What was your local mall like when you were a kid?

[Percussionist Foster Grant]

Malls used to be the shit before online shopping and Walmart put them in the grave.

When I was really young, we had a small movie theater in ours. I saw "Big" there when I was like... 4 years old. I still vividly remember the entire mall smelling like A&W corn dogs and french fries, no matter where you wen't. We had a Thrifty, which you might recall was just the eighties/early nineties equivalent of Rite Aid or Walgreens. We also had a Kay-B Toy Store, which was a shitty Toys R Us knockoff on a much smaller scale.

Who elses mall had that store with the "wacky" gifts like a plane connected to a string that flew circles around the room, or those glass balls with the electricity underneath when you'd touch it?

We also had an awesome video arcade called GOLD RUSH and it was built into the wall to look like a goldmine. I had my 11th birthday there, I believe.

What did your childhood mall have in it?

[brc74]

white and safe

[Yung Nick]

I'm lame and I like the mall. I'm not used to being around a lot of people and an active area, so I enjoy being there. Even though I get a little anxious being around big groups of people, but it's because I don't do it often. I also like to shop / look at things. And there's food, so it's a cool place. I honestly could care less about who's there, I know how to mind my own business and let people do their thing. Makes me feel less anxious when I know someone else is the one everyone's looking at and thinking "fuck this guy" haha.

There's two near me, but one is a bit closer and I like it more. They sell records, wrestling stuff, punk shit and food. So, yeah. I dig.

[F.F Woodycooks]

you know that movielife song where he says "Leave your fuckin' friend at the Smithtown mall where she belongs"? That was my local mall growing up. It was pretty much just a mall. Fun fact: its is actually called the Smith Haven Mall.

[Avoidance Learning]

Sooner Fashion in Norman, which is the worst smallest suburban blight on the planet.

but also about half of the shopping my family did at malls was done at crossroads mall in OKC, where the gangland clip comes from:

content warning: this dude gets very murdered by a cop on this video

[kimjongchill]

Had three all about 20 minutes on the bus from my place and they all sucked. So I used to hang out in the city Center at a fountain with all the other drop kicks

[☭ Bob Loblaw ☭]

I feel you, cxc! My local mall is actually cool as hell believe it or not. It has a Barnes & Noble (Criterion Blus and comic TPBs all day long) and one of the last remaining FYEs which always gives me a warm nostalgic feeling when I walk in. Plus, the food court has a pretty decent pho stand AND a very solid Indian spot!

[MMST3K]

Mohawk Mall they had a Media Play which had everything from music, video tape, video game and toy that place was great

[Yung Nick]

Jul 17, 2018 10:02:47 GMT -5 ☭ Bob Loblaw ☭ said:

I feel you, cxc! My local mall is actually cool as hell believe it or not. It has a Barnes & Noble (Criterion Blus and comic TPBs all day long) and one of the last remaining FYEs which always gives me a warm nostalgic feeling when I walk in. Plus, the food court has a pretty decent pho stand AND a very solid Indian spot!

Fuck yeah! We have a Newbury Comics that usually has cool records, sometimes local shit which is nice. It also has a Hot Topic (fuck y'all) which sells wrestling shirts and accessories and sometimes has records. They also will sometimes have flyers for local gigs. Food court has a Sbarro's and Wayback Burger. Also, I can get skate supplies at Zumiez and Vans. so it's tiiiight.

[Deleted]

Meh, it's a mall. The only interesting thing about it was that the first Cinnabon came from there.

[F.F Woodycooks]

Anybody fuck with bourbon chicken? It's a staple of mall food courts of the east coast, I don't know if it's national or not.

[Yung Nick]

The lineup of stores at my local mall:

www.simon.com/mall/the-mall-at-rockingham-park/stores

[JDS]

Growing up, though we also wen't to the "Boulevard" mall and the "Eastern Hills" mall, "my" mall was the Summit Park Mall, just outside of Niagara Falls, NY. My Grandparents pretty much took me there every sabado domingo from 78-89 and it was my parents "go to mall" the entire time I was growing up. The place has been dying for 20 years now and is like totally dead now that Sears, they last real hold out has left. The mall was very busy in the 70's 80's and early 90's. The popularity of the Outlet mall a few miles away, the opening of the big "Galleria" mall in 89/90 and the scaling back of troops at the Air Force Base 5 Miles down the road pretty much killed it. They originally had two theaters in the mall, General Cinemas I and II, I remember seeing the OG Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Wrath of Khan and Raiders of the Lost Ark there during their original theatrical runs. In the Late 80's they built an 8 screen movie theater across the street of the north side parking lot. I saw The Secret of my Success, The Three Amigos, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and a LOT more movies at that theater, as I was a teenager by then.

Child's World in that mall was fuckin' essential. It opened in 1977, when I was 3 and was like the most insane place for toys, Star Wars, Gi Joe, Robotech, All the Die-cast metal real looking toy guns you could ever want. I don't remember them having a good selection of transformers though, but KB HOBBY STORE, which was also in the mall, always did for a smaller store. Child's World closed my senior year of high school in 92,and was replaced by Toys R Us (largely inferior) but I hadn't really been there since probably 1989-90 at that point, as I had moved on to music. The cool thing about CW is that they always kept old stock toys out, as they must've bought MASSIVE amount of toys in the 70's and 80's and had them in their warehouses. You could buy Mego Marvel figures mint in box there until the late 80's. If I had know they would be worth the money they are now, I would've bought them, but those were "old" toys compare to A Real American Hero, so who wants that?

I can't stress how important Cavages, the record store in the mall was to my uhhh "musical development." In 1988 my uncle took me there to choose an album for purchase ( I wrote about it in my blog a really long time ago ilikemusicsometimes.blogspot.com/2010/06/most-important-record-in-my-collection.html ). I mostly bought cassettes there, I bought The Best of Metal Blade Vol. 3 there in 88 ( ilikemusicsometimes.blogspot.com/2017/09/sacred-reich-its-cool-fool.html ) and also a bunch of "cassingles" suicidle Tendencies "Trip at the Brain," Metallica "Eye of the Beholder," Ramones "Pet Semetary" all when they were new releases, I also got  CDs there early on; Sepultura "Beneath The Remains" and Ratos de Porao "Brasil." My little brother bought me Dead Kennedys "Frankenchrist" there for Christmas 1989, which is pretty fuckin' cool, seeing as he was 11. I also remember that in the back they had T shirts on a circular rack, but never in my size; Warzone DFTS shirts, Septic Death... This was a mainstream mall record store but they had cool shit. In the fall of  1990 I bought Youth of Today "Breakdown the Walls" there (the fucked up stretched taped Revelation version) on cassette and I was off to the races. I remember the store moving twice in the early 90's, liquidating all their vinyl in 92 then a different "CD and Tape" store opened near the entrance of the mall, I remember buying "Urban Discipline" by Biohazard at that store, but really by then I was making sabado domingo trips to the "Cool" record store in Buffalo, Home of the Hits, so I don't recall buying anything else there.  

There was also a store called McCrory's, it was like a throw back five and dime that has its own diner in it separate from the food court. In those days you could smoke indoors, so there's just be muchachos sitting in there drinking coffee, reading the paper and smoking. I used to get a lot of model kits there. Their selection for everything sucked except model kits. In the early 90's they added like a hip "music and media" section when they took out the diner. There was an older girl, probably in her mid to late 20's and very much like Iona from Pretty in Pink who would let my friends and I just hang out in there and shoot the shit. What she didn't realize (or maybe she did and just didn't say anything) is that after a few months of this, my friend Bob would just steal a shit ton of cassettes. It got to the point where Bob would be like "give me two bucks and tell me what tape you want want and I'll get it for you" I don't remember condoning this, but I do remember giving him $2 to grab me "Lights Camera Revolution" by suicidle Tendencies. 

I have many, many fond memories of the Summit Park mall and this is just the proverbial "tip of the ice burg." Fuck, my parents even got our first family dog from the pet store there. Two of my favorite places to eat when I was a young juvenile were there- York Steakhouse and Tijuana Taco. The other malls had McDonald's in them, Summit had a fuckin' Wendy's that ALWAYS got your order wrong. Last Time I was there was probably 12-13 years ago and it was a literal shell of what it once was: maybe 1/2 the stores had anything in them. Anyway, enjoy these:

[chuggingpus]

Pretty much just wen't to hit up the music stores and got the fuck out. Sam Goody/Musicland And Camelot had a NYC sized phone book where you could special order all the shit they wouldn’t carry in store. It’d take forever but when you got the call (if you got the call) I’d head over there with all my saved up lunch money and fill my collection.

[mazzario]

i used to love going to the mall when i was a shithead teenager, but now that i'm a shit head adult i'm lucky if i can make it 15 minutes in one of those hell holes before feeling the desire to murder a family of 300lb assholes who decide to walk side by side so no one can get around them.


the mall here just got a round one. i haven't been yet, but apparently it shits all over dave & busters. other than that i only really hit up Best Buy and sometimes i peruse through newbury comics (which isn't really as good as it used to be)

[☭ Bob Loblaw ☭]

jds, some of those images have a strong Dawn of the Dead callback to them.

Thank you for sharing.

[escapedfromthevalley]

Farmington Valley Mall, Avon CT:

Anchors were D&L and Bradlees. In later years, after the demise of Bradlees, it became a Bob's Store. Highlights were KB Toy (way better that Toys r Us), Tons of Fun (local arcade), a Friendly's with a take out window where several of my friends worked their first job and, Paperback Booksmith where I bought my first copies of Misfits Walk Among Us and COC Eye For An Eye.

[cthc89]

Jul 17, 2018 12:40:37 GMT -5 escapedfromthevalley said:

Farmington Valley Mall, Avon CT:

Anchors were D&L and Bradlees. In later years, after the demise of Bradlees, it became a Bob's Store. Highlights were KB Toy (way better that Toys r Us), Tons of Fun (local arcade), a Friendly's with a take out window where several of my friends worked their first job and, Paperback Booksmith where I bought my first copies of Misfits Walk Among Us and COC Eye For An Eye.

Everything mentioned above, in addition to smoking kids and sand-filled ashtrays EVERYWHERE, and an interior decor straight out of the early 70’s, which featured a sunken garden-encircled eating/chilling area, and the hallway walls were completely encrusted in brown pebbles embedded into concrete. The arcade, Tons Of Fun, lasted deep into the mid-90’s, when every other video arcade had closed 10 years prior. There are almost no images online of this old mall, but it still sort of half-exists, because they only tore half of it down and turned it into an open plaza instead of an enclosed mall in the late 90’s

[☭ Bob Loblaw ☭]

Did any of you guys have an Aladdin’s Castle in your mall? That arcade was so rad.

[escapedfromthevalley]

Jul 17, 2018 12:50:19 GMT -5 cthc89 said:

Jul 17, 2018 12:40:37 GMT -5 escapedfromthevalley said:

Farmington Valley Mall, Avon CT:

Anchors were D&L and Bradlees. In later years, after the demise of Bradlees, it became a Bob's Store. Highlights were KB Toy (way better that Toys r Us), Tons of Fun (local arcade), a Friendly's with a take out window where several of my friends worked their first job and, Paperback Booksmith where I bought my first copies of Misfits Walk Among Us and COC Eye For An Eye.

Everything mentioned above, in addition to smoking kids and sand-filled ashtrays EVERYWHERE, and an interior decor straight out of the early 70’s, which featured a sunken garden-encircled eating/chilling area, and the hallway walls were completely encrusted in brown pebbles embedded into concrete. The arcade, Tons Of Fun, lasted deep into the mid-90’s, when every other video arcade had closed 10 years prior. There are almost no images online of this old mall, but it still sort of half-exists, because they only tore half of it down and turned it into an open plaza instead of an enclosed mall in the late 90’s

Good Christ, those pebble encrusted walls! The fact that Luna pizza is STILL THERE is a damn miracle. I still go there with my Mom when I'm in town.

[𝕄𝔼👁𝕎𝔽𝕌ℕℂ𝕋𝕀👁ℕ]

Jul 17, 2018 9:43:41 GMT -5 Percussionist Foster Grant said:

We also had a Kay-B Toy Store, which was a shitty Toys R Us knockoff on a much smaller scale.

KB Toys was around for 26 more years than TRU you fuck

[Yung Nick]

KB Toys was sick. Used to go to one all the time.

[Percussionist Foster Grant]

Jul 17, 2018 13:17:32 GMT -5 𝕄𝔼👁𝕎𝔽𝕌ℕℂ𝕋𝕀👁ℕ said:

Jul 17, 2018 9:43:41 GMT -5 @Tay Lorm said:

We also had a Kay-B Toy Store, which was a shitty Toys R Us knockoff on a much smaller scale.

KB Toys was around for 26 more years than TRU you fuck

1 Suck my cock

2 I'll murder your family

[MMST3K]

Jul 17, 2018 13:26:49 GMT -5 @Tay Lorm said:

Jul 17, 2018 13:17:32 GMT -5 𝕄𝔼👁𝕎𝔽𝕌ℕℂ𝕋𝕀👁ℕ said:

KB Toys was around for 26 more years than TRU you fuck

1 Suck my cock

2 I'll murder your family

I'll fuck your family roundly Sir!

[touristinparadise]

Grew up going to the Western PA gems (Century III, Monroeville Mall, Parkway Center) and fondly remember cool shit like this happening.

[Percussionist Foster Grant]

Jul 17, 2018 13:34:56 GMT -5 touristinparadise said:

Grew up going to the Western PA gems (Century III, Monroeville Mall, Parkway Center) and fondly remember cool shit like this happening.

I would have loved to have visited the Monroeville Mall while it was still recognizable to its state in Dawn of the Dead.

[leftbeef]

Jul 17, 2018 12:57:20 GMT -5 ☭ Bob Loblaw ☭ said:

Did any of you guys have an Aladdin’s Castle in your mall? That arcade was so rad.

yep, Ft. Steuben mall had one.  the Star Wars game was my jam.  I was always stoked when some kid from school would have their birthday party at Aladdin's Castle.  Pretty sure it was bought by another arcade company by the time I was in middle school and all anyone wanted to play was Mortal Kombat.

You could still smoke in that mall in the early 90s, so in high school, whenever my parents would ask me why my clothes reeked of cigarettes I'd just tell them I had been hanging out at the mall.

Back when I was a kid it had like 3 or 4 major department stores and no empty spaces.  Now it's like a Walmart, an Eat n Park, maybe a pretzel place, and recruitment centers for the army and marines.  The rest is just desolate empty space.

My hometown is pretty sad in general, but the mall is like a distillation of that sadness.

[captainsunshine]

the mall of my youth was the sun valley mall in concord ca


it was fucking LIT in the 90's for sure.
a big claim to fame was a plane crashed there in the late 80's haha


but 90's sunvalley mall was so tight. they had a johnny rockets with dope milkshakes n shit listening to the supremes while you ate a burger or whatever.

of course we had the now extinct WB store there

which had a rocket ship in the back you could crawl into to watch old looney tunes


and we most def had those old school goth looking wet seals there

[taylorv42]

KB Toys, Sam Goody’s, and the arcade were the only things I cared about in our mall when I was a kid.

[DrewBlood]

www.labelscar.com/new-york/sangertown-square

then:


now: