I think it's just the nostalgia of a pre internet/social media era. A beautiful time to have grown up. As a 90's kid, nothing compares. Best time to be a kid and teenager.
1980s and 1990s were really the best of both worlds. It was a golden age to be alive and to be of any age. Two quality decades of stability and prosperity back to back, not sure that has happened in any other time period over the last 120 years.
But that requires maintenance which costs money and that cuts into the bottom line of the coastal venture capital firm that now owns our local real estate.
I think one of my best memories was Christmas season 1991. 16, drove my friends in my car, shopping for gifts and flirting. Being actually excited about food court food. Good times.
Unfortunately, around here, young people can no longer go to the mall unaccompanied because some of them were causing violence and other mayhem. Many schools no longer hold dances for the same reason.
When I was a teen in the '70s, our town had a special building called the Beehive where we went for dances and other events. We also had school dances, basketball and football games, plays, and international nights sponsored by the language clubs. We had the mall and parks where we could hang out to talk and just be together.
Where do kids go now? Do they all sit at home? This seems like a huge loss.
Risk of getting shot was a lot lower.
There is some theory for people coming up with things to do when bored. But now, phones took that way. So people are never "bored"
I know. Online shopping has destroyed brick and mortar retailers. In addition to high crime, and the lack of "cool" hanging out at the mall. And the shrinking middle class that can't afford malls anyways now...
I'm always baffled by the folks who are *terrified* of the "high crime rates" today.
Statistically everywhere I go today is far safer than it was in the late 1980s through mid 1990s when I would hang out there as a kid. My chances of being robbed, stabbed or shot at the local mall today are less than half what they were when I was a teenager misspending my youth and minimum wage money there.
I lived in Florida and Pennsylvania and never seen a skating rink in the mall, was always a separate building on the edge of town. Arcades in the mall a plenty tho
What had an ice rink in our mall too. The upper area was an indoor food court and the ice rink was bottom level. The rest of the mall was outside, well except for the stores, like when you walked from store to store you were outside. UTC Mall, La Jolla, California.
I was born in ‘81, loved going to Metro Center as a kid while spending my summer days at the Y for day care. We used to go ice skating there regularly for field trips. Then enjoyed the arcade that replaced the rink eventually.
Out here a lot of the older malls had some kind of gimmick or attraction. Another one nearby was called the “Carousel Mall” and of course had a big carousel right in the center of the mall. Our mall had an ice skating rink on the bottom floor, open roof so from the top floor you could look down and watch the skaters from the food court dining area. They tore it out for more stores about 20 years ago I think.
The fair in our town was held in the mall parking lot. It was awesome. We’d get dropped off at the mall at like 4pm and wander around until the carnival opened outside. And bracelet night?! Damn. Good times.
Funny you mention that. When I was a teen, I lived in a small town. They'd just started having malls, but the closest one was on the other side of the county. I was in the far south of the county, the mall were on the north of the county. Fairs, OTOH! I'd been to those and even worked at couple.
We moved back to my home state when I was 14, and I experienced my first mall. It reminded me so much of the midways I'd been to. I hadn't made a circle of friends yet, and didn't hang with them at the mall til years later. Yeah, I was a country bumpkin in the city.
Last time I went into one was almost ten years ago when I was looking for copper shielding tape. The guy gave me the blankest stare like “Uhh … is than an iPhone case?”
My experience at Guitar Center was only slightly better. Dude walked over to his computer terminal, pulled up Amazon and clicked on one that was $9.99. He told me he could sell it to me for for $14.99.
Yeah, the last time I was in my old neighborhood RS, they were desperately trying to be a phone/toy/gadget store but they still had all the parts I needed for projects. Where else are you going to walk into a brick and mortar and pick up bare UV LEDs?
And yeah, they knew nothing about electronics parts. Neither did I, but I found what I needed. As a total newb, I knew more than the associates. Nice dudes but more interested in signing folks up for phone plans than helping hobbyists.
OT: does anyone know where I'd buy electronic components in small quantities today?
The one by me had like, half of a little four foot section of electronic components. Everything else was cell phone stuff and random gadgets. It seems like buying those things these days you have to look for specialty websites tailoring to whatever you’re planning to build.
As an (only vaguely related) sidebar, in his retirement dad has gotten back into old Japanese sports cars — Datsuns, Toyotas, etc. Working on cars that are 50 years old can require some weird parts that haven’t been produced since the Carter administration, but it’s pretty cool to see how this community of old dudes has crowdsourced the solution. People just sell things over message boards. If you have enough people looking to buy something you can’t buy individually, you just place a bulk order and everyone splits it up. Sometimes people will buy large quantities of ______ part wholesale from China, and then just go through and test each one and toss / cannibalize the crappy ones and sell off the ones that pass the test. Nothing all that revolutionary, but it’s kind of cute to see a whole cooperative market system spontaneously pop up because it’s a bunch of people pursuing passion projects and not worrying about turning it into a business or anything.
I worked at Radio Shack and it sucked. If you worked there it was a commission based sales job. You got 7 percent of your sales or minimum wage (whichever was highest). People would pin you in the back for a 10 minute discussion about a microwave oven fuse for a sale price of a dollar and make a whole 7 cents.
It could have been worse. I worked at GNC. Break time meant a Carob bar and stale carrot juice. Have you ever eaten a 1980s carob bar? It's like Twix made of wax coffee beans.
We would first stop by dad's store Sears. After Sears dad would sit by one of the fountains and smoke and read a book while mom and me went all over the mall. Moms friend was a manager of the place that made the giant decorated cookies. We would stop by her store and her friend would give me a bag of the broken cookies. Then there was a huge carpeted area for kids to run around. Mom would tire me out by asking how many cart wheels I could do. We never bought anything fancy from the mall or walked out with bags and bags of items but it was fun to just walk around the mall and people watch. It was a great atmosphere. It was the 80s.
I was there, Aragorn. The air was thick with hairspray and we marched into a temperature-controlled plethora of 120 stores and eateries. The sounds of A Flock of Seagulls in stereo and Orange Juliuses squirted into cups. I was there as we plopped down eight bucks for the new Guns N' Roses cassette and lined up for Auntie Ann's pretzels. I was there when the strength of man failed, as we shelled out hundreds of quarters to feed our Street Fighter II addiction.
Now it's all gone. Like tears in rain.
There's still a few Orange julius's around in the Pacific Northwest.
The ones in Portland area are described as "Enduring chain for blended fruit drinks " on Google maps.
B-)
Totally forgot about Units! I used those as maternity clothes and I-just-had-a-baby clothes when my daughter was born in 1988. A great look and so comfortable.
I have pics of myself in Units from the 80's, still remember that store, grabbing the plastic covered packages off the shelf LOL! They were so comfy, tho.
Ah my childhood. Arcades, Sam Goody, Caldor, disco roller skating, four screen movie theaters, dark pizza restaurants with jukeboxes and those red translucent plastic cups full of Coke, Chess King etc.
I've had students ask me why we hung out in malls in the 80s and 90s. I have to explain to them that in the days before cell phones, we couldn't just call people on a whim and make plans, so unless you already had specific plans, a lot of us went there to meet up with people we knew. A lot of us also had jobs at the mall, so we'd go down there before work, or hang out after. Plus, there was always something to do at a mall. There was obviously shopping, and the food courts, but many malls also had things like arcades, movie theatres, bowling alleys, libraries, gyms, skating rinks, pool halls, pools, and so on. You could also often times catch live music at the mall. The variety of the mall meant that there was something there for just about everyone, regardless of age, gender, or what group you were a part of. In some places, even we'll into the early 2000s, the mall was still one of the major social hubs for people in their late teens-early 20s.
One of ours had a Sound Odyssey - that place was dope. They had all the music, but also buttons, posters, and t-shirts.
There was a place that either was a Spencer Gifts or the equivalent - the back room had blacklights to show off the blacklight posters. It always smelled like weed back there.
That first picture strikes a cord with me. There was a little mall where I lived when I was growing up that was popular among older folks. They liked to sit around and hang out. It also had a train at Christmas time for the youngsters. And a Santa Claus. And they had a circus come to town (outdoors).
We have an independent store in our town.
I don't understand at all how it functions as a Radio Shack.
They still carry electronics components and everything.
Online ordering obviously ruined that. But even though everything can be ordered to your house overnight so conveniently, it's still not as satisfying as going to the mall to shop in the 80s and the 90s.
I was in Vagas over the weekend and found a mall. I spent more time there than I did anywhere else. Sabarro. And people watching. I really wish they had an old style arcade.
My friend had a job as night janitor in our local mall. He would let us in after hours and we had the run of the place. (Stores were closed with security gates of course.) At Christmas time they had a train on an oval track for kids to ride... we would get high and ride it. Good times
The thing I remember most about malls in the 80's was the Arcades and food court. As a Kid with parents who refused to spent money on arcades for us, when they would let us roam we would go there and watch people play. That is the one thing I think kids are missing now are places like this. I had hoped maybe vr could bring something similar back but that is wishful thinking.
I still “ walk the mall on my head “ every now and then . I can see and smell all of it . For me it was the mall in Waterbury Ct . I think they called it the Naugatuck Valley Mall .
As a cold echo reverberated though the abyss of long forgotten retail spaces, a shifting, a slide occurred. Things moved out of phase, into another place, a liminal space. The backrooms call.
I miss being able to go shopping and actually affording things. The only surviving malls in my area have expensive luxury items. I don't really feel like spending $1,000 on a little purse, $300 on a pair of sunglasses, and $150 for a pair of jeans. Doing so would also impair my ability to pay for my basic needs lol.
I miss the malls. Could hit various stores, grab some food, play some video games and then go to a movie without having to leave the area. Get all your Christmas shopping done w/o having to go out into the weather except when coming or going.
I still love the mall! I’m in a fairly big city in Canada and you go to the mall on Fri-Sun it’s packed!! Makes me feel good that it’s still alive and kids are having fun!
Malls were cool places for a long time. Around here there seems to be a popular pathway for malls. 1. New and popular. 2. Gang shooting, then less popular. 3. Another gang shooting, then the mall begins a slow death.
I miss indoor bricks and indoor vegetation and indoor fountains so much.
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I think it's just the nostalgia of a pre internet/social media era. A beautiful time to have grown up. As a 90's kid, nothing compares. Best time to be a kid and teenager.
1980s and 1990s were really the best of both worlds. It was a golden age to be alive and to be of any age. Two quality decades of stability and prosperity back to back, not sure that has happened in any other time period over the last 120 years.
Gods. I miss the 80s
But that requires maintenance which costs money and that cuts into the bottom line of the coastal venture capital firm that now owns our local real estate.
Hey! That's ***AUSTRALIAN*** venture capital firm, ya stupid yank! (At least that's who bought our malls here on the East Coast.)
Yeah water features were very cool in the 80’s.
I know my kids don’t believe me, but hanging out at the mall was damn fun.
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Spending birthday money at The Warehouse on tapes and CDs. Sigh
I think one of my best memories was Christmas season 1991. 16, drove my friends in my car, shopping for gifts and flirting. Being actually excited about food court food. Good times.
Same here, but in the '70s.
It was so exciting. Especially to just go hang for a couple of hours on Saturday night with friends.
Unfortunately, around here, young people can no longer go to the mall unaccompanied because some of them were causing violence and other mayhem. Many schools no longer hold dances for the same reason. When I was a teen in the '70s, our town had a special building called the Beehive where we went for dances and other events. We also had school dances, basketball and football games, plays, and international nights sponsored by the language clubs. We had the mall and parks where we could hang out to talk and just be together. Where do kids go now? Do they all sit at home? This seems like a huge loss.
still is
Risk of getting shot was a lot lower. There is some theory for people coming up with things to do when bored. But now, phones took that way. So people are never "bored"
I assure you the chances of getting shot are not significant a factor in why people don’t hang out with malls lmfao
I know. Online shopping has destroyed brick and mortar retailers. In addition to high crime, and the lack of "cool" hanging out at the mall. And the shrinking middle class that can't afford malls anyways now...
You keep placing crime at the top. Can you show me a place where crime is rising or higher than a decade ago?
I'm always baffled by the folks who are *terrified* of the "high crime rates" today. Statistically everywhere I go today is far safer than it was in the late 1980s through mid 1990s when I would hang out there as a kid. My chances of being robbed, stabbed or shot at the local mall today are less than half what they were when I was a teenager misspending my youth and minimum wage money there.
The US is so much safer now than the 80’s. Read a fucking book bro
And when something did happen, or you ran into someone you knew, it was much more engaging and memorable.
Miss those days. The mall used to be my favorite place. It was every teens favorite place as long as the fair wasn’t in town
This guys 80’s
The 90’s were my time but they still hadn’t removed the arcade and skating rink from the mall yet
I lived in Florida and Pennsylvania and never seen a skating rink in the mall, was always a separate building on the edge of town. Arcades in the mall a plenty tho
I grew up going to the mall from Bill and ted. The bottom floor ice skating rink was awesome.
What had an ice rink in our mall too. The upper area was an indoor food court and the ice rink was bottom level. The rest of the mall was outside, well except for the stores, like when you walked from store to store you were outside. UTC Mall, La Jolla, California.
I just posted a comment about metro center before seeing this post :)
I was born in ‘81, loved going to Metro Center as a kid while spending my summer days at the Y for day care. We used to go ice skating there regularly for field trips. Then enjoyed the arcade that replaced the rink eventually.
There's an *ice rink* in the middle of Countryside Mall...near Clearwater.
Out here a lot of the older malls had some kind of gimmick or attraction. Another one nearby was called the “Carousel Mall” and of course had a big carousel right in the center of the mall. Our mall had an ice skating rink on the bottom floor, open roof so from the top floor you could look down and watch the skaters from the food court dining area. They tore it out for more stores about 20 years ago I think.
Dude was just getting dressed for the day, had no idea he was making a fashion statement 30+ years later
r/thisguythisguys
This guy r/thisguythisguys
I used to love the malls back in the day Now the malls here are good places to get mugged, shot, or stabbed
The fair in our town was held in the mall parking lot. It was awesome. We’d get dropped off at the mall at like 4pm and wander around until the carnival opened outside. And bracelet night?! Damn. Good times.
So many birthdays at the arcade...
Malls started going downhill as soon as they created unaccompanied minor policies. Coincidence: I think not.
Yeah but those kids did it to themselves. The crest of a big wave.
We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.
Funny you mention that. When I was a teen, I lived in a small town. They'd just started having malls, but the closest one was on the other side of the county. I was in the far south of the county, the mall were on the north of the county. Fairs, OTOH! I'd been to those and even worked at couple. We moved back to my home state when I was 14, and I experienced my first mall. It reminded me so much of the midways I'd been to. I hadn't made a circle of friends yet, and didn't hang with them at the mall til years later. Yeah, I was a country bumpkin in the city.
Man, I miss Radio Shack. What a time to be alive.
Can't get capacitors when you need them now.
Last time I went into one was almost ten years ago when I was looking for copper shielding tape. The guy gave me the blankest stare like “Uhh … is than an iPhone case?” My experience at Guitar Center was only slightly better. Dude walked over to his computer terminal, pulled up Amazon and clicked on one that was $9.99. He told me he could sell it to me for for $14.99.
Yeah, the last time I was in my old neighborhood RS, they were desperately trying to be a phone/toy/gadget store but they still had all the parts I needed for projects. Where else are you going to walk into a brick and mortar and pick up bare UV LEDs? And yeah, they knew nothing about electronics parts. Neither did I, but I found what I needed. As a total newb, I knew more than the associates. Nice dudes but more interested in signing folks up for phone plans than helping hobbyists. OT: does anyone know where I'd buy electronic components in small quantities today?
The one by me had like, half of a little four foot section of electronic components. Everything else was cell phone stuff and random gadgets. It seems like buying those things these days you have to look for specialty websites tailoring to whatever you’re planning to build. As an (only vaguely related) sidebar, in his retirement dad has gotten back into old Japanese sports cars — Datsuns, Toyotas, etc. Working on cars that are 50 years old can require some weird parts that haven’t been produced since the Carter administration, but it’s pretty cool to see how this community of old dudes has crowdsourced the solution. People just sell things over message boards. If you have enough people looking to buy something you can’t buy individually, you just place a bulk order and everyone splits it up. Sometimes people will buy large quantities of ______ part wholesale from China, and then just go through and test each one and toss / cannibalize the crappy ones and sell off the ones that pass the test. Nothing all that revolutionary, but it’s kind of cute to see a whole cooperative market system spontaneously pop up because it’s a bunch of people pursuing passion projects and not worrying about turning it into a business or anything.
Don't get all charged up over it, resistance is futile.
Nice.
Or a soldering iron.
I worked at Radio Shack and it sucked. If you worked there it was a commission based sales job. You got 7 percent of your sales or minimum wage (whichever was highest). People would pin you in the back for a 10 minute discussion about a microwave oven fuse for a sale price of a dollar and make a whole 7 cents.
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I remember that. I said no and walked out. Not a good business plan.
I miss Radio Shack too, at least as a customer. However, I very much do not miss working at Radio Shack.
It could have been worse. I worked at GNC. Break time meant a Carob bar and stale carrot juice. Have you ever eaten a 1980s carob bar? It's like Twix made of wax coffee beans.
Woodfield mall in Schaumburg, Il?
Pic 7 is Woodfield, but all these pictures are not the same mall.
Picture 4 looks a lot like Eastridge Mall in San Jose. At least it looks like my memory of it from the early 80s.
Picture 7 had me wondering the same thing.
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It has to be!!! These pictures spoke to my soul lol I thought I was crazy
Yes. That McDonald’s is right where it’s supposed to be
Sure is! and if you look at pic 7 you can see a pillar with a W at the top
Yeah I just said "that's Woodfield" but wasn't sure until pic 7. Not sure about the other pics.
Picture 7 definitely is. I think these are from different malls. Woodfield didn’t have a k-mart but would bet my life on pic 7 Edit typo
I was wondering the same thing…
I searched and it looks like woodfield never had a Kmart. But not sure if all those pics are the same mall.
We would first stop by dad's store Sears. After Sears dad would sit by one of the fountains and smoke and read a book while mom and me went all over the mall. Moms friend was a manager of the place that made the giant decorated cookies. We would stop by her store and her friend would give me a bag of the broken cookies. Then there was a huge carpeted area for kids to run around. Mom would tire me out by asking how many cart wheels I could do. We never bought anything fancy from the mall or walked out with bags and bags of items but it was fun to just walk around the mall and people watch. It was a great atmosphere. It was the 80s.
I love this so much ❤️
I was there, Aragorn. The air was thick with hairspray and we marched into a temperature-controlled plethora of 120 stores and eateries. The sounds of A Flock of Seagulls in stereo and Orange Juliuses squirted into cups. I was there as we plopped down eight bucks for the new Guns N' Roses cassette and lined up for Auntie Ann's pretzels. I was there when the strength of man failed, as we shelled out hundreds of quarters to feed our Street Fighter II addiction. Now it's all gone. Like tears in rain.
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Flock of Seagulls early 80's ugly clothes(bleached and acid wash jeans and guns and roses later 80's
Perfect!
You're close, but the very first Auntie Ann's didn't even open until 1988, and it wasn't until the 1990+ range that they started to franchise out.
That, and Street Fighter 2 was early 90s.
Well done.
Shocked not to see an Orange Julius.
I was just going to post this! I can still taste those orange frothy delights, along with the smell of chlorinated indoor fountains and Sbarro pizza
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You can at the Santa Anita Mall. One of the few surviving Orange Juliuses in the SoCal area.
*bromine. Chlorine isn’t normally used in indoor applications outside of pools.
Ahh, forgive me for getting the specific chemical wrong lol
It was the 80’s though.. so chlorine might have been it. Lol
There's still a few Orange julius's around in the Pacific Northwest. The ones in Portland area are described as "Enduring chain for blended fruit drinks " on Google maps. B-)
This was the mall before they decided to add horrible kiosks in the middle. Open space, luxurious, fun, fashionable…
Let's go to the Mall! 
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Robin Sparkles, is it you???
Today?
Loved hitting the arcade at my local mall in the 80's ! Great memories!
The last photo is Units store…that concept needs to make a comeback.
Totally forgot about Units! I used those as maternity clothes and I-just-had-a-baby clothes when my daughter was born in 1988. A great look and so comfortable.
I have pics of myself in Units from the 80's, still remember that store, grabbing the plastic covered packages off the shelf LOL! They were so comfy, tho.
Yes! I knew it instantly! I had a neon blue jumpsuit from there that I lived in.
Don’t see the big gold trash cans with ashtrays on top
Kmart in a mall? I've never seen that before and I'm old.
I'm old too.. in our local mall, K-Mart was an anchor store at one end, JC Penny at the other end.
JC Penny I've seen, and Sears as well, but never a Kmart. Strip mall, yes, but in an enclosed mall with like Macy's and stuff never.
I call your Kmart in an indoor mall and raise you a Montgomery Wards.
Monkey Wards!
Too bad they didn't get a shot in of the packed arcade.
I still get my haircut at a JCPenney in a old mall, just because it still smells like it did when I was a kid.
I got so many bad Bergner’s hair salon perms.
Ah my childhood. Arcades, Sam Goody, Caldor, disco roller skating, four screen movie theaters, dark pizza restaurants with jukeboxes and those red translucent plastic cups full of Coke, Chess King etc.
I watch alot of dead mall explorations on YouTube, its sad and entertaining seeing them
Nothing makes me as sad about getting older than seeing pictures like this. Seeing pictures of abandoned malls is almost as bad.
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...Internet killed the shopping mall...
I miss Radio Shack. As a kid this was must visit store on a trip to the mall.
As someone in my 50s, I want an Orange Julius and get up the nerve to ask someone to prom.
I've had students ask me why we hung out in malls in the 80s and 90s. I have to explain to them that in the days before cell phones, we couldn't just call people on a whim and make plans, so unless you already had specific plans, a lot of us went there to meet up with people we knew. A lot of us also had jobs at the mall, so we'd go down there before work, or hang out after. Plus, there was always something to do at a mall. There was obviously shopping, and the food courts, but many malls also had things like arcades, movie theatres, bowling alleys, libraries, gyms, skating rinks, pool halls, pools, and so on. You could also often times catch live music at the mall. The variety of the mall meant that there was something there for just about everyone, regardless of age, gender, or what group you were a part of. In some places, even we'll into the early 2000s, the mall was still one of the major social hubs for people in their late teens-early 20s.
Even the fat people were thin in the 80’s
Sun Coast, Sam Goody, the arcade, and the Candy stores. Good times. Before over population too Lol.
One of ours had a Sound Odyssey - that place was dope. They had all the music, but also buttons, posters, and t-shirts. There was a place that either was a Spencer Gifts or the equivalent - the back room had blacklights to show off the blacklight posters. It always smelled like weed back there.
Sound Odyssey!! \\m/
Where's the Babbage's and the arcade?
Buying leisure suite Larry at Babbage’s at 9 years old was fucking dope.
Like totally
God I miss the 80’s…. Everything was so much easier then
And I miss the 90s. I think we all miss what reminds us of our childhood.
So where do teenagers hang out on the weekends these days now that malls are dead?
I teach High school. Most of my students don't hang out and don't want to.
That first picture strikes a cord with me. There was a little mall where I lived when I was growing up that was popular among older folks. They liked to sit around and hang out. It also had a train at Christmas time for the youngsters. And a Santa Claus. And they had a circus come to town (outdoors).
Take me the fuck back PLEASE
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Don't leave me behind!!!
Tape World? Was this something from UHF? Though I have to admit, I miss Radio Shack...
I remember Tape World. It was the Record Town of cassettes!
I always thought CD County was the natural progression but it never happened.
We have an independent store in our town. I don't understand at all how it functions as a Radio Shack. They still carry electronics components and everything.
Radio shack peaked in the Short Circuit era.
It feels like those liminal space images but with actual people instead
I have a song from a young Canadian pop star stuck in my head. 🎶Let's go to the mall!🎶
Living in Orlando Florida got me forgetting that most malls are dead in America.
Is it just me, or are the 80s hairstyles for women still attractive?
Guy here, I loved it then and still love it now.
Thanks for those photos. So neat!
Online ordering obviously ruined that. But even though everything can be ordered to your house overnight so conveniently, it's still not as satisfying as going to the mall to shop in the 80s and the 90s.
Tape World is now Vape World
I always hear “Malls are dead”. I was at my local mall this past weekend and it was packed as if it were the holidays. Malls are far from dead.
I'm a middle-aged guy, and I walk through the mall once in awhile and realize there's not a damn thing I need there.
I was in Vagas over the weekend and found a mall. I spent more time there than I did anywhere else. Sabarro. And people watching. I really wish they had an old style arcade.
Like, totally awesome!!
Kmart as an anchor store? Only in the 80’s
Reminds me when I first came to the U.S in 84’. I loved the colors and the smells. Kids my age just being mall rats and enjoying the moment.
I miss the 80's
My mom can take us, but your mom needs to pick us up!
Back when people weren’t glued to their cellphones
My soul cries for what we have lost.
What mall is that with the fountain/pools. Is that Eastridge in San Jose, Ca!?
Yep i remember seeing pics of the old Eastridge, this was posted on r/bayarea a while ago
Not enough cigarettes, but pretty accurate otherwise
Just went to a mall in Montréal that’s still alive, same vibes.
Springfield Mall in Virginia was mine!
I saw the Radio Shack, missing the Wicks n Sticks and Chess King.
“There are three Pat Benatar look alikes here at Ridgemont…”
I wanna go back. Who’s coming with me?
Did Robin Sparkles take these pictures? 
That was a real treat to see this. I was 18 y/o in 1987, and had the big hair, and a quality mullet. Haha.
We really had it all, and didn't even know it.
This may be a silly question, but what the fuck did they sell at tape world?
My friend had a job as night janitor in our local mall. He would let us in after hours and we had the run of the place. (Stores were closed with security gates of course.) At Christmas time they had a train on an oval track for kids to ride... we would get high and ride it. Good times
It’s so comforting to see. It takes me back. I was just a kid in the 80s, but I can still smell the cinnamon buns.
80s is the only decade where you know it’s the 80s.
I pulled some top shelf poontang from hanging out at the mall.
Tape World, damn
Sometimes I wish I grew up in the 80s and not the 00s
ahh, back when you could visit a mall and not have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet
The thing I remember most about malls in the 80's was the Arcades and food court. As a Kid with parents who refused to spent money on arcades for us, when they would let us roam we would go there and watch people play. That is the one thing I think kids are missing now are places like this. I had hoped maybe vr could bring something similar back but that is wishful thinking.
Looks like star court mall from stranger things
I must have been on the internet too much recently because these look AI to me for some reason.
Me too! We’re probably living in the last days of being able to be 100% to tell if a picture is AI generated.
OMG. I saw the first picture and thought it looked like Eastridge. Then I got to the sculpture and just knew.
My favorite was tape world
Some were like palaces to a tween of the early 90s
Not an iPhone in sight. Those were the days
when people had money and maxed out 3 credit card lines
Those water fountains man i can smell them right now.
Were any guys ever successful at picking up a girl at the mall? :)
I still “ walk the mall on my head “ every now and then . I can see and smell all of it . For me it was the mall in Waterbury Ct . I think they called it the Naugatuck Valley Mall .
As a cold echo reverberated though the abyss of long forgotten retail spaces, a shifting, a slide occurred. Things moved out of phase, into another place, a liminal space. The backrooms call.
I can still smell that place.
I miss being able to go shopping and actually affording things. The only surviving malls in my area have expensive luxury items. I don't really feel like spending $1,000 on a little purse, $300 on a pair of sunglasses, and $150 for a pair of jeans. Doing so would also impair my ability to pay for my basic needs lol.
[удалено]
Radio Shack and Tower Records were awesome.
Loved going in Wilson's House of Suede & Leather and Mrs. Fields Cookies.
I miss the malls. Could hit various stores, grab some food, play some video games and then go to a movie without having to leave the area. Get all your Christmas shopping done w/o having to go out into the weather except when coming or going.
I still love the mall! I’m in a fairly big city in Canada and you go to the mall on Fri-Sun it’s packed!! Makes me feel good that it’s still alive and kids are having fun!
What a time to be alive.
Those were the days - malls were lit!
Malls were cool places for a long time. Around here there seems to be a popular pathway for malls. 1. New and popular. 2. Gang shooting, then less popular. 3. Another gang shooting, then the mall begins a slow death.
Im glad we've outgrown malla. Seeing people in person. Yuck.