#dead retail

[deadmallantioch]

A local place I really really want to go explore. It is an old mall that turned into a church and now is abandoned.

[radwolf76]

I know I've told the story here before, but I actually found the Netflix promotional shirt I wore to work an after-hours Blockbuster store inventory back in 2000

So, as the story goes, at my Blockbuster, when you worked the after-midnight store inventory shift, you weren't required to wear the blue polo shirt and khakis, but could instead wear your "street clothes".

I don't even remember where I got this promotional shirt from or how (probably something to do with being terminally online since fall of 1994), but I thought it'd be a funny thing to wear while working my shift at Blockbuster.

Now at the time, they hadn't even stated their streaming service, they were just the DVD-Rental-by-Mail website. But when the neon open sign clicked off, and we'd shooed out the last customer so we could start unrolling the extension cables for the barcode scanners, the Store Manager noticed my shirt and asked me "Netflix.com? What's that?"

I laughed a little, and replied, "They'll be the death of this company." Because even back then, I knew. She said "Oh, ok," shrugged, and put the register terminals into inventory mode.

Soon after that, I got hired for a different job, the first few years of which had a decent amount of manual labor and a loose dress code, so I ended up continuing to wear the Netflix promo shirt there as well. Then I transferred to a different position with the same employer, where I had to start dressing a bit more professionally, and so this shirt sat in the bottom of my work locker for two decades until I found it again last week.

It was kind of yellowed from sweat that hadn't been washed in that long of a time span and had a nasty rust stain along the bottom hem that I'm pretty sure came from the job and not from sitting in the locker, but after washing it, I could at least get a photo of the logo for y'all. And then, knowing what to look for, I found a better image of someone else's promotional shirt. Apparently someone sold one on Etsy for $50.

[deadnancystuff]

Ames receipt. 2001.

Dead retailer but at least from this century’s.

[magicalannapanda]

The Loneliest Little Xmas Tree: A Dead Mall Holiday Special

[anarcho-ricciardo-moved]

Yorktown Center, Lombard, Illinois. August 27, 2019

[visualbasic]

c h a r l e s t o w n e (the end)

[sidetable-drawer]

Some photos of Swansea Mall - Swansea, MA taken today (5/5/17). Not a dead mall, but certainly a dying one.

The one-story mall opened in 1975 with Sears and Edgar Department Stores as its’ anchors and also had a 4-screen movie theater. The mall had a major expansion in 1980 and added two more anchors- Apex and Caldor. The mall closed for a little while in 1989 while it underwent a major interior renovation; the new lighting and floor tiling put in during the renovation has remained ever since and can be seen in these photos (unfortunately there are no photos online of the mall pre-renovation...or any time before 2005). When it re-opened, the movie theater was gone and Edgar’s had become a Jordan Marsh following the former chain going under. In 1996, Jordan Marsh had been sold to Macy’s and Macy’s has been operating in the mall since then. A food court was added sometime around 1997-1998. Caldor closed in 1999 following the chain’s bankruptcy (it also had to close for a year in 1997 at the mall due to renovation following damage from a fire). The space remained vacant until 2001 when Walmart moved into the space. Apex closed in 2001; the store has since been walled-off from the mall and has been deteriorating for the past sixteen years. Walmart was expanded into a Super Walmart and moved into it’s own building in the mall’s parking lot in 2013; the store’s space in the mall was demolished and in it’s place is a wall with doors leading to the parking lot. Sears closed their doors in March 2017.

The mall really thrived from the 1970s to the 1980s. It’s first major blow came in 1989 when the three-story Emerald Square opened up in North Attleboro. At this point, most of the mall’s original stores were beginning to vacate, though new stores came in quickly. When Caldor closed in 1999, along with the opening of Providence Place in Providence, RI, the mall began to lose more stores. Walmart’s opening in 2001 seemed to breathe some new life into the mall, but competition from both Providence Place and Emerald Square was still hurting it through the 2000s. The recession hitting in the late 2000s and more people preferring to shop online hit the mall the hardest. With only one anchor, no major chains moving in since the early 2000s, a bare bones food court (you know it’s bad when a Dunkin’ Donuts closes in New England) and more and more stores closing, the mall’s been dying and at this rate, I highly doubt it’ll make it to 2020. A real shame; it’s a nice, small mall that brings back a lot of memories.

Photos:

Top left - Empty strip of stores (Spencer’s can be reflected in one window; notably one of the only stores that opened in the 1980 addition that’s still open)

Top right - Empty strip of stores

Second row, left - Former Apex; now a wall. Almost all the stores leading to it are vacant with the exception of a children's’ gym.

Second row, right - Food court; pretty dead

Third row - Empty f.ye. (formally Midland Records when the mall opened in the ‘70s). Closed early this year.

Bottom left - Former Sears

Bottom right - Former Sears, exterior.

[patgavin]

Owings Mills Mall 1/22/17