s not a mall unless it’s enclosed and climate conditioned!

Yes, they have those lifestyle centers in the Phoenix region where it's absolutely miserable to be out in the sun most of the year. The one in my area was barely walkable even in good weather as you have to cross the massive, busy parking lot to visit different sections.

R38 If you go back and look at the original plans for the early malls of the 1950s/early 60s that is what the architects planned. The idea was that these malls would be the downtowns of the suburbs, with all the services, shopping, and amenities one would expect from a downtown. They were supposed to become the center of their communities.

I guess all the climate control and maintenance on such a huge structure is now too expensive. When those stupid outlet stores (strip mall configurations) became popular, that was a blueprint for making cheap shopping centers.

R42 I went to one in NC that was an enclosed mall then they demolished most of it to make a "lifestyle center" then a few years later they spent millions building huge metal canopies over all the outdoor areas but it is still "open-air." I'm like just close up the few little open areas and just enclose it again and maybe you'll get customers again.

I’m like wow, dude.

The Pentagon City Mall is still there in Arlington, VA. They kept it up very well and it’s still a nice place to go.

They recently remodeled the Ballston Mall in Arlington and I think it looks horrendous.

If you really love malls head to Bangkok. I was just there and mall culture is still the rage. They are booming there.

Good to hear the Pentagon City Mall is still nice.

Supposedly, there's a shopping mall in the actual Pentagon government building.

Wasn't Pentagon City supposedly a "problem" mall because the subway attracted "the wrong element"?

r49 There used to be a small branch of Woodie's (Woodward & Lothrop department store) in the Pentagon.

Woodie's in the Pentagon

R50, no, I don't remember the Pentagon City mall being a problem or sketchy. It could have changed a lot over the years, though.

The argument that the subway (Metro) attracts the wrong element has already made, with regrettable results. Georgetown is noticeably not on the Metro lines. When the Metro was being built, the people of Georgetown didn't want to be one of the stops. Now, it's a huge regret.

As an example of how malls and also DC can become central to memories of people from across the country. I can remember two pivotal events in my life happening at Pentagon City Mall. Even though I grew up hundreds of miles away. Both of which turned out to be rare insistences of really feeling like I had bros during my formative years.

The first was my eighth grade honors trip to DC. I asked out the girl I had the biggest crush on while our group ate at the Hot Shoppe that used to be there. She turned me down, in an embarrassing way. But, my roommates for the trip with whom I was friends but not real close, really just gathered around me and was like, "who needs her, she's only a girl." It was the first time I had a friend say, "dude, it's bros before hos."

The second was in high school where I got to be the young guy hanging out with four of the coolest guys I even met on our school's academic team. We weren't the stereotypical academic team, everyone of them were part of the popular kid clique. I mean it was like they were cast by Hollywood. There was the leader a very Ichabod Crane type, there was a black guy who dated the student body president and was like a real life Carlton, there was an RFK type charmer, and a midwestern jock, who was surprisingly smart. When I was a freshman they were juniors. And, they just accepted me as one of the guys and for an only kid who didn't really have close friends, I felt like I was in heaven. But, anyway. The first time I was like they really accepted me was when we were at Pentagon City Mall, after a tournament, and decided to see a movie and they let me pick. I picked Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and we all just had the best night at the movies, that didn't involve sex. They were the first group of friends I had where we would quote a movie to, to me it was special.

This thread fills me with sadness.

Whoretown (Horton) Plaza.

Some credited it as the catalyst that jump started the revitalization of downtown San Diego.

Many complained about the layout and forgetting where your car was parked in the multi-level structure, but it was a very popular place through the late 80s and 90s.

Unusual to have a mall in downtown and that was part of its undoing... paid parking was not popular. Originally, it was first 3 hours free, but more and more restrictions were added over time, making it a hassle to avoid paying.

The other factors that hit malls elsewhere also plagued this place... loss of anchor stores, online shopping, etc. The additional presence of homeless people pushed it over the edge.

This place was THE SHIT when it opened in 1985. By 2019, it was just shit. Deserted and scary.

It's now being redeveloped into a high-tech campus. Wouldn't be surprised if this new venture fails.

I owe my start in show biz to mall tours!!!

OMG so beautiful and exciting!

Today you have to go to Dubai for beautiful malls.

Today, where are the record or bookstores to buy my We Are the World merchandise....?

Cruise ships and casinos are the new malls.

The Thais and the Malaysians love thier malls. They continue to build them.