Which Was Your Teenage Mall?

[Gorn Captain]

No discussion of malls is complete without a clip from Dawn of the Dead. "Looks like a… Shopping Center… one of those big, indoor malls!"

I was just about to say something similar. Whenever I see an American mall, I think of zombies.
We didn't have malls here during the 80s, so I'm always linking the two in my head.

[EmergencyIan]

Eastland Mall in Evansville, Indiana.


- Ian

[tllgn]

LLoyd center mall Portland Oregon in the 1970s was a great place,it was remodeled in the mid -eighties ,its still a nice mall,but the magic
of the earlier look is gone,perfect at the time for being a mall rat and Megos in the 70s were in six different stores -Jc penny,Woolworths
meyer & Franks ,JJ Newberry A Store called TOYLAND ,oh i forgot Pay n pak ,if you couldnt find a charactor a one place you could almost
always find it in another here ,also save a buck depending on what store you went to ,was a truly fun place then.Christmas was great
use to get free candy ,and at easter,halloween etc,And there was plenty of coin operated phones to check for coins,i use to spend
the whole day after school and weekends just having fun.if you had a good day with the phone you could buy a mego.

[Donkey Hoatie]

I practically broke out into tears looking at those pics---guess I actually LIVED in "Utopia"----'cause Oxford Valley Mall and Neshaminy Mall were "my" malls. I lived in Holland, PA growing up.

Sure, the Bucks County Mall in Feasterville and a couple local others existed that I had visited---but, to me, they were pretenders to the Oxford/Neshaminy thrones.

Of course I eventually discovered the Franklin Mills Mall, and the sprawling King Of Prussia Mall (apparently having opened about a decade before I was born, and the largest mall in the country)... but they escaped my notice at a younger age.

I went to boarding school near Huntingdon Valley, PA. So, for me it was the Willow Grove Mall (lovingly mentioned a couple of times in The Goldbergs!). It was about a 20 minute bike ride from our dorm, and about as pitch-perfect an 80s mall as there ever was. On the rare occasions we could find someone with a car to take us to Franklin Mills Mall or King of Prussia, we soon learned they weren't worth the extra effort to get there.

When I was at home in the suburbs of Chicago, I spent most of my mall time at Golf Mill in Niles.

[Apositive]

I was raised in a very small town in Olean, New York. We had a mall called the Olean Center Mall. There was a cinema, bookstore, Baskin Robbins, CVS, Hills, National Record Mart, Chess King, other stores and a video arcade. Wasted a lot of time there in the 1980s......

I remember moving to Pittsburgh in college and visiting malls like Century III, Monroeville and South Hills Village......

[huedell]

I went to boarding school near Huntingdon Valley, PA. So, for me it was the Willow Grove Mall (lovingly mentioned a couple of times in The Goldbergs!). It was about a 20 minute bike ride from our dorm, and about as pitch-perfect an 80s mall as there ever was. On the rare occasions we could find someone with a car to take us to Franklin Mills Mall or King of Prussia, we soon learned they weren't worth the extra effort to get there.

I have vague memories of making it out to the Willow Grove Mall back in the day, but nothing specific.

Thanks for shaking another bit of nostalgia in my brain there, though, and its cool to hear that mall was mentioned in QUITE the appropriate show!

[nvmbrsdoom5]

I had several malls I visited quite often during my teen years. My main hangout during the first half of my teen years was River Oaks mall in Calumet City, IL. But the main place I would frequently go to (and still do to this day actually)is SOUTHLAKE MALL in Merrillville, Indiana. When I was younger they had a Kay-Bee Toys as well as a Child's World on the premises. Just across the street was a Toys R Us (which is still there thankfully). The mall also had two or three different music stores including Camelot Music which always had the best selection.
Occasionally I would frequent other malls like FORD CITY MALL in Oak Lawn, IL., or ORLAND SQUARE MALL in Orland Park, IL., but not nearly as often as the ones I mentioned earlier.

[The Bat]

The Maine Mall...in South Portland Maine.