DEAD MALL SERIES : Tri-State Mall : Claymont, Delaware (DEMOLISHED)
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- Опубликовано: 28 апр 2015
- Dead Mall Series Playlist : • Dead Mall Series
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Attention! Completely remastered episodes of the Dead Mall Series are now being archived in 4K at ruclips.net/channel/UCfCM_TfrSDMkkMpKuLNWuXA. The remasters have gone through an extensive AI Enhancement process as well as proper sound mixing and colorization. This Dead Mall Series Remastered project has been made possible through viewer support on Patreon. Go over now and watch in glorious 4K. ENJOY!
Dan you did an excellent job narrating this video! Would you consider doing an update on the Tri-State Mall? They are forcing the last remaining lower shops to move out. I also heard that part of Concord Mall will be demolished and replaced with apartments but I haven't confirmed that. Are you still making videos? Today is May 9th 2022
26 June, '23 most of Tri-State mall has been bulldozed. Can you do an updated video please?
@@roastbeefsandwich6769 Ive been doing updates on the tristate mall for the past couple years and will be posting a new update tomorrow. Its been boarded up for years but have a plan to rebuild a strip mall. Im a local who grew up going there so I look forward to seeing what they do with it.
@@roastbeefsandwich6769Heres my last update on the tri state mall. New one dropping tomorow. ruclips.net/video/jWoau9LGktA/видео.html
I like how the entrance just says "mall". It's like they were never even trying...
Beth G. Right😂😂
Yeah I thought that was lame.
Lol, I think that's because of the other stores around it. It was a shopping center that had a mall in it.
its like having a toilet. saying 'take a shit',
It's the generic version of "the mall"
" one of the bleakest and most unappealing malls weve been to "
cut to the front entrance sign which just reads "Mall".
Priceless.
Hi there Dan! My name's Phil and I was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. Lived there from 1983-2004. What I can tell you from my experiences at Tri State Mall are that the restaurant inside that you thought was a Wendy's was not. However, on the way out of the mall, directly next door on the other side of the big wall used for advertising banners and signs, THAT was where a Wendy's restaurant used to stand.
The restaurant that was inside Tri State Mall I believe used to be called the 'Yum Yum Bar' and it served mostly burgers, hot dogs, and I think sodas but that was it.
Movies! I remember a few that I first saw at that theater, I believe it originally had 5 screens only. Movies I distinctly remember seeing there included 1991's Suburban Commando starring Hulk Hogan and Christopher Lloyd, 1993's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, and 1994's The Mask starring Jim Carrey. They converted it into a comedy club lounge and then sometime after 2004 or 2005 the lounge went under.
I remember Value City, prior to it being Value City, but I just can't for the life of me remember the store it was originally before Value City took over. I do however remember the original store having a great toy section when I was a kid. My parents used to get me a ton of cars from the cartoon M.A.S.K.!
Also, I remember getting a Philadelphia Eagles jacket at a sports themed shop there shortly after my Bar Mitzvah in the winter of 1996.
Finally, one place still remains there...the barber shop where I'd get my hair cut when I was little. There were two people there I remember, Al and Yvonne. Back in 2010, I went back home to Wilmington to visit some old stomping grounds and decided to go inside Tri State Mall. I was shocked to discover that Al still worked there! He was just closing up the place as I walked in, I didn't get a chance to say hi to him, but watched him leave. He appeared to still be driving a small sports coupe that came right out of the 80s!
Anyway, there's my memories for you! Thanks for the video!
MrFlix1983 Haha. Awesome stories, man! I bet Al is still the barber there.
+This is Dan Bell. hey Dan bell great video did this place used to have a j.c penny ?
According to Wikipedia it was a dry goods store
happymemories holy crap our Kmart used to have a diner so did our sears and our walcoos
happymemories Jesus Christ it was a Canadian department store we had one here from the 1960,s to mid 1990s when Walmart bought them out damn !
Can you imagine working at Mias Depot??..you must literally go out of your mind. A dead mall and you're one of the few things opened. It must feel like the Shining, a bit..reality starts playing with you..good grief.
+Jenna X This is hands down the worst mall I visited. Absolutely dreadful place.
+Jenna X Well put, and it looked like an older gentleman working, if he isnt into cellphones or laptop usage he may only have a newspaper to keep him company.
+This is Dan Bell. I have a idea for a mall you could visit it's the cleafield mall it located in clearfield Pennsylvania it's a really dead place although it's still open
+Smileyattack Been there many times & man is it small. They use to have National Record Mart.
My dad was a store owner of rug and decor, he made some business and now he lost it. He's trying to feed my family and trying to find another place too open. He used to own the restaurant but he shut it down because that was getting any business(before the mall died). The store with the grand opening was basically a Storage for my dad so he can let the customer take stuff out
This is Dan Bell: thanks for posting. Back in the 70's when I was a boy, my Mom used to take me and my brothers to what was then a department store called Wilmington Dry Goods. I remember I got a T-shirt there with Mick Jagger's face on it. When "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" came out me and my Dad saw it at the movie theater there. They used to have a bookstore there too and when I was looking for reading material for my flight to visit my brother in Fla. I bought "No One Gets Out Alive" (Jim Morrison biography). Like a lot of things Tri State Mall had seen better days. Cheers!
You were saying this mall is depressing... All your "Dead Mall" videos are depressing!!! And for some reason I sit and watch them!!! Help!!!
BossaNossa1 Dan must take Wellbutrin or Paxil to handle doing these.
Yeah, I guess we all must suffer from some kind of depression. XD
Depressing? To me this is like time travel, quite opposite from depressing.
me too!
I was just there on Black Friday...not to shop for deals, but to buy a something from that cheap beauty supply place inside. Driving up, I sensed something wasn't right. There were only 6 cars, literally, parked in front of the main mall entrance. I decided to go in thru Burlington Coat Factory to access the mall and to my surprise, or maybe not, the entrance to the mall was closed (gate down). Peering inside the mall, nothing was open anymore. Everything gone, shut down. Odd thing is, the front doors to the mall were open and I watched several other people park, go in, and only seconds later come out baffled. Why are the doors unlocked if there are no stores inside to shop at? Why no formal announcement of it closing? No news articles or anything.
+Organized Chaos Seriously? No stores? I need to get up there asap.
+This is Dan Bell. I never did go in thru the main entrance that day, but from my vantage point inside Burlington Coat Factory, every store was closed. I live literally 5 mins away across the Pa border. I'll go check it out again some time this week and let you know what I see for sure.
+Organized Chaos I just checked online to see that the barber shop inside has closed. If the mall entrance at Burlington is closed, most likely the entire mall has cleared out. Not surprised at all. Worst mall I’ve ever been to.
+This is Dan Bell. Lmaooo...we should have been saying "mall" (with quotes) all this time as it barely has any semblance of a real one. Ahh, it had it's glory days tho. I did find a recent article today that didn't mention it closing, but said it MAY be slated for a redevelopment project. They are trying to revitalize the town of Claymont as a whole...
+Organized Chaos Ah ha. Redevelopment. It needs it!!!
The sad part of the businesses that are left, they were probably offered a reduced rent with the assurance that the mall was coming back to life, but they would need to sign a long lease to keep that rent amount. These aren't corporate stores, they are mom and pop shops, that can do one of 2 things. Ride out the lease with hopes that they can hang on, or they can claim bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is the only way they will get out of their lease. Some will have to ride it out because they have other shops in better areas that do make a profit. Bankruptcy can't be done on just one location of a company. Some of the shops that are closed may be still paying the rent, but it's cheaper to pay the rent and not have the overhead of electricity, product, employees and insurance.
Some of those businesses must be lucky to get 1 customer a day.
Back in the day the day the Orange Bowl would do $1250.00 per day when Wilmington Dry Goods would have their "dollar day" sales. Do the math idiot.
When I was very little kid my dad took me to see Star Wars in that movie theater.
+Helium Road Do you remember the Merry House? The bar right next to it?
Joshua Sherwin Afraid not. Haven't been anywhere near it in a very long time.
+Helium Road My parents took me there to see star wars also,I remember there was a line we waited in....did not see many movies there but I guess we must be around same age.I never liked that "mall"
Hahaha...I used to sneak in there and play their arcade games. They had Super Pacman. Loved it.
I saw Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark there. The memories.
These 70s malls are so claustrophobic and tomb-like.
Not the Wendy's, Wendy's was outside on the side of the building. The restaurant inside was called the Yum Yum Bar. Grew up going to that mall, so sad to see it go. The $1.50 movies were the best. Accessible to everyone by the bus. Use to be a great mall.
Charmaine Gray awesome they had great bookstore it was nice mall I used to love coming here myself
Yes Value City was here, before that Dry Goods
It’s was Dry Goods then value city and then something else after that I believe
For as long as I can remember(late 80s) that place that looks like a former Wendy's was an independent
food place called the Yum-Yum Bar that mostly just sold hot dogs and buckets of fries.
Throughout most of or perhaps all of the 90s, the movie theater was operational. The green door in the video was an additional screening room. Across the hall from that door was a smoky bar that I remember being allowed to walk in to play arcade games.
Not featured in the video is the small outdoor mall strip that is mostly full of businesses and counts as part of the mall, although that areas is not particularly joyful with its discount grocery store, liquor store and Dollar General.
This area is where the Wendy's was located. There was a full sized restaurant in this area of the parking lot, but you'd never know since it's been completely torn down.
I'd swear that the jewely place in the center of the mall has been there since before life began on Earth.
I grew up with the Tri-State Mall. Village Records, Grant's (later Grant's City, where the K-Mart was), the Hong Kong Shop...Saw Star Wars there no fewer than 20 times that summer of 1977. The Orange Bowl, pizza with its volcanic sauce and molten cheese that would slip off in one bite, slapping hot cheese all over the uninitiated eater's chin. Usually, the pizza-eater's mother was frantically trying to wrest napkins from the overstuffed holder - and failing - while the kid screamed and teenage staffers quietly slapped each other five under the counter. The annual parking lot carnivals... I wrote a book about growing up in Claymont and the Tri-State Mall plays a prominent role. It's called, "Greentree: Growing Up a Below Average Kid in an Average Town in the Better Than Average Decade of the 1970s." Fond memories of a decade there.
I totally forgot about Grant's! My uncle worked for them, but not at that store. How one forgets. At the movies, my brother and I saw The Blues Brothers and Star Wars. It was the place to go in Claymont at one time.
Where can I find your book ?
Did you write about the prostitution ring that was going on in the back? My mother was one if the girls, back in the 70's.
I worked in the movie theater there in 1986 and '87, and didn't even know until after I left that the mysterious steel door on the outdoor staircase that connected the upper indoor level to the lower strip mall level was a passageway to a brothel advertised in local classifieds as the place where "the elite go to meet." Jesus...anyone have any more info?
@@traviscrawford1629 now hunting rich pedophiles i am down for
I remember coming here as a kid. There was a dollar store right when you walked in (which I believe became a tobacco store eventually), and my dad would hand me and my sisters five bucks each and say go at it while he went to go get his hair cut at Mans World. As crappy as this place was, my dad has been gone since 2015 and I miss the times spent here with him. I really love this series though, and it was cool to see the Tri State Mall on here.
No that was not the Wendy's. Wendys is an entirely separate building in the lower level parking lot. That corner was the yum yum bar
This is true. I remember eating at the YUM YUM BAR as a kid.
I grew up just over the state line in Pennsylvania. The Tri-State Mall was only 10 minutes drive. It opened when I was in 1st grade. It was quite a hub of activity. This mall and the Concord Mall were the only games in town in 1970. There seemed to be ample business for both (there is also a strip mall adjacent to the Tri-State Mall that is still somewhat busy). One of the Original anchor stores was a place called Wilmington Dry Goods. It was a large department store with a lunch counter. I can tell you that this place was super busy with shoppers in the afternoon and theatre goers on the weekend. In the Summer, my friends and I would hitch hike from Pennsylvania to the Tri-State Mall to go to the movie theatre. Good times and fun memories. Although this mall was conveniently located off I-95, by the late 70's it was already dated looking. The Tri-State Mall never substantially renovated and always had a downtrodden appearance especially when compared to the other malls. They definitely lost business to the bigger, nicer Christiana Mall (opened in 1978) just 15 minutes South. In addition, the Granite Run Mall in Media, PA (roughly 20 minutes away) opened in 1974. It too was bigger and in a more attractive area. Granite Run, Concord and Christiana featured bigger, higher-end anchors and they constantly renovated and upgraded their aesthetics.. Tri-State was doomed.
I remember Wilmington Dry Goods! I'd forgotten about it til I read your comment. I lived in Delco and would go to this mall now then in the late 70s just for someplace different to go. I saw a few movies there too.
The Christiana mall is about 30 minutes away with traffic if you take 95. The traffic situation is a disaster at Christiana. That's why I never go there.
The Concord mall on 202 is pretty decent. Haven't been there in a while either though so not sure about traffic. No doubt it's bad. Can't really get away from traffic anymore in the Delaware Valley in general, which is why I don't go a lot of places anymore. Lol. Especially malls.
Some of these malls would be great for recording stuff like The Walking Dead. Free movie sets!
That's a tiny tiny mall, we'd probably call it an Arcade in the UK to make it sound more up market (Arcade as in the traditional meaning of the word, not the place full of erm, Arcade games :D)
***** Agreed although the term mini mall was used colloquially to describe shopping centers like this. Tri-State has 3 anchors (two vacant) and only 23 mostly empty inline spaces. Not much to see or do even when it was fully occupied and that hasn't been the case for decades. The mall is near a lot of public housing which makes reviving this place nearly impossible.
+Larry Bundy Jr Even when it was in it's prime, the best shop apart from K-Mart (for people in the UK, think of a really big, slightly tatty Woolworths or a mega Poundland) and a bookstore where the shelves were all made of steel wire racks. It was never considered a 'real' mall.
I remember going to see Moonraker there and talking to a friend about what to do before the film started. "We'll just spend some time in the shops" he said. "Um, this is the Tri-State Mall, remember?" I said. "Oh," (pause) "What are we going to do till the film starts?" he says. Sigh.
+Larry Bundy Jr I was just randomly looking at these old dead mall videos and here you are. Well Hello you! I see you all over the interweb random videos and even commenting on my Facebook posts. lol
Yes an arcade is an old term even we americans used. We had Reynolds arcade in my home of Rochester NY. It still exists but now the open aisles , it was like a mall in the turn of the 20th century. Now it's all enclosed offices.
I keep finding you on videos I enjoy! XD
Fitting, since I enjoy your videos as well!
its good that people document a time in history...at one time it was the place where lots of people hung out...the music makes it even more creepy like...almost reminds me the end of the shining for some reason...
I love the skylight, it has a lot of 70's charm to it.
When I was a kid growing up in the 70's and 80's this Mall was our playground, from the Movie theater seeing "Star Wars", "Jaws" "Close Encounters", Grease", to the Game Rooms playing "Space Invaders", "Defender", "Star Castle", this mall was the best, so many fabulous memories here, it is sad to see it having come to such an end.
The restaurant reminds me of an old Subway with the yellow tables. Wendy's had tables that looked like old newspapers.
omg! yes I remember them tables!
lincolnlobster:Your right IS old Subway,spot on memory Wendy's DID have old Formica newspaper tabletops.Wendy's were in outlots outside malls.Many malls with food courts HAD Subways there.
Those were the best tables.
It's so depressing and nostalgic at the same time , knowing that one time that place was full of happy people having a family day with their kids and enjoying maybe an ice cream and listening perhaps 90's music with Walkman , CD's and music in there. Now everything is gone.
Makes me weep. Im not going to lie. So many great memories there.
I used to hang out at this mall. The main store was Wilmington dry Goods. We
had village records, Merrie house, the movie Theater, across fro that was a head shop.
dorothy drier I bet it had it’s day. Thanks, Dorothy!
It sure did !
I used to hang at this mall also. I used to live in Claymont.
Oh my goodness!!! I haven’t heard that name is a loooooong time!! The Dry Goods!!!
Im late to the party, but what Dottie says!
😘
so sad to see this place close up. I remember as a kid my mother and I frequently visited the old movie theater seeing Star Wars 3 times in a row, grease, and lots of other classics. I always got my hair cut in the mall, visited the arcade, checked out the fish in the pet shop and always checked out the new horror magazines in the old bookstore next to Kmart. Small places like this a closing everywhere, but to us few they hold big big memories, its a shame the next generation wont be able to experience it.
I find ironic that malls used to be a threat to small businesses and now small businesses are killing malls thanks to the internet.
Yeah Amazon is a real Mom & Pop operation
Amazon itself is not "mom and pop" business, but there are some third party sellers on Amazon that are "mom and pop" businesses.
@@bootblacking In 1996, it was
I was glad to see the place go!
If I recall correctly this was Delaware's first mall and no the Wendy's was located outside the mall in the parking lot between the market and the furniture store.
I have lots of memories of this place as a child.
Saw Trading Places at this mall in 1983 when I was a teenager with friends. We snuck in telling mom we were seeing War Games. We didn't plan it very well as War Games ended before Trading Places and my mom came looking for us. Her timing was flawless. Jamie Lee Curtis topless on the big screen and my mom standing there in the aisle, "Just what do you think you are doing". Memories.
3:16 Man. I just realized it's been a long ass time since I've had a real beefy grilled hotdog with all the fixings. It's 4 AM and I'm hungry now.
Aggrh! My cousin was in that line of dancers! Second line, red shirt. I knew she liked line dancing but wow. I'm quite sure that wasn't the music they were dancing to but I'm amazed at the timing. LOL I'm cracking up and sad at the same time. If she was alive I'd ask her more about it. Messes with my head a little...
I laughed so hard. Why he put that music to it I'll never know. 😆
Sorry to hear about your cousin. Sad memories.
Thank you so much for filming this. I remember going to that movie theater when I was a kid and seeing The Empire Strikes Back. Unfortunately all the malls across the country are closed, closing or being demolished. What I wouldn't do for a time machine. Thank you again.
Grew up going to this mall in the late 70's into the mid 80's. Yes the restaurant was the yum yum bar. In the hallway towards Kmart was a pizza place. The barber shop was always there. There was a jeweler in the center corner. The movie theatre only had two or three screens when I was a kid. Saw Star Wars, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Jerk,Grease, Ghostbusters there just to name a few. There was a pet store near the theatre that had a monkey as a resident in a cage. A record store. Picway shoestore. The Burlington was originally a Wilmington Dry Goods Store. Still talk about the property being rebuilt/repurposed. Hope to see it.
And yes there was an area to the right called the lower level. You could park around there or use steps to access. Dry goods had an escalator and lower level entrance. That was where the Wendy's was located. Separate building in lower level. Silo electronics and Levits furniture stores too. Was a great place to shop in those days
Born and raised in Delaware. I remember going Christmas shopping here once or twice in the 80's but never that often. Just before it really went downhill. I did find a Mean Gene WWF figure in the K-Mart there which is still a great memory. And yes, the Wendy's was in a seperate building in the front parking lot iirc.
THANK YOU!!!! I lived in Claymont for the first decade of my life and I remember this mall very well! It was where I saw Star Wars. The Wendy's was not inside, it was in the parking lot and was the first job I ever had. On the lower side of the mall, where the grocery store there was a small section that had office upstairs. In the late 70's there was a massage parlor in that part and the man arrested had the same name as my mothers husband at the time, but a different middle initial. Her husband didn't go to church, we didn't know about the raid. But EVERYONE in the church suddenly started feeling sorry for my mother. When she found out why she had a big laugh over that one.
The "Wendy's" you keep referring to was actually called The Yum Yum Bar. It was my 1 sister's 1st job. I grew up right down the street from that mall right over the PA state line. We could walk there from our house in about 10-15 mins. There was a Wendy's on the mall property, but that was located in a separate building by the back entrance (coming from Naamans Creek Rd.).
I grew up in Claymont in the 1970s and the Tri-State Mall used to be the only real space to shop. I remember seeing The Empire Strikes Bank on opening day and the line going straight from the back (where the movie theater used to be) outside onto the sidewalk.
Same for Star Wars!!!
Another relic from my childhood. My mom would drag us to the Kmart a lot. There was a Value City we spent a lot of time in before BCF came (after we moved.) I also remember a detached Levitz furniture store in the same lot, I think. I visited this place for nostalgia back in 2012, it was only slightly better. The Wendy's location was a hot dog shop and that went bye-bye at this point, too.
Grew up in the 70's and my cousin and I would ride our bikes from Longview Farms to Tri-State Mall all the time when it first opened. Remember Wilmington Dry Goods as the main store. Remember watching the Blues Brothers a couple of times at the movie theatre there when it first came out. Liked Concord Mall more but a longer bike ride. Great childhood memories from both, though. Thanks for the video.
there's a mall by me that reminds me a lot of this. small place. used to have lots of family run/non-chain stores. the look is SO 80s, like it's never been updated. the plants are dying and every storefront in the mall is closed but a bath and body works. anchors are Walmart, Marshall's, and Ashley furniture (there used to be a Macy's and a circuit city which is usually a Halloween store). Ledgewood Mall in Ledgewood, NJ for anyone who cares.
I was here in 2012 because I used to go to the K-mart. It was surreal.. like I stepped back in time. Almost bought a shirt in Man's world - There was a book store too - it was African american themed, so naturally I left empty handed. I took my friend here once later on, to show him how crazy of a place it was. To our surprise, there was a foreign person's wedding reception going on in one of the hollow stores.
Since then, I've found myself come back here once or twice at times when I was highly stressed out. Only to park in the parking lot, stand around my car, and feel some calmness.
Thanks for this video! I lived in Claymont, Delaware for several years about a decade ago.at the time this mall had already long since been falling apart.I actually got quite a bit of furniture at the Levitt's, and later the value city, as they liquidated their assets over the years. I don't know when the last time it was viable was, but I can attest personally that it looked about the same as doesn't your video at least 15 years ago.
Loved that place in the 70's. Bought my first corn cob pipe there and saw my first R rated movie there, The Blue Lagoon. I was 13. So much for checking IDs.
I had childhood flashbacks when you looked into the old K-Mart!! Those silver checkout lane dividers! I remember climbing all over those things while my mom waited in line to pay.. My mom also said that my very first word ever was "K-Mart"! lolol
hey Dan Bell. According to my Fiance who lived in Delaware for many years that restaurant you were asking about used to be called the "YUM YUM BAR" . awesome video brother. keep it up!
When I first moved out of the city me and my then girlfriend now wife saw that the local bus went to this mall. We got excited and took a ride that lasted about an hour just to get there. When we arrived we both just stared at each other and reluctantly got off the bus and into the mall. So depressing. Love the videos
This is where I saw Star Wars for the first time. I used to shop here occasionally. It was a tatty and down at heel place back in the early '80s.
Love the 80's chic in this one! The one store with the pink walls and orange beams is awesome!!
As depressing as it looks it still has charm.
I loved the movie theater entrance and the black tile columns. Great video!
Grew up going to this mall. There was a Woolworth & movie theater back in the day. There was also a "head" shop that sold drug paraphernalia to druggies before those kind of places became illegal. The Wendy's was in the back parking lot facing the low income housing and was one of the first Wendy's in Delaware. They shut it down a while ago. The restaurants in the mall were generic typical fast food joints
I saw Edward Scissorhands in that theater, I remember thinking to myself how crappy and run down that mall was way back then.
I use to work at the Merrie House Restaurant in the Summer (1978) before going off to school. Great people and food .
When I was little (in the 90s) the place that you said might have been a Wendy's was called the yum yum bar. I recently tried to make it back to this mall just for the yum yum bar, mostly a nostalgia thing. They served hot dogs, hot sausage, fries and sometimes other stuff like chicken sandwiches. The yum yum bar became a kind of a ritual whenever my family and I ventured to DE. Not sure what it was before the yum yum bar though. Cool video, by the way.
Originally it was Hanover Shoes.
I remember Wilmington dry goods, Eric 5 theater, (I used to work there ) a bar called the merrie house! many great old memories!
I've live in the Wilmington area most of my life. Tri-State mall used to be popular. The movie theater was where you went to see the big new movies (I saw Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back there). It wasn't the main placed I shopped (Concord Mall closer), but was nice. Unfortunately, there started to be a crime problem (I recall people were especially concerned about sitting in a darkened theatre), which caused stores to move out, which caused fewer people to go there, which caused more stores to move out, and so on.
That was about 96/97 I think....
I was a dishwasher at the restaurant next to the theater, later the assistant manager at the movie theater and the assistant manager at the Payless in this mall. I also worked one summer at the Kmart.
Just curious of the timeframe you were there? I was also working in the mall.
The movie theater was 1987-88. I painted the theater walls with the white paint shown in the video.
I don't remember it being a wendys, but I do remember it being a little restaurant where we could buy a soda, soft pretzel, chips and a soda for 5 bucks. Even in 1998. This was the place to hang out in those days, all of my friends and I would hang out here after school. Value City was on one side, Kmart on the other. Movies were closed forever.... but it was various shops full of cool shit and a crazy lady who owned a wig shop who would stand out front of her shop and offered to cut and buy our hair for 20 bucks. There was a payless, clothing stores, candy shop, toy store. It's nuts to see how run down its become. I wish I could buy it and rent it for filming- you are absolutely right.
I think I remember this mall. I used to go there sometimes when I lived in Kennett Square. It was smaller than KOP, easier to get to, and sales tax free!
The theater in this mall was one of the first 32 to show Star Wars in 1977.
Empty malls make me want to rev up the Bluesmobile!
This place has got everything!!
I was thinking the same thing.
I hear the new Oldsmobile's are coming in early this year!
Wendy's was in the lower level parking lot. The Yum Yum bar (what you thought may have been a Wendy's) and The Orange Bowl were the two main snack shacks. This was interesting. If you get back there, go take a look at the side of K-mart. It has been held up by supports for years. Also there are the famous "piss steps", a rusted metal stair case to get to the lower level of the mall.
Discovered your content through an 'Ear Biscuit' podcast by Rhett and Link. Although a bit depressing, l love this series. I also notice this is 3 years old but hope you keep this up my man.
Dan, ever since I first discovered your channel, I've been both intrigued and saddened by your Dead Mall Series. In a 30 mile radius of where I lived as a kid, there were probably 8-12 malls, several of them HUGE, all going like gangbusters. Fascinating! I still remember an episode on "Saturday Night Live" where workers from several stores in a mall were standing around discussing the sadness of stores in their mall going out of business. It was both funny and sad at the same time, if you can believe it, but when my own store shut down in its second location in one city (the first was in a mini-mall), and I moved to another city and shut down forever in its second location, all I felt was the sadness. I still have happy/sad dreams of either being in my own store in a familiar place, a strange place---or shutting down for lack of business all over again. Times they are a-changing.
I remember going to the movies there a few times as a kid in the 80s. That place was always depressing to me, especially since I only lived 7 miles from Christiana Mall. They also had a Kiddie World near the lower level before they went out of business.
Wow, I never expected to see this! I was born and raised in Wilmington Delaware and have been to this mall many times growing up and have a lot of good memories there, especially the movie theater. Yes it was small and, compared to other malls, rather pathetic but you know what, I loved it and have nothing but love for it. Man, I saw Terminator 2 there, Twins, Total Recall, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Die Hard 2, RoboCop 2, Toy Soldiers, The Last Boy Scout and countless other movies there. Makes me a little sad to see it now, not so much because of it's current state but because watching it I can see the old ghosts of good days long gone everywhere I look. :-(
Wendys was next to the mall, same parking lot ...my pop was a drinker, next to the movie theater was the merri house, drinks food ,pool tables
2:42 PEOPLE! This is truly a astonishing discovery!
I'm hypnotized by your videos, watching for hours, thank you for your work
This is sad I grew up going to this mall, during the 80's and 90's. It started to fail in the mid to late nineties, by then the movies had shut down, and the main 2 stores Kmart and Value City were starting to fail as businesses. Instead of trying to upgrade or bring new businesses there, they just let it be. This mall really needed a movie theater then, and a Walmart there would've done huge business. I remember begging my grandfather to take me there to see Mr T (who was making an appearance at the mall) it was about 85' LOL. It had the Yum Yum bar there which was a hotdog stand, and the Orange Bowl another mom & pops fast-food spot, City Blue, Sounds of Tri-state, and that huge discount furniture spot right outside of the mall. It was a really viberent mall during it's hay day but for some reason I guess the owner seen no reason for improving, I bet if someone revitalized it, it would do great business again.
Hi, I'm hoping you're still around after a year lol. I'm also from that area and have been to that mall countless times but for the life of me I can't recall the name of the bar that was located just outside the movie theater on the left if you were facing the main entrance? It's driven me crazy for years trying to remember it lol. Thanks, and nice to meet a fellow Delawarian lol.
I just subscribed to your channel. Love the series. I'm 43 and have found mall memories. looking at all this is so damn scary. We won't ever get days like this back again.
used to be great when i was a kid in the 80s cool movies cool bar arcade . sneaker store was awesome . kmart diner . bad section 8 areas around there ruined it
The Hot Dog shop in the mall was never a Wendy's. It had very good dogs and fries at a reasonable price. I brought my kids there many a Saturday afternoon in the 90s. The owners were very nice and strived to run a clean place with good value. Eventually the crowds got too small to continue.
Awww, my mom used to take us there in the 90's too. They also had Centipede and Outrun arcade machines she'd let me play afterwards.
The Wendys was in the lower parking lot where there are still quite a few stores in an attached plaza. I recall seeing Eddie and the Cruisers 2 there in the late 80s...even then it wasnt great..a couple places that sold gold chains, kmart, yum yum bar and a clothing store. From memory a shootung resulted in the evental closure of the theater. I now live 2 miles away and hear it will be redeveloped.
I live in PA so I didnt go here too often, but I always loved that skylight.
As others have said the Wendy's was outside the mall on the side that held the strip mall. It was a stand alone in the lot across from Levits furniture. The restaurant's in the mall were directly across from one another. The Yum yum bar and the Orange bowl. The Yum yum bar had delicious ice cream. I was too young to have gone but I've heard that the original store before Value city was Wilmington dry goods. There used to be a Gordon's Jeweler's and a large wig and Asian beauty store with great prices and tons of cute accessories. Over the years there were a couple of furniture stores, a mattress store, an arcade, a book store, and numerous clothing stores. Mia's depot was there as long as I can remember. The Kmart used to have a decent restaurant in it when I was little.
Used to go to Spencer's in there..lol joke shop/funny items/
When he pointed the camera to that rug store with the Grand Opening sign and said "I don't think they ever had their grand opening" ... lmao
I lived 5 minutes from the mall and went there a lot as a kid. I used to get my hair cut at Men's World. I used to eat at the Orange Bowl all the time. I went to lots of movies at the Eric theater, which turned out was a terrible theater that didn't even have surround sound. The Yum Yum Bar was good as well. We shopped for pretty much everything at the Kmart, and ate a lot at the little restaurant that was in there. The Wendy's you mentioned was actually located behind the mall in the parking lot.
Sadly the place has been completely demolished in the past few weeks and I believe they are building a warehouse distribution center there.
Back in the 70s 80s and early 90s this mall was always filled with stores and people... over 90% of malls are gone now because of the internet and online shopping same as for movie theaters....everything been high-tech past 30 years....part of life that's called change of times
My first job was at that mall, at the old Kmart. I also spent about a year working at a long-since-shuttered kiosk that was next to the barber shop. Then, I worked at the movie theatre, on and off, between 1988 and about 1992.
The video was weird to me because I remember the hundreds of times I looked out from that vantage point, from the front of the theatre, toward the entrance. We often worked 12-hour shifts (like car salesmen, heh), so I was there all the time. The mall was going downhill even in those days, but at least the stores were occupied, and the theatre did well.
It's bizarre that the owners shut it down without telling anyone, and then kept it unlocked.
92-95 was the wild wild west. I'm sure we've seen each other during our time at the mall.
This series will reach is apex when the Mall of America finally closes.
I too would like to explore these dead or abandoned malls. Fascinating stuff, awesome series.
This reminds me of the Mall stage from the game "SILENT HILL 3"
I used to go to this mall in the 1980's. My grandparents both had part-time jobs there after retiring. There was a bookstore my grandfather worked at (not a big known company), and my grandmother worked at the Dry Goods. As for Wendy's, that wasn't there during the time I went to that mall. I saw in a picture it was called Yum Yum Yum or something like that. . .I don't think it was a big name store, and the beverages were in those paper cups with yellow and orange wheat printed on it. I think there used to be a small pet store near the movie theater, but I could be completely wrong about that. I forget what the other anchor stores were because I was too young at the time, but my family and I generally didn't shop there. We normally went to Christiana Mall or Granite Run Mall. Granite Run was my favorite and was very nice when I was young, but at some point it went down hill as well, and I think it finally closed and got demolished.
Some correction: The store that you say was a Wendy’s was actually a restaurant called the Yum-Yum Bar. I worked there for 3+years in high school. We were popular for hot dogs, hot & polish sausages and cheese fries, but also sold some other miscellaneous sandwiches. Straight across from that store was an ice cream shop by same owner. His name was Cyril. The original Yum Yum Bar was actually located diagonal from the corner (two doors down from K-Mart). Then around 1990, the owner bought the corner store and renovated it to create the new, expanded Yum-Yum Bar, and then moved the store over. Thus, that is one renovation that occurred (possible the only one, but it definitely was renovated into the restaurant you see now).The Wendy’s was actually located outside of the mall, in the back parking lot, it’s own separate building; however, it is often said to be a part of the mall since it is is in back parking lot. It is very sad to we that mall in that state. Many, many fond memories of working there!
Donna, if you were there in 92, you served me many a meal, so did Michelle and her mom for that matter! Thanks for the post and great memories.
When I was a kid someone climbed the water tower and added a few lines to the last L in Mall making it “TRI-STATE MALE”.
It was left like that for years. Lol.
Thanks for the memories. I remember seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles there opening day!
I live right up the street from here, they've closed the inside of the mall but there are many other businesses on the other side of the building along with the abandoned Wendy's. People used to skateboard through the mall and grind on those benches.
They held a press conference here recently to discuss the future of the property. They may do a mixed residential/retail space.
The location is super convenient, just off the 95/495 split. They are also tearing down the old textile mills down he street, and building a brand new train station. Claymont is on the way back up. Or, so they hope.
Textile mill? By chance are you confusing the old Phoenix Steel across Newmans rd from the mall?
Soon as I saw the title of the video I though "Phineas and Ferb" lmao
I thought I was the only one...
"In the mall! Up and down the escalators! In the mall! I got a hankering for potater's!"
HAHAHAH!!
same lmao
Same lol
same.
This is crazy to see…I was born in 2000 and live in claymont. It was never busy as a kid but I have seen it completely shut down me and my
Friends and other locals still talk about how sad it was. Now it’s completely gutted and used for storage
sometimes i come back and watch this video, because me and my dad used to go to the kmart a lot in the early 2000's when i was little. i loved going in when it was close to christmas, because we'd get the big tins of popcorn
I remember going in the KMART in the late mid to late 00's and all the merchandise was on the floor and the shelves were empty. They closed years later.
I love it! "No outside food aloud in the movie theater! Thats because they want to sell you overpriced, crappy popcorn!
I used to live in Greentree Apartments about a mile from Tri State Mall until we moved to Virginia in 1983. The store that's Burlington used to be a Wilmington Dry Goods. The restaurant was not a Wendy's. It was a hot dog place back then and still looks like I remember it. Wendy's was in the lower parking lot to the right of the mall. The lower level had some shops, a bar, (I think it was called the Wagon Wheel.) and an A&P supermarket on the right end. There was a record/head shop called Village Records and a bar/restaurant by the movie theater that would let us kids hang out and play pool and long as we kept our mouths shut. Saw a lot of movies there. It was our hangout as kids. Sad to see it in such a bad state of disrepair.
I remember that bar/restaurant from when I was a kid
I've watched several of these and I've come to a conclusion: What killed them was an inability to move and change with the times. "You don't see stores like Men's World anymore" says it. They tried to have good anchor stores but the stores themselves had problems. They went out then, and of course, we got another dead mall. The skylight reminds me of the one at the Swinger's Resort in the Poconos. Speaking of, I LOVE your sense of irony when it comes to music for these videos!
Hi Dan. I rarely comment on videos but had to say I've loved your dead mall series. such fascinating videos, keep it up!
If you're still doing this series, you should come to Minnesota. It's basically the mall capital of America. Not only are there some notable malls like Southdale Center (the first indoor mall ever built), Eden Prairie Center (where they filmed Mallrats), and obviously the Mall of America, but last I checked there are also a gang of dead malls (unfortunately for the dead mall series, Southdale got a shot in the arm recently and seems to be doing alright). I haven't really looked in a while, but you should be able to find some dead malls here.
this is in Wilmington Delaware..they called it the clymount mall..but in Newark Delaware...they have a mall near by..which I used to go all the time when I used to live in Delaware..that the Christiana mall..
I remember buying records at Wilmington Dry Goods. Got a batch of sealed Everly Brothers albums on Cadence for 50 cents each. Took them up to NYC and sold them to the House of Oldies for $4 apiece !
That Man's World looks like it has clothes from the 70's. Seriously, who shops there? People in their 80's? How do they pay their rent?
The little clip of the public access show was cute and funny! It got me movin and groovin! hehe