Comments on: Scenes From a 1990 Mall

By: Stassi

Stassi — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:41:30 +0000

i loved seeing the old South Bay Galleria fountain!

I was so mesmerized by that as a kid, and was crushed when they renovated the Galleria and took out the fountain

Great Video
Thanks!

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:22:45 +0000

I remember smoking being allowed in tiny St. Charles Mall, until sometime in the early 90’s, but it was only allowed in the smoking sections, which were by the entrances. By the time I started working at Charlestowne in ‘95 it was banned, although you’d still occasionally see some guy (it was always a guy, usually in his 40’s) smoking as he wandered the mall, getting kicked out of each store and wondering where the hell the ashtrays were. I and most of my coworkers smoked at the time, so we’d just go hide in the back room to do it, and sometimes openly before or after close.

You can tell if a mall hasn’t had a remodel since the early 90’s if the garbage cans have two openings in the top, one of which is narrower than the other. The narrow one was where the ashtray was.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:53:55 +0000

Oh and if I’m nor mistaken one on the parts of the footage shows someone SMOKING, wow this is way before they banned smoking from indoors back when they has smoking and non smoking sections in restaurants. Today, I highly doubt that would be tolerated in a mall.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:50:09 +0000

Wow, excellent footage I remember that decade well, it looks so primitive compared to today.

Nice little snapshot of history, I remember the bad hair and the now looking back bad clothes as well LOL but one heck of a decade it was.

I bet at least half of those malls shown are either gone or highly renovated.

By: RossS

RossS — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:09:19 +0000

I was thinking the South Bay Galleria too. But then, malls back then were so generic, I was thinking it could have been in Florida for all I knew.

@Laura Old Town! I loved that mall. I moved to the South Bay when I was about 15 (it was about ‘73). God that place was fun! I worked at the Music Barn…I don’t know if it was there when you went there. Taco Del Amo had the best bean and cheese burritos!

Ross

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:58:04 +0000

I also thought I recognized the South Bay Galleria – the first one with the neon and exterior escalators and courtyard type thing. However I didn’t hang out at that mall as much as Del Amo and Old Towne so I am not 100% sure. I guess if they’d had the same developers they would have looked alike.

Reminded me of the days when people seemed to have a lot more free time. It was like, “Hey I don’t have anything to do, let’s go to the mall.” I mean, I cannot IMAGINE anyone I know having enough free time to just go to the mall and kill 4 hours for no reason.

That Gap store sure looked lackluster and boring, as was the logo. No wonder I never shopped at the Gap in those days. I guess if I had, I would have picked up some bitchin’ acid washed jeans! Well, all fashion was awful then.

By: JT

JT — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:29:53 +0000

@Jeremy,

I think you’re a bit hard on them for this…I thought it was interesting myself. The mall was actually dull looking, but I liked looking back in time at when I was 10 years old when I was a kid and malls were still fun. At that, there are quite a few malls I don’t like: especially the rarely built overblown ones built after 1995. It’s no wonder “lifestyle centers” are so popular considering the poor management of most malls these days.

As to the dead malls: I am not a dead mall junkie when it comes to malls. If the economy doesn’t improve, a lot of the alive malls we cover won’t be here much longer and I quite frankly enjoy catching them still alive instead of dead and depressing. I’ve even begun posting redevelopment ideas on some of my own posts just to keep struggling malls from dying.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:10:39 +0000

I absolutely loved this. 1990 just doesn’t seem like it should have been that long ago! It perfectly captures the styles and culture of the late 80’s/early 90’s era, when the enclosed mall still had a bright future and very few would have envisioned that ever changing.

What some of us wouldn’t give to see this same type of film clip from 1980 or 1970…or 1965…

By: Longcat Meme

Longcat Meme — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:22:56 +0000

Thank you for this!

People forget, but the 90’s were awesome!

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:03:25 +0000

@Jonah Norason (Pseudo3D); Florists have always been rarities, although Euclid Square Mall had one among its original tenants, as did Beachwood Place (which doesn’t have one now). My guess is that they need cheaper space and easy access for making deliveries (as opposed to the way malls currently are laid out).