Not just the arcade...the whole MALL is gone.

[zerodin]

When I was a kid I would go to Springfield Missouri, with my grandmother. Well the town had two malls back then. The older "North Town Mall" on one side of town, and the newer "Battlefield Mall" on the south side. Even when I was a kid the North Town mall was waning but it had always kept at least a few stores up and running, and always had an arcade. Well a few months back I went to Springfield to not only find the arcade is out of commission, but the entire MALL as well. Such a shame...but it's kind of poetic that the arcade was one of the very last things to go. It even outlasted the mall's theater. The only Mall arcade that is left in Springfield was this dinky thing in the Battlefield Mall. Unless that one folded too...what is the point of a Mall without an arcade? It's a crying shame!

[nathanallan]

there aren't any arcades in the malls here, either, and I sure wish there were. I never go unless I absolutely have to. There is one mall in Juarez, though, that has a full-fledged arcade, but it's there and I'm here, so...

[Fort Apocalypse]

The mini-golf places are where all the arcades went (in fact they've been there for many years). I think mall space is just too expensive.

[kroogur]

http://deadmalls.com/

 

Just click on Dead Mall Features on the left and then your state on the map to see what malls in your area died. It's kinda sad

[zerodin]

That IS sad...it's like "Find a Grave" but for your childhood memories...

[Brian D. Deuel]

We had a mall die here also. It was once "North Kent Mall" and had an Aladdin's Castle in it. But now, it's been transformed into a strip mall with a few large anchor stores. There's no longer an actual mall there to walk through anymore, as all of the stores are now using the space.

[Inky]

I have fond memories of JEfferson Square Mall, and "That Game Place". I remember when they got Gauntlet, for the first week they had a sign up saying...

 

"Someone playing? Put in a token and join in.

 

2 people playing? Put in a token and join in.

 

3 people playing? Put in a token and join in.

 

4 people playing? Wait."

 

 

There's now a Menards and Super Wal MArt on site.

[shadow460]

We've had three malls die here in OKC. One, Shepherd Mall, was converted to a government location, and it's housed some large businesses like AOL. Currently it houses several government offices, several lunch places, and a Subway. Outside there are strip shopping centers with the usual fare, meaning that BlockBuster, Radio Shack, and McDonald's are still close by. I've been to the McDonald's near Shepherd Mall recently, but it's probably been a year or so since I've been in the mall itself. Back in the day it had TG&Y, Furr's Cafeteria, Morrow's Nut House, an exotic pet store, and an ice cream shop, among other things.

 

The second, Crossroads Mall, has been overrun by gangs and no name stores. It used to be the mall to go to with fancy decor, Christmas activities, and several high end shops. It had a good sized arcade known as Le Mans. Outside it was surrounded by shops like Best Buy, Toys R Us, and some high end restaurants like Texas Roadhouse and Applebee's.

I haven't been to Crossroads in years. It looked rather trashy the last time I went, and it was pretty dead. I think one of the last things I purchased there is my DVD combo deck or maybe a model car in 2002.

 

Heritage Park was the third. I never went to it while it was "alive". Although you don't have to worry about getting mugged, there's really not much to see there.

 

Also on our endangered list is the fledgling Shawnee Mall, but I guess lack of competition helps out there. Anchored at one time by Wal*Mart and Dillard's, it has seen many changes in tenants and looked vastly different the last time I went there compared to the highly celebrated opening. Shawnee Mall was one of the first malls here to include a movie theater inside.

 

Nowdays if you wanna go to the mall, you go to Penn Square or Quail Springs. You can also go to this outdoor shopping plaza in Midwest City that really reminds me of the malls in San Diego, CA. The outdoor place is anchored by Target and Lowe's, and it has other shops like Starbuck's, Steak and Shake, and Vintage Stock. It's darned huge--you could walk it but you'd probably be better off on a bike or skates.

I was at Penn Square recently, but aside from JCPenney, I didn't look around much. It's been a while since I was at Quail Springs, too.

Edited July 4, 2008 by shadow460

[yuppicide]

Great. Just great. Thanks a freakin lot. I just read your post and then spent the past hour reading about stuff on deadmalls.com website and information on old department stores that went bankrupt. It's now 1am and I need sleep. Some of them bring back memories from my childhood, such as Bradless, Caldor, even Jamesway.

 

PS - That was sarcasm kind of.. I liked reading about that stuff. I looked at some pictures and can still see stuff in my head.

[kroogur]

Great. Just great. Thanks a freakin lot. I just read your post and then spent the past hour reading about stuff on deadmalls.com website and information on old department stores that went bankrupt. It's now 1am and I need sleep. Some of them bring back memories from my childhood, such as Bradless, Caldor, even Jamesway.

 

PS - That was sarcasm kind of.. I liked reading about that stuff. I looked at some pictures and can still see stuff in my head.

 

About the same thing happened to me when i stumbled on that site. I just couldn't quit till i read through the whole thing, it was sad and intriguing all at the same time. On an interesting side note there is a picture of the parking lot at a Caldor's in one of the New York malls i believe that has "something" inside the car looking out the window, the picture even made it to a paranormal site i used to belong to.

[yuppicide]

Awesome! Thanks! I just spent 20 minutes reading/looking through all the NY malls. Pretty freaky.

 

Great. Just great. Thanks a freakin lot. I just read your post and then spent the past hour reading about stuff on deadmalls.com website and information on old department stores that went bankrupt. It's now 1am and I need sleep. Some of them bring back memories from my childhood, such as Bradless, Caldor, even Jamesway.

 

PS - That was sarcasm kind of.. I liked reading about that stuff. I looked at some pictures and can still see stuff in my head.

 

About the same thing happened to me when i stumbled on that site. I just couldn't quit till i read through the whole thing, it was sad and intriguing all at the same time. On an interesting side note there is a picture of the parking lot at a Caldor's in one of the New York malls i believe that has "something" inside the car looking out the window, the picture even made it to a paranormal site i used to belong to.

[yuppicide]

The NY mall pages are nicer.. lots more pictures than NJ.

[+remowilliams]

Some of them bring back memories from my childhood, such as Bradless, Caldor, even Jamesway.

How about Two Guys?

 

Sounds like you me and Telengard should get together and have a toast to the ghosts of the regional past.

[horseboy]

When I was a kid I would go to Springfield Missouri, with my grandmother. Well the town had two malls back then. The older "North Town Mall" on one side of town, and the newer "Battlefield Mall" on the south side. Even when I was a kid the North Town mall was waning but it had always kept at least a few stores up and running, and always had an arcade. Well a few months back I went to Springfield to not only find the arcade is out of commission, but the entire MALL as well. Such a shame...but it's kind of poetic that the arcade was one of the very last things to go. It even outlasted the mall's theater. The only Mall arcade that is left in Springfield was this dinky thing in the Battlefield Mall. Unless that one folded too...what is the point of a Mall without an arcade? It's a crying shame!

 

 

There was just a thread on my childhood arcade that just closed down in the last couple of weeks. It is sad, but you shouldn't worry too much. Mall arcades are too geared towards kids. All driving and gun games. Springfield has something much better than any mall arcade. The 1984 Arcade, a true classic arcade.

[+FujiSkunk]

Remember the mall featured in The Blues Brothers?

 

Actually it was closed even before the movie filmed there, but its history afterward is intriguing.

[Saldo]

Ack....what a site that deadmalls.com is, I too got lost there for about an hour (hope the boss isn't tracking this!). The South Hills Mall and Dutchass Mall in N.Y. were two of the Malls I frequented. I don't remember an arcade in the Dutchass Mall (I'm sure there was one though), then again we didn't go there as frequent as the South Hills Mall. It was away from the general population like the posters state and did pretty good during it's heyday, but South Hills did kill it. Now South Hills had this great arcade called the Dream Machine. There was a full size version on one end and a smaller version on the other end. The full sized version had it all!!! I remember the main section had all the video games then you would go up a few steps to the next level and they had the pinballs all line up. I attended several birthday parties there which were always fun. They also had a promotion every report period if you brought in your report card you would get a token for every A you got on your report card!! There also was a store which I forget the name of that used to sell all of the console carts of the time. Atari, Odyssey 2, Intellivision, and later on Coleco Vision, and NES were all represented. The cool thing was they would let you try out the games before you bought them.