My first job was in a mall back in 2003. I used to work in the morning at a bakery and this music used be blasting in the mall before retailers open. It was for the elder mall walkers in the morning. It was that pleasant, that I even saw a elder couple dancing to it together. I miss those days!!
I was in a shopping centre in a small town once in 2003 or nearsbouts. There was an old lady without any underwear on. I wonder what happened to her and why she was doing that.
I don't - my memories of going to malls are more an more stores being closed. I used to go to Gymboree as a kid and sit on the kid stools and watch TV while my mom shopped. I remember the gumballs in the machines, the clothes shops. But when I think of malls, so many shops in my mind are empty with barred doors.
Early June, 1972. A clear, sunny, blue-sky day. Although it’s only nine A.M., it’s very warm already and the outside temps hint at the scorcher that today will later prove to be. You step outside the door of your mid-century suburban ranch-style home. You’ve lived here since the subdivision was new; you both moved here when you’d only been married for a couple of years. Before the kids came along. You close the door behind you, and without locking it, you walk toward your Ford Galaxie 500. It’s a newer model, and though you told Eddie that you were fine with driving the old one, it’s his habit to buy a new Ford every couple of years. As you reach the car, the warm humid air fills your nostrils and you smell the mingled odors of moist earth and fresh-cut grass, the signature of a suburban lawnscape. You hear the whir of a lawn mower, and turn to wave at Joe Harrington, your across-the-street neighbor four doors down. Joe’s a good neighbor. He and Minnie moved here around the same time that you did. Your kids are the same age as theirs, are in the same classes together at school. Eddie Jr. and Mike Harrington are on the same Little League team. You back out of the driveway and steer your car through the winding streets of your neighborhood. Modest but immaculate houses, familiar to you as the homes of friends, acquaintances, and some of Eddie’s co-workers, line the quiet streets. They won’t be quiet for long. The kids are still in school. They only have a couple of days left to go, ‘til the end of this first week of the month. From their first day of freedom until they return to school just after Labor Day, their shouts, laughter and games will fill the neighborhood streets from early in the morning until just after dark, when they’ll reluctantly head home one by one as each responds to their mother’s calling of their name from their front yard many blocks away. This morning though, you are going to the mall. Your car smoothly skims the surface of each street as you head toward the main entrance to your neighborhood. Red Leaf Lane, then right on Poplar Hill Road. Sunlight sparkles on water droplets left by lawn sprinklers on blades of dark green grass. You exit Forest Manor Hills and turn left onto Miller Parkway. The mall sign is about a mile up, on the right. For a long time, the large white starburst shaped sign for Manor Mall was the only landmark in a wide sea of old farmhouses, fields and wooded areas. That’s all changed in the last ten years. But the sign still dominates the newer landscape of service stations, the entries to since-built subdivisions, diners, and numerous smaller shopping centers filled with small businesses. You swing the Galaxie into the parking lot, and pull into a spot close to the mall’s main entrance. As it’s early, you have your pick of parking spaces. By mid-afternoon, the lot (and the mall) will be full. But you, along with more than a few of the other area housewives, enjoy taking advantage of this time of day when the mall is just opening, to enjoy some quiet shopping and to get some errands done. You exit the car, sunglasses in place against the asphalt glare. The sunshine reflects off the crisp white and yellow sundress you’re wearing, you bought it at Garson’s, the department store here at Manor Mall. You enter the mall. As the doors close behind you, you are enveloped in its cool, dim and welcoming embrace. You remove your sunglasses. The filtered daylight streams through the mall skylights and falls upon the indoor gardens of green tropical plants suited specifically to this environment. The stores are just opening. Shop clerks are still rolling up the gates or unlocking the glass doors of their establishments. There is a an echoing quietness, filled with a distant music. You move to this wavering music, as you and your fellow few early mall customers glide along serene pathways into the shops to pursue your purchases. Milton’s Menswear, your first stop. Eddie needs some new handkerchiefs. Mr. Harlow greets you by name as you enter the store. A neighbor of yours, he’s worked at Milton’s since before the mall opened. He started at the old downtown Milton’s store. He purchased a home near you, and has raised his two kids while working this job; his wife Edith was able to stay home with the kids while they were in school. After Mr. Harlow helps you select some new handkerchiefs from the store’s variety, you exit into the mall and head to your next stop. Along the way, you cross paths with other shoppers, some of whom you know. Madge, who’s daughter Monica goes to school with your little Rosemary, greets you, and you chat for awhile. Would you and Eddie like to join her and Bill for bridge on Saturday night? Madge knows of a good babysitter if Jenny, the teenage sitter you usually use, isn’t available. The echoes of the music surround you as you make your bridge date with Madge and you both part ways. Your next stop is Dalton’s Toys. They’re a chain of toy stores in your area that’s been expanding into most of the new malls. Rosemary’s birthday is next week and there’s one particular toy she’s been asking about. You hope to find it here today... ...And so it goes...the mall slowly begins to fill with other shoppers as you go into and out of the stores. The large department stores that will be there forever, the smaller local shops that have moved their businesses here in addition to (or instead of) their downtown shops. They’re surviving or even thriving in their new homes. Then there’s the newer store chains that have sprung up and are now found in every new mall--and there are so many of them!-- being built. And above it all, the music. The music that is only heard at the mall, nowhere else, not like this. It is the mind and heart of the mall, its very voice. And you are like a child in the womb, hearing its mother’s heartbeat, while taken in by the mall and given sustenance, before being delivered again into the world outside. But you know that you can re-enter at any time, and it will take you back, and give you what you are looking for, to support you in any way it can to meet the many needs that are found in your suburban dream. You prepare to leave. You don your sunglasses to face the glare of asphalt and sun. Post-delivery from the mall, you plan on going to Setzer’s, the local butcher shop. Marty & Mary run the store, they always put aside the cuts of meat that they know you’ll be in for every Thursday. The last thing you hear as the doors close behind you, is some distant, shimmering sounds. The music. Did you catch a strain of “I’ll Be Seeing You” ? You will be back, you’ll always be able to go back. It’s been like this for such a long time now. And it always will be.
Wow, this is one of the most beautiful comments I've ever read. Thank you for sharing this. I was born decades after the '70s ended, but I have been fascinated with it for years. The music, the clothing, the designs - _everything._ I love how everything was so intimate back then; more personal. Maybe it's the 1+ year of solitude thanks to the pandemic talking, but I'm beginning to miss talking to people all the time. Back then I would have non-stop conversations with friends, teachers, and anyone, really. We'd chat about their days, what's going on in their lives, or anything. And I thrived off of it; it gave me the fuel I needed to keep going on. Hearing your story and how the protagonist knows all the shop owners and sets up little bridge dates makes me feel so good inside. I hope one day I can have that.
@@orangeblossom1340 I think that in a post-Covid world we will see a resurgence of things we once took for granted. Restaurants will spill out the doors, airplanes will fill the skies, schools will be packed full of students, and we'll complain about how packed the mall is and how we can't find a parking space. Man, I miss all of this so much!
There is a reason malls did so well back then. There was more culture, and therefore had stores that don't exist today. Greeting card shops. Book stores. Record stores. Tailors.
Oddly enough I can remember when people were nostalgic for the old high street/main street shops, and thought malls were a soul-less modern substitute for 'real' shopping.
Take me back to 1981 Highland Mall in Austin, sweet memories of arcades, cafeterias, toy shops, clothing stores and candy shops. It’s my “happy place” in my mind during stressful days. Thank you for this music. 👍👍
Highland Mall is still alive in spirit! Austin Community College uses the building now, so it turned into a beautiful school while preserving that bit of Austin history. I took classes at the old Highland Mall, and the ghosts of the past still linger.
AbigailLilac yep I visited a few times. The old Foley’s building and a small section remain in terms of being untouched by the construction. I was an ACC graduate in 1995 but my wife is taking courses there now. So nice that ACC could repurpose the mall instead of letting it rot. The old Penney’s building is interesting now, they really fixed it up nicely inside.
my wife and I went there and at the end and it was sad, half the stores closed. I remember going there back in the late 70s before the Killeen Mall opened. It was a big deal to get to go to the mall, sad but it would be a big deal to go today
My childhood mall was Military Circle in Norfolk, VA 1990s & really early 2000s. Beautiful movie theater, bustling crowds, had one of the best frozen yogurt stands I've ever been to, sparkling water fountains and plenty of business. Went all the way downhill sometime after I moved away from the area, and from what I learned, has become a lot more empty and sad, but it'll always have a special place in my heart. :)
When I’m depressed (99% of the time) I play this and it lifts my spirits again. I really miss these days. Just seemed like much simpler times. They will never make anything like this ever again 😔
They were just as complicated then, just think back to the 70s. There was the energy crisis and all the gas problems which occurred then. There was the emergence of global warming into cultural consciousness. The office of the president of the US was shaken by Watergate. And then at the end of the decade there was recession, and a hostage crisis in Iran. And the Soviet Union was still around and pointing missiles every which way. And nuclear war was even more prevalent of an idea in people's minds. People lived with the assumption it'd probably happen eventually. Not to mention the 70s were given birth to by the 60s, which was full of cultural division around police, and the civil rights movement and the emergence of hippies (all of which are old people now, and are mostly karens). The difference between now and then is people are getting hit a little harder in the wallet, and people are becoming conscious of who put them in that situation.
Depression is a decision you make every day,been there too I was an alcoholic for almost 2 years when my mother passed away,but found the LORD as and everything went away,hope you take the next step to get out of it,every morning you decide what kind of day you will have choose happiness,blessings bro.
i miss the design of older malls/buildings. i prefer warm lighting, earth tones, and dark brick and wood over white and grey everything, sharp edges, and blinding lights that honestly just feel overstimulating and uncomfortable. i’d go to the mall more often to walk around and relax if the ones near me didn’t feel like prisons or overwhelming modern art museums. maybe it’s just me but i don’t get it when people call things ‘outdated’. who decides that? all i can think when i look at 70s/80s design is “wow that’s gorgeous”. edit: i get that the point of the unfriendly design is to get you to leave if you’re not buying anything but as a young adult who pretty much had no access to any ‘third places’ as a teen and who’s feeling the mental effects of the lack of them in my current life, i simply don’t care. honestly i might even end up buying more if stepping foot in a mall didn’t hurt my eyes and make me feel exhausted.
Fun Fact : The orginal owner of the shopping malls, an Austrian fella, intended for them to be the centers of new towns - kinda like how some Ye Olde Towns Sprang up around Ports, Factories, Rivers etc. They were supposed to be like the Greek Malls of Old, where Intelectuals could gather and discuss politics and culture and whatnot. And then US Companies jumped on the idea, seeing how profitable that could be, and made massive bricks surrounded by miles of parking lots and filled with cheap burger stores. On his death bed in 1959 the guy said something like ,,some people say i'm the Father of the Shopping Mall. Well I disown it - it's the worst thing i've ever made, theese bastards ruined our cities". I think it's best he didn't live for another few decades if he thought 1950's shopping malls were ugly.
@@lordofthestings Quick few reminders : In 1972 there was no internet In 1972 the country was burning down In 1972 the 2 Major Parties in the USA were on fire, one becouse they nominated some peacenick hippe and the other becouse their Leader wanted to win the eleciton through Blackmail and terror. Quick reminder that it's the USA and not fucking Venezuela. In 1972 the EPA was still in its infancy so all the rivers were hella polluted In 1972 half of the World was under the rule of man-eating communist regimes In 1972 Africa was even more fucked than now (EKHM EKHM Rhodesia and EKHM EKHM South Africa) In 1972 people still thought Lobotomy was a legit okay medical procedure In 1972 thousands of Young Americans and Vietnameese were dying every day durring the 'nam War and so on and so forth
Man, so many malls these days just look and feel both cold and sterile, compared to malls back in the day. I remember talking to Unicomm Productions on one of their vids about the "Simonization" of malls, turning many from the unique, sometimes invitingly-warm or vibrant look and design, and just making it feel generic with so many shades of white and grey. It makes malls not feel as enjoyable or exciting of a place to shop at.
Totally agree- Malls today just seem to have lost their soul...kinda sad. But hey, this music which I dismissed so much as a teen in the early/mid-70's, now has me reflecting back and thinking, hey, great atmosphere music, especially with the reverb!
What's even sadder is when people want that cold and sterile look in their homes. It's depressing is what it is. Give me the yellow corduroy sofas, the brown shag carpet, and the green curtains of my youth! 😄 So cozy and warm.
You got to like those 1970's mall designs. You might laugh at that now, but it worked. Malls were packed backed then. Maybe a major mall should go totally retro, and remodel it to an exact 1970's style. I'm thinking that might just work, and a mall to do that will be packed with shoppers wanting to experience that. I can't say why the pictures above are empty of shoppers, but that's easy to do if the photographer came in very early on a weekday morning and started snapping pictures.
I think you’re right about bringing back the’70s malls. People these days are craving nostalgia. Whoever went around saying “this mall and that mall need to be updated” were way out of touch, mistakenly assuming remodeling malls would make people want to go there. News flash, people aren’t so excited about “updates”! We like our stuff to be left alone and maintained how it is!
I miss going shopping in department stores and having a professionally dressed, polite employee assist me. They could even gift wrap your purchases for special occasions. Now, if there is an employee anywhere to be found, they're usually dressed in grungy clothes, looking like they just woke up, with dirty, matted hair, sucking on a vape with one hand and bottle of pop in the other. When you ask them for help, they always respond that they're on their break and tell you to talk to a member of management. This world is becoming a dark and seedy place.
This music feels kind of sad because it feels like the world in a way. The reverberation of the music the walls, the reverberation of time going pass you in an instant. When played back. When you try to relive an old memory, it doesn’t feel the same because you’re trying to repeat an old memory, rather then trying to make a new one… thank you for coming to my Ted talk
@@sahirdiesh6386 lmao it’s interesting but sometimes can not be fun, once I panicked in the shopping centre and my mum was literally 2 isles away from me in the dairy section 💀😂
@@sheLovesG things turn out fine now and not everything back then was 'wonderful'. WE tend to pick and choose and if that helps out today, then good. someday someone will find something from 'now" and say how nice or happy their memories were or how we pulled through and made it......
In the past malls used to actually be a place of interest...there was a great diversity of shops that sold everything, there were actual decorations like floor tile mosaic, fish ponds, fountains, sculptures, sitting areas for people to lounge around, and some malls even had little rides like gondola floats or a small roller coaster running through the mall. There were also novelty shops that sold useless but amusing stuff, and all the shops were so well-furnished too. Nowadays malls are just retail space where rental is milked to the maximum, and for the older malls that were revamped, they got rid of all the decorations and lounge spaces and just replaced them with shop lots. Miss the malls of the past, I experienced them as a little kid circa early 2000s ,where there were still many relics from the last century.
Such a wave of haunting yearning inside my heart - i had to lean against the door i was standing next to. A lost and never to return world of bittersweet.😔
I was very small when the my local malls were in their final days. I remember walking hand in hand with my parents, the smell of cinnamon buns and pretzels, the dazzling lights reflecting off the polished floor. I especially remember the holidays. The elaborate displays and the towering christmas tree in the mall's center. Everything was so big and sparkling. I thought that would be the world I'd get to grow up in, to live in. Where did it go?
The malls were already dead by the time of the following memory, post-99, yet, I'd make it fun for my little one, remembering how I enjoyed the malls when they were BIG. One of my coolest memories was buying my then 8-year-old son a remote-controlled helicopter that he promptly flew from the main floor, above and beyond the escalators toward the top of the next floor's ceiling! Such a nice feeling to be able to look up hundreds of feet, while indoors! We'd also ride the bumper cars and play video games in the malls we could still find them in.
attention shoppers the owner of a red Corolla registration aha.616 you left your headlights on,that is a red Corolla aha.616 your headlights are on thank you.
Attention: Parents of a child named Jimmy, please report to the service desk. That's parents of a child named Jimmy, please report to the service desk.
I worked part-time during the holidays at the Enfield, CT mall 20 years ago. It would be crowded and cheerful. My then wife would bring her mom and my then baby daughter shopping and to see Santa. My little Chellabella would be in her stroller and looking up at me with those big beautiful brown eyes. Now the mall only has a small handful of stores, a Target, and a movie theater. I'm divorced now, and my Chelli is a young woman now, not much time for Dad any more. My eyes are so full of tears now, I must stop typing.
The relaxing music to shopping. The mall i work at now has the new music playing. Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, etc etc. So.. to spice things up, i play this music on my Bluetooth speaker when i get customers in my store.
This is eerily beautiful in a way. The emptiness of what was once a hub of prospering business, now seemingly left to the wayside, where only the most successful of stores remain, and the sound of music, not as noticable before, now echoes through a nearly abandoned mall.
I was hired play Santa Claus in the 1989-90 Christmas season, My Little Ponies for the Girls and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for the boys , Genesis and Sega video games were big also. Possibly one of the happiest times of my life. Each shift as I walked in the Grand Teton Mall had this music playing but Christmas themed. The smell of merchandise, cinnamon rolls, kids everywhere, neon video arcades,a time in my life that has not been duplicated since and probably never will again. Happiest of memories..😇
Malls used to be a meeting point to socialize, but since early 2000s, they all became shopping and only shopping places. And thats really why Malls in the USA are nearly extinct, but alive and in full arise in all Latin America.
Remember going on an escalator? Timing the step just right to make sure you didn't mess up and end up stumbling or worse, falling. Once making it on you'd look down and see those bristles and you thought how you were geting your own personal shoe shine as the ends lightly taped inside through your sneakers...yup here's one for the malls
This video reminds me of these reoccurring dreams I have, not the same exactly but definitely the same theme where I'm in the mall, it's usually empty, and sometimes some of the stores are abandoned. And I just keep wandering through. I looked it up in a dream book and it's supposed to be a good omen of things to come. I find them very comforting
A recurring dream is a signal that the meaning of the dream hasn't been properly identified by your consciousness. Therefore, you need to look deeper. I can help. Are there any more details about the dream you are willing to share?
Dude I wish I could go back to franklin mills mall (I refuse to call it Philadelphia mills) before it got redesigned. Business was booming. Plenty of people walking around, the part of the mall with the TV tower, the coloured entrances. It was magical. Now it’s an empty husk with a generic grey and white design. Barely any stores open with most being walled off. There used to be a J.C Penny (or Macy’s not sure) now hid behind a row of vending machines. No people. No stores. Just an empty building essentially. One of the last open buildings in the square. A desolate place. There used to be a Walmart (now relocated), a pathmark, and so much more. Now it’s all gone. My childhood memories now left to be forgotten if I don’t write them down due to most these places being illegal to enter due to trespassing. Only thing left is just that mall and the house I used to live in next to the lot.
Fantastic, beautiful, and truly magnificent mall music. I’m not a nostalgic person by any means(i don’t wanna be in any era than this era i’m living in now), but i still think there’s something so eerie yet so outstanding about hearing this kind of music playing in a way where you feel like you’re walking through a mall in 1970’s and this kind of music is playing. It’s very well orchestrated! It’s fascinating, as a music enthusiast i can never get enough of listening to this.
14:08 begins a photo of the Southdale Shopping Center in Edina MN, which opened in 1956. America's first enclosed mall. The photo is likely from the early to mid sixties. Note the small Northwest Orient Airlines ticket office under the stairs. Was a lovely place to hang out as I was born in 1956 ( just like Southdale) and grew up in Edina. I remember the pond in the foreground well. Life was simple and happy back then.
This legend not only created a brilliant playlist, but also continues to like comments since November 8th, 2019. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the true definition of cultured. Hats off to you, my friend.
Waldenbooks, Hot Sam's, Orange Julius, 1.50 matinee movies on the weekend, LeMans Speedway arcade with a bumper car track in the back, 4 anchor stores and 2 floors of busy shops and a cocktail lounge, magic store, McDonald's, Record Bar records and tapes, etc. Late 70s, early 80s, Lincoln Mall in Mattson, Il.
I remember McCrory's! I used to love going there browsing the perfume/lipglosses. I still remember the layout of the store to this day. It was kinda like Woolworth's.
McCrory's !!!! We had one in Hadley , MA. 70's & 80's... Long gone... Had diner inside with the old spinning stools at the countet. A few old pinball clunkers. Pet Dept on back wall... Used to buy my first 45's there. Johnny Nash... " I Can See Clearly Now" 💘
Since the rise of the great gift-giver traditional shopping is long gone in the dim, unremembered past Now, during the cold season, the greatest gift of all we can treasure is that the gift-giver allows us to live one more year
I can remember it all I was just a kid,my mom would take us by the hand a waltz,btw my mom can dance to anything,so many stores long gone,sad music but happy simultaneously,when life was easy...
There is something about this music that is sad and nostalgic, but also haunting and otherworldly. Imagine if this is the place where our spirits go when we die; that we are doomed to haunt retro-malls in a parallel universe, doomed to walk through the mall forever, never being able to leave it or communicate with the other lost souls around us!
I would pay some major money if you could locate 1970's photos of the interior of Shop City Mall in Syracuse, New York. I love and miss that mall so much. It was converted to an open air strip mall around 1991, destroying its charm. These photos and music are priceless.
Very last picture is the mall from my childhood the Macon Mall. That Bombay shop was a candy store that's where I used to get my red licorice and Hot Sam was a pretzel store. This is a late 70's photo.
The 1974 Mall Muzak of this (same as this), may be the greatest album of all time. I've heard it maybe a two hundred times, and I run it frequently through my house in the winter months, when I'm doing laps in my house to get some exercise. Love it.
This is what the soundtrack for those liminal space games should sound like, I don't get the lo-fi computer music they use instead because it takes me out of the whole abandoned experience. With lo-fi music I feel like I'm behind a computer.
When the mall is empty, it becomes a musical instrument, a reverb organ. The sound you have is a distant speaker box in a huge cathedral. Most malls echo like cathedrals, even the single-level ones. As a musical instrument, the mall can be played by the Muzak/PA speakers or by a musician singing or playing an instrument in the echoey corridors and atrium. My local shopping mall in Knoxville makes for a symphony of reverberation as I walk its halls.
Memories. An unattainable past. But this kind of nostalgia makes me feel very good. To see life from a distance. Visions from the past come to life and the past becomes present again.
It used to be a World of it's own. Where people shopped during the Holidays. What a great sight that used to be with all the decorations. Remember "Valley Girl" ? It's where teens got together to hang out and meet their friends. When the weather was bad, you didn't care. If it was too hot you didn't care. It was a great way to shop and spend the day. You had many restaurants and fast food places to choose from. Movie theaters drew the crowds in and were usually packed. Loved those days !
This is so creepy and sad 😱 It's like a funeral for the 20th century. Am beyond lucky to be 49 (never thought I would say that !) The children will never know what America was.
I'm 55 and it makes me happy and sad.my parents were full of life then,now tired and 76 years old,I sent this video to my Dad,he smiled because that's his time period
walking towards the food court... sam goody is closed... but that's OK, i have a pretzel and my mom picks me up in 20 min or so... i wander the sears waiting for my mom by the side entrance..... cya tomorrow mall... you'll always be here.
This is better than the original. The reverb gives me a feeling of nostalgia for experiences I've never had. Such a strange but pleasant feeling. Also, it gives me a lot of inspiration for my book.
Worked at a mall for four years and it had its perks. Although closing and rushing to get everything in this store that shall not be named done. I always loved closing but getting into the mall and closing the gate was always a weird feeling. Just complete silence and vacancy, just realized I never took any photos. Music was playing from the billboards inside though it was creepy.
its only empty because its a sunday morning and it just opened and its a non winter holiday.. and you just bought many shares of a company called microsoft
Dude they still played this shit in my local grocery up until like 15 years ago. I was a little kid then so it's still nostalgic to me at 25. I've been looking everywhere for what that weird music was and I found it.😂
😷🙄🤔I got my first raise while working at a Sanger Harris Dept. Store in a Dallas mall in the summer of 1971 from $1.75 to a whopping $2.35 per hr!🤗I Was so overjoyed I could hardly stop thanking my manager. 😱😢😷
My first job was in a mall back in 2003. I used to work in the morning at a bakery and this music used be blasting in the mall before retailers open. It was for the elder mall walkers in the morning. It was that pleasant, that I even saw a elder couple dancing to it together. I miss those days!!
That is such a sweet story
Sounds lovely
Parking.
I was in a shopping centre in a small town once in 2003 or nearsbouts. There was an old lady without any underwear on. I wonder what happened to her and why she was doing that.
Id die to experience that
Remember the time where when you walked into a mall, people were dressed up, more stores were moving in, and business was sparking. I do.
gee, i also remember when the world wasn't run by clowns lmao
everywhere at the end of time
New malls are still opening up these days, but it's weird to dress up to go to them.
@Fire&Ice909 American Dream in New Jersey, Arsenal Yards in Massachusetts, Fashion District in Philly, One Paseo in San Diego
I don't - my memories of going to malls are more an more stores being closed. I used to go to Gymboree as a kid and sit on the kid stools and watch TV while my mom shopped. I remember the gumballs in the machines, the clothes shops. But when I think of malls, so many shops in my mind are empty with barred doors.
You don't hear this sound on the main mall floor. You hear it at the end of the long corner hallways on the way to the restrooms.
Echoing through the doors while trying to take a shit towards the end of your shift
@@coltonmathews856 lmao🤣🤣🤣🤣
Those places are the best, so nostalgic
Oh.
It's playing all throughout but it's hard to hear with all of the other sounds happening at the same time such as people walking, talking and whatnot.
Early June, 1972. A clear, sunny, blue-sky day. Although it’s only nine A.M., it’s very warm already and the outside temps hint at the scorcher that today will later prove to be.
You step outside the door of your mid-century suburban ranch-style home. You’ve lived here since the subdivision was new; you both moved here when you’d only been married for a couple of years. Before the kids came along. You close the door behind you, and without locking it, you walk toward your Ford Galaxie 500. It’s a newer model, and though you told Eddie that you were fine with driving the old one, it’s his habit to buy a new Ford every couple of years.
As you reach the car, the warm humid air fills your nostrils and you smell the mingled odors of moist earth and fresh-cut grass, the signature of a suburban lawnscape. You hear the whir of a lawn mower, and turn to wave at Joe Harrington, your across-the-street neighbor four doors down. Joe’s a good neighbor. He and Minnie moved here around the same time that you did. Your kids are the same age as theirs, are in the same classes together at school. Eddie Jr. and Mike Harrington are on the same Little League team.
You back out of the driveway and steer your car through the winding streets of your neighborhood. Modest but immaculate houses, familiar to you as the homes of friends, acquaintances, and some of Eddie’s co-workers, line the quiet streets. They won’t be quiet for long. The kids are still in school. They only have a couple of days left to go, ‘til the end of this first week of the month. From their first day of freedom until they return to school just after Labor Day, their shouts, laughter and games will fill the neighborhood streets from early in the morning until just after dark, when they’ll reluctantly head home one by one as each responds to their mother’s calling of their name from their front yard many blocks away.
This morning though, you are going to the mall. Your car smoothly skims the surface of each street as you head toward the main entrance to your neighborhood. Red Leaf Lane, then right on Poplar Hill Road. Sunlight sparkles on water droplets left by lawn sprinklers on blades of dark green grass. You exit Forest Manor Hills and turn left onto Miller Parkway. The mall sign is about a mile up, on the right. For a long time, the large white starburst shaped sign for Manor Mall was the only landmark in a wide sea of old farmhouses, fields and wooded areas. That’s all changed in the last ten years. But the sign still dominates the newer landscape of service stations, the entries to since-built subdivisions, diners, and numerous smaller shopping centers filled with small businesses.
You swing the Galaxie into the parking lot, and pull into a spot close to the mall’s main entrance. As it’s early, you have your pick of parking spaces. By mid-afternoon, the lot (and the mall) will be full. But you, along with more than a few of the other area housewives, enjoy taking advantage of this time of day when the mall is just opening, to enjoy some quiet shopping and to get some errands done.
You exit the car, sunglasses in place against the asphalt glare. The sunshine reflects off the crisp white and yellow sundress you’re wearing, you bought it at Garson’s, the department store here at Manor Mall. You enter the mall. As the doors close behind you, you are enveloped in its cool, dim and welcoming embrace. You remove your sunglasses. The filtered daylight streams through the mall skylights and falls upon the indoor gardens of green tropical plants suited specifically to this environment. The stores are just opening. Shop clerks are still rolling up the gates or unlocking the glass doors of their establishments. There is a an echoing quietness, filled with a distant music.
You move to this wavering music, as you and your fellow few early mall customers glide along serene pathways into the shops to pursue your purchases. Milton’s Menswear, your first stop. Eddie needs some new handkerchiefs. Mr. Harlow greets you by name as you enter the store. A neighbor of yours, he’s worked at Milton’s since before the mall opened. He started at the old downtown Milton’s store. He purchased a home near you, and has raised his two kids while working this job; his wife Edith was able to stay home with the kids while they were in school.
After Mr. Harlow helps you select some new handkerchiefs from the store’s variety, you exit into the mall and head to your next stop. Along the way, you cross paths with other shoppers, some of whom you know. Madge, who’s daughter Monica goes to school with your little Rosemary, greets you, and you chat for awhile. Would you and Eddie like to join her and Bill for bridge on Saturday night? Madge knows of a good babysitter if Jenny, the teenage sitter you usually use, isn’t available.
The echoes of the music surround you as you make your bridge date with Madge and you both part ways. Your next stop is Dalton’s Toys. They’re a chain of toy stores in your area that’s been expanding into most of the new malls. Rosemary’s birthday is next week and there’s one particular toy she’s been asking about. You hope to find it here today...
...And so it goes...the mall slowly begins to fill with other shoppers as you go into and out of the stores. The large department stores that will be there forever, the smaller local shops that have moved their businesses here in addition to (or instead of) their downtown shops. They’re surviving or even thriving in their new homes. Then there’s the newer store chains that have sprung up and are now found in every new mall--and there are so many of them!-- being built.
And above it all, the music. The music that is only heard at the mall, nowhere else, not like this. It is the mind and heart of the mall, its very voice. And you are like a child in the womb, hearing its mother’s heartbeat, while taken in by the mall and given sustenance, before being delivered again into the world outside. But you know that you can re-enter at any time, and it will take you back, and give you what you are looking for, to support you in any way it can to meet the many needs that are found in your suburban dream.
You prepare to leave. You don your sunglasses to face the glare of asphalt and sun. Post-delivery from the mall, you plan on going to Setzer’s, the local butcher shop. Marty & Mary run the store, they always put aside the cuts of meat that they know you’ll be in for every Thursday.
The last thing you hear as the doors close behind you, is some distant, shimmering sounds. The music. Did you catch a strain of “I’ll Be Seeing You” ? You will be back, you’ll always be able to go back. It’s been like this for such a long time now.
And it always will be.
Wow, this is one of the most beautiful comments I've ever read. Thank you for sharing this. I was born decades after the '70s ended, but I have been fascinated with it for years. The music, the clothing, the designs - _everything._ I love how everything was so intimate back then; more personal. Maybe it's the 1+ year of solitude thanks to the pandemic talking, but I'm beginning to miss talking to people all the time. Back then I would have non-stop conversations with friends, teachers, and anyone, really. We'd chat about their days, what's going on in their lives, or anything. And I thrived off of it; it gave me the fuel I needed to keep going on. Hearing your story and how the protagonist knows all the shop owners and sets up little bridge dates makes me feel so good inside. I hope one day I can have that.
@@Vendzor Thank you, i hope that malls become more popular again, they have a lot to offer. It was much more than just the shopping.
@@orangeblossom1340 I think that in a post-Covid world we will see a resurgence of things we once took for granted. Restaurants will spill out the doors, airplanes will fill the skies, schools will be packed full of students, and we'll complain about how packed the mall is and how we can't find a parking space. Man, I miss all of this so much!
Thank you for the beautiful nostalgic heartwarming story Orangeblossom13 💕💞
You spent a lot of time on this. It was fun to read. Are you a 60s baby?
There is a reason malls did so well back then.
There was more culture, and therefore had stores that don't exist today.
Greeting card shops.
Book stores.
Record stores.
Tailors.
and we didn't have Amazon, so people had to actually leave their house to buy things
WALMART WAS ALSO A FACTOR IN KILLING THE MALLS.
Oddly enough I can remember when people were nostalgic for the old high street/main street shops, and thought malls were a soul-less modern substitute for 'real' shopping.
Ya mean ya don't like vape stores and tattoo parlors? You need to get with the New World Order. Don't miss out!
Less entertainment at home as well. We have a lot of culture but it's transitioning to be online
Take me back to 1981 Highland Mall in Austin, sweet memories of arcades, cafeterias, toy shops, clothing stores and candy shops. It’s my “happy place” in my mind during stressful days. Thank you for this music. 👍👍
Highland Mall is still alive in spirit! Austin Community College uses the building now, so it turned into a beautiful school while preserving that bit of Austin history.
I took classes at the old Highland Mall, and the ghosts of the past still linger.
AbigailLilac yep I visited a few times. The old Foley’s building and a small section remain in terms of being untouched by the construction. I was an ACC graduate in 1995 but my wife is taking courses there now. So nice that ACC could repurpose the mall instead of letting it rot. The old Penney’s building is interesting now, they really fixed it up nicely inside.
my wife and I went there and at the end and it was sad, half the stores closed. I remember going there back in the late 70s before the Killeen Mall opened. It was a big deal to get to go to the mall, sad but it would be a big deal to go today
Highland mall back in the day was awesome!
My childhood mall was Military Circle in Norfolk, VA 1990s & really early 2000s. Beautiful movie theater, bustling crowds, had one of the best frozen yogurt stands I've ever been to, sparkling water fountains and plenty of business. Went all the way downhill sometime after I moved away from the area, and from what I learned, has become a lot more empty and sad, but it'll always have a special place in my heart. :)
When I’m depressed (99% of the time) I play this and it lifts my spirits again. I really miss these days. Just seemed like much simpler times. They will never make anything like this ever again 😔
They were just as complicated then, just think back to the 70s. There was the energy crisis and all the gas problems which occurred then. There was the emergence of global warming into cultural consciousness. The office of the president of the US was shaken by Watergate. And then at the end of the decade there was recession, and a hostage crisis in Iran. And the Soviet Union was still around and pointing missiles every which way. And nuclear war was even more prevalent of an idea in people's minds. People lived with the assumption it'd probably happen eventually. Not to mention the 70s were given birth to by the 60s, which was full of cultural division around police, and the civil rights movement and the emergence of hippies (all of which are old people now, and are mostly karens). The difference between now and then is people are getting hit a little harder in the wallet, and people are becoming conscious of who put them in that situation.
@@I_like_big_bombs Dream killer
Amen to that. Welcome to the Jungle of 2022. Was a teen in 70s and I want to go back. 🙄
I agree Albertan. I live most of my life vicariously through RUclips premium my only luxury. I miss the malls.
Depression is a decision you make every day,been there too I was an alcoholic for almost 2 years when my mother passed away,but found the LORD as and everything went away,hope you take the next step to get out of it,every morning you decide what kind of day you will have choose happiness,blessings bro.
i miss the design of older malls/buildings. i prefer warm lighting, earth tones, and dark brick and wood over white and grey everything, sharp edges, and blinding lights that honestly just feel overstimulating and uncomfortable. i’d go to the mall more often to walk around and relax if the ones near me didn’t feel like prisons or overwhelming modern art museums. maybe it’s just me but i don’t get it when people call things ‘outdated’. who decides that? all i can think when i look at 70s/80s design is “wow that’s gorgeous”.
edit: i get that the point of the unfriendly design is to get you to leave if you’re not buying anything but as a young adult who pretty much had no access to any ‘third places’ as a teen and who’s feeling the mental effects of the lack of them in my current life, i simply don’t care. honestly i might even end up buying more if stepping foot in a mall didn’t hurt my eyes and make me feel exhausted.
I feel the same. I want to live in perpetual 1972.
Same here. I like those earthy tones and the usage of natural materials and letting them simply be as they are instead of painting over them.
Fun Fact : The orginal owner of the shopping malls, an Austrian fella, intended for them to be the centers of new towns - kinda like how some Ye Olde Towns Sprang up around Ports, Factories, Rivers etc.
They were supposed to be like the Greek Malls of Old, where Intelectuals could gather and discuss politics and culture and whatnot.
And then US Companies jumped on the idea, seeing how profitable that could be, and made massive bricks surrounded by miles of parking lots and filled with cheap burger stores.
On his death bed in 1959 the guy said something like ,,some people say i'm the Father of the Shopping Mall. Well I disown it - it's the worst thing i've ever made, theese bastards ruined our cities".
I think it's best he didn't live for another few decades if he thought 1950's shopping malls were ugly.
@@lordofthestings Quick few reminders :
In 1972 there was no internet
In 1972 the country was burning down
In 1972 the 2 Major Parties in the USA were on fire, one becouse they nominated some peacenick hippe and the other becouse their Leader wanted to win the eleciton through Blackmail and terror. Quick reminder that it's the USA and not fucking Venezuela.
In 1972 the EPA was still in its infancy so all the rivers were hella polluted
In 1972 half of the World was under the rule of man-eating communist regimes
In 1972 Africa was even more fucked than now (EKHM EKHM Rhodesia and EKHM EKHM South Africa)
In 1972 people still thought Lobotomy was a legit okay medical procedure
In 1972 thousands of Young Americans and Vietnameese were dying every day durring the 'nam War
and so on and so forth
Yes! I agree 100% give me anything mid century to 90s and I love it!
Man, so many malls these days just look and feel both cold and sterile, compared to malls back in the day. I remember talking to Unicomm Productions on one of their vids about the "Simonization" of malls, turning many from the unique, sometimes invitingly-warm or vibrant look and design, and just making it feel generic with so many shades of white and grey. It makes malls not feel as enjoyable or exciting of a place to shop at.
Totally agree- Malls today just seem to have lost their soul...kinda sad. But hey, this music which I dismissed so much as a teen in the early/mid-70's, now has me reflecting back and thinking, hey, great atmosphere music, especially with the reverb!
My mall is painted mostly white.
I agree, they are all bleached out
wow! takes me back to the 70s and 80s before all of retail turned to club music. All you need now to go with this music is the water fountain sounds!
What's even sadder is when people want that cold and sterile look in their homes.
It's depressing is what it is.
Give me the yellow corduroy sofas, the brown shag carpet, and the green curtains of my youth!
😄
So cozy and warm.
The echo makes it spooky and beautiful at the same time.
Right! Like it echoes in your mind of a time long gone but never forgotten, all the sunny memories are set in your mind ♥♥
It sounds just the way it would if it were bouncing around the canyons of the mall!
You got to like those 1970's mall designs. You might laugh at that now, but it worked. Malls were packed backed then. Maybe a major mall should go totally retro, and remodel it to an exact 1970's style. I'm thinking that might just work, and a mall to do that will be packed with shoppers wanting to experience that. I can't say why the pictures above are empty of shoppers, but that's easy to do if the photographer came in very early on a weekday morning and started snapping pictures.
I bet you are right
There also wasn't internet back then... Maybe that's why they aren't so packed anymore? 😂
who actually remembers the 70's; Boomers?
@@MrHowzaa and possibly Gen X
I think you’re right about bringing back the’70s malls. People these days are craving nostalgia. Whoever went around saying “this mall and that mall need to be updated” were way out of touch, mistakenly assuming remodeling malls would make people want to go there. News flash, people aren’t so excited about “updates”! We like our stuff to be left alone and maintained how it is!
I miss going shopping in department stores and having a professionally dressed, polite employee assist me. They could even gift wrap your purchases for special occasions.
Now, if there is an employee anywhere to be found, they're usually dressed in grungy clothes, looking like they just woke up, with dirty, matted hair, sucking on a vape with one hand and bottle of pop in the other. When you ask them for help, they always respond that they're on their break and tell you to talk to a member of management. This world is becoming a dark and seedy place.
I'm an 80s kid but man this makes me feel nostalgic for the 70s.
Same here!
Same here
Dreamers
This music feels kind of sad because it feels like the world in a way. The reverberation of the music the walls, the reverberation of time going pass you in an instant. When played back. When you try to relive an old memory, it doesn’t feel the same because you’re trying to repeat an old memory, rather then trying to make a new one… thank you for coming to my Ted talk
The original uploader of this video added the reverb and other efx that he got from the Muzak reels.
It reminds me oddly of everywhere at the end of time
I honestly think malls began to die when they began removing the fountains and water features.
Both began to happen in the late 1980s.
Reminds me of a mall I keep going to, where there's nobody around. I could chill on the recliner on the top floor all day.
I would ask where but I guess that might ruin it
I’d be so scared, I like to be alone but mostly in my room. I get anxiety If I’m alone in a shopping centre I’d probably panic lol
@@evieanimates2019 I would love to have an experience like that
@@sahirdiesh6386 lmao it’s interesting but sometimes can not be fun, once I panicked in the shopping centre and my mum was literally 2 isles away from me in the dairy section 💀😂
It’s like in Forrest Fare mall in Ohio
ah, the sense of an overwhelming void.
Revus 73900 What you mean?
@@HardKore5250 nothing... just a void.
Floating into the abyss
Liminal spaces.....I am drawn to them as a moth to a flame.
i wish they would use these types of music in malls nowadays...
Hearing this music makes me feel everything is going to be ok.
Funny, it feels hollow and creepy to me....like something is wrong. And, it is. Malls are devoid of what is supposed to make them what they are
@@brandylou9132 And what is that? What are they devoid of?
On the contrary, the sounds you are hearing are the sounds of DOOM.
Because it reminds you of a past where things did turn out ok...
But we’re not there anymore
@@sheLovesG things turn out fine now and not everything back then was 'wonderful'. WE tend to pick and choose and if that helps out today, then good. someday someone will find something from 'now" and say how nice or happy their memories were or how we pulled through and made it......
In the past malls used to actually be a place of interest...there was a great diversity of shops that sold everything, there were actual decorations like floor tile mosaic, fish ponds, fountains, sculptures, sitting areas for people to lounge around, and some malls even had little rides like gondola floats or a small roller coaster running through the mall. There were also novelty shops that sold useless but amusing stuff, and all the shops were so well-furnished too. Nowadays malls are just retail space where rental is milked to the maximum, and for the older malls that were revamped, they got rid of all the decorations and lounge spaces and just replaced them with shop lots. Miss the malls of the past, I experienced them as a little kid circa early 2000s ,where there were still many relics from the last century.
Such a wave of haunting yearning inside my heart - i had to lean against the door i was standing next to. A lost and never to return world of bittersweet.😔
Nostalgia 💕
I get it.
I was very small when the my local malls were in their final days. I remember walking hand in hand with my parents, the smell of cinnamon buns and pretzels, the dazzling lights reflecting off the polished floor. I especially remember the holidays. The elaborate displays and the towering christmas tree in the mall's center. Everything was so big and sparkling.
I thought that would be the world I'd get to grow up in, to live in. Where did it go?
It got flushed down the Amazon/Walmart/TJMaxx toilet. It's in the graveyard with Woolworth's, Sears and Kmart.
Bittersweet Nostalgia 💕
😢
The malls were already dead by the time of the following memory, post-99, yet, I'd make it fun for my little one, remembering how I enjoyed the malls when they were BIG. One of my coolest memories was buying my then 8-year-old son a remote-controlled helicopter that he promptly flew from the main floor, above and beyond the escalators toward the top of the next floor's ceiling! Such a nice feeling to be able to look up hundreds of feet, while indoors! We'd also ride the bumper cars and play video games in the malls we could still find them in.
attention shoppers the owner of a red Corolla registration aha.616 you left your headlights on,that is a red Corolla aha.616 your headlights are on thank you.
Nice touch! Completes the picture ... along with " we have a lost little boy"
@@veronicaleger8326
So true
Attention: Parents of a child named Jimmy, please report to the service desk. That's parents of a child named Jimmy, please report to the service desk.
I worked part-time during the holidays at the Enfield, CT mall 20 years ago. It would be crowded and cheerful. My then wife would bring her mom and my then baby daughter shopping and to see Santa. My little Chellabella would be in her stroller and looking up at me with those big beautiful brown eyes. Now the mall only has a small handful of stores, a Target, and a movie theater. I'm divorced now, and my Chelli is a young woman now, not much time for Dad any more. My eyes are so full of tears now, I must stop typing.
I hope you get to see Chelli often.. Cheers!!!
I’m so sorry, but what beautiful memories you have. Hang in there sweetheart!
The relaxing music to shopping. The mall i work at now has the new music playing. Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, etc etc. So.. to spice things up, i play this music on my Bluetooth speaker when i get customers in my store.
I wanna shop in a store like that
And they probably feel really good while listening to it, too.
-- lights up cigarette-- ahhhhhhh.... Weren't you looking for those corduroy bellbottoms boo..?
This is eerily beautiful in a way. The emptiness of what was once a hub of prospering business, now seemingly left to the wayside, where only the most successful of stores remain, and the sound of music, not as noticable before, now echoes through a nearly abandoned mall.
kind of sad really. this is the story of middle america.
@@averagecommenter1601 and middle class America a demographic that was key to the success of malls is being eradicated. This is being done by design.
accurate..it's sad to think some of these businesses from these photos aren't around anymore either
Beautifully written!
How poetic!!!👍💕
dead rising but even the dead has abandoned you
ohhh thanks for the heart! not sure what to do with it though
I was actually thinking the same thing before I read this comment. Comes to show how much this music really evoques that feeling/ thought.
I was hired play Santa Claus in the 1989-90 Christmas season, My Little Ponies for the Girls and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for the boys , Genesis and Sega video games were big also. Possibly one of the happiest times of my life. Each shift as I walked in the Grand Teton Mall had this music playing but Christmas themed. The smell of merchandise, cinnamon rolls, kids everywhere, neon video arcades,a time in my life that has not been duplicated since and probably never will again. Happiest of memories..😇
in the 70.s the mall killed our down town, today on line shopping is killing our mall.
And that's the reason why I support the local businesses in my area.
Malls used to be a meeting point to socialize, but since early 2000s, they all became shopping and only shopping places. And thats really why Malls in the USA are nearly extinct, but alive and in full arise in all Latin America.
And also here in the Caribbean, where the malls are much smaller.
Remember going on an escalator? Timing the step just right to make sure you didn't mess up and end up stumbling or worse, falling. Once making it on you'd look down and see those bristles and you thought how you were geting your own personal shoe shine as the ends lightly taped inside through your sneakers...yup here's one for the malls
This video reminds me of these reoccurring dreams I have, not the same exactly but definitely the same theme where I'm in the mall, it's usually empty, and sometimes some of the stores are abandoned. And I just keep wandering through. I looked it up in a dream book and it's supposed to be a good omen of things to come. I find them very comforting
A recurring dream is a signal that the meaning of the dream hasn't been properly identified by your consciousness. Therefore, you need to look deeper. I can help. Are there any more details about the dream you are willing to share?
Dude I wish I could go back to franklin mills mall (I refuse to call it Philadelphia mills) before it got redesigned. Business was booming. Plenty of people walking around, the part of the mall with the TV tower, the coloured entrances. It was magical. Now it’s an empty husk with a generic grey and white design. Barely any stores open with most being walled off. There used to be a J.C Penny (or Macy’s not sure) now hid behind a row of vending machines. No people. No stores. Just an empty building essentially. One of the last open buildings in the square. A desolate place. There used to be a Walmart (now relocated), a pathmark, and so much more. Now it’s all gone. My childhood memories now left to be forgotten if I don’t write them down due to most these places being illegal to enter due to trespassing. Only thing left is just that mall and the house I used to live in next to the lot.
This mucic is so nice, I actually use it to ease my insomnia.
edit: This Muzak album is from 1974. Wonderful echo and reverb baked in.
Fantastic, beautiful, and truly magnificent mall music. I’m not a nostalgic person by any means(i don’t wanna be in any era than this era i’m living in now), but i still think there’s something so eerie yet so outstanding about hearing this kind of music playing in a way where you feel like you’re walking through a mall in 1970’s and this kind of music is playing. It’s very well orchestrated!
It’s fascinating, as a music enthusiast i can never get enough of listening to this.
14:08 begins a photo of the Southdale Shopping Center in Edina MN, which opened in 1956. America's first enclosed mall. The photo is likely from the early to mid sixties. Note the small Northwest Orient Airlines ticket office under the stairs. Was a lovely place to hang out as I was born in 1956 ( just like Southdale) and grew up in Edina. I remember the pond in the foreground well. Life was simple and happy back then.
Miss Woolco..luv muzak
My first job was at the gap. I Miss those days.
i took a walk around the mall to ease my troubled mind
, i left my thoughts somewhere in the sands of time
I think WE all have..
This legend not only created a brilliant playlist, but also continues to like comments since November 8th, 2019. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the true definition of cultured. Hats off to you, my friend.
This is absolutely mesmerizing, coming from a rock and roll fan😁
Waldenbooks, Hot Sam's, Orange Julius, 1.50 matinee movies on the weekend, LeMans Speedway arcade with a bumper car track in the back, 4 anchor stores and 2 floors of busy shops and a cocktail lounge, magic store, McDonald's, Record Bar records and tapes, etc. Late 70s, early 80s, Lincoln Mall in Mattson, Il.
Along with this music, there were 'regular/affordable' stores like McCrory, arcades, Record World...now so many are marbled floor, 5th Ave $hopping.
I remember McCrory's! I used to love going there browsing the perfume/lipglosses. I still remember the layout of the store to this day. It was kinda like Woolworth's.
McCrory's !!!! We had one in Hadley , MA. 70's & 80's... Long gone... Had diner inside with the old spinning stools at the countet. A few old pinball clunkers. Pet Dept on back wall... Used to buy my first 45's there. Johnny Nash... " I Can See Clearly Now" 💘
Without the color of avocado 🥑, it’s just not the 70’s
I think there is nothing sadder, in the capitalist context, than an empty mall during christmas time... 🕊🎄🎁
Amazon killed competition.
Since the rise of the great gift-giver traditional shopping is long gone in the dim, unremembered past
Now, during the cold season, the greatest gift of all we can treasure is that the gift-giver allows us to live one more year
Thank Amazon
Malls are clear example of old fashioned consumerism
I can remember it all I was just a kid,my mom would take us by the hand a waltz,btw my mom can dance to anything,so many stores long gone,sad music but happy simultaneously,when life was easy...
At the 5:21 mark. This is Eastridge Mall in San Jose, California probably around 1975
The best, very cool place
I remember that! Only went once, but it was a few years after 1975
love the images and music...so many precious memories ❤
ITS BREAKING MY HEART
The mall is long since gone. But people are still ticked off about the loss of their beloved "Donut Hole".
This feels like if Everywhere at the end of Time was in the perspective of someone who's worked at a mall there whole lives
12:30 this is how heaven ascension sounds like
I believe it 🤗🤗🤗
Lol
Feels like I'm in a dream
Reminds me of The Caretaker's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World.
Huh, I never thought about it that way, I see it now though, Good album
The sound accurately replicates the mood music wafting through the cavernous Malls of another time.
There really is something comforting about this music. Thank you for posting!
Wow when malls looked like this - to be able to go back to those simpler days just to visit......
I have listened to this on repeat countless times. Thank you for making this!
There is something about this music that is sad and nostalgic, but also haunting and otherworldly. Imagine if this is the place where our spirits go when we die; that we are doomed to haunt retro-malls in a parallel universe, doomed to walk through the mall forever, never being able to leave it or communicate with the other lost souls
around us!
What a magical time it must've been
my memory of malls is the kind of thing they show in early 2000s movies and i kinda wish my mall was still like that
Remember when we made fun of muzak? Now it sounds like something you'd expect to hear in heaven, if you believe in such things.
Perfect horror.
I would pay some major money if you could locate 1970's photos of the interior of Shop City Mall in Syracuse, New York. I love and miss that mall so much. It was converted to an open air strip mall around 1991, destroying its charm. These photos and music are priceless.
Very last picture is the mall from my childhood the Macon Mall. That Bombay shop was a candy store that's where I used to get my red licorice and Hot Sam was a pretzel store. This is a late 70's photo.
I was a kid in the 70s and my heart tells me its still there everyday.
The 1974 Mall Muzak of this (same as this), may be the greatest album of all time. I've heard it maybe a two hundred times, and I run it frequently through my house in the winter months, when I'm doing laps in my house to get some exercise. Love it.
This is what the soundtrack for those liminal space games should sound like, I don't get the lo-fi computer music they use instead because it takes me out of the whole abandoned experience. With lo-fi music I feel like I'm behind a computer.
Even the reverb has reverb on it. 😁
Love looking at the Lost Souls in these pictures as i hear this i feel more and more closer to the Spirit world. Thank you for the time
When the mall is empty, it becomes a musical instrument, a reverb organ. The sound you have is a distant speaker box in a huge cathedral. Most malls echo like cathedrals, even the single-level ones. As a musical instrument, the mall can be played by the Muzak/PA speakers or by a musician singing or playing an instrument in the echoey corridors and atrium. My local shopping mall in Knoxville makes for a symphony of reverberation as I walk its halls.
Memories. An unattainable past. But this kind of nostalgia makes me feel very good. To see life from a distance. Visions from the past come to life and the past becomes present again.
It used to be a World of it's own. Where people shopped during the Holidays. What a great sight that used to be with all the decorations. Remember "Valley Girl" ? It's where teens got together to hang out and meet their friends. When the weather was bad, you didn't care. If it was too hot you didn't care. It was a great way to shop and spend the day. You had many restaurants and fast food places to choose from. Movie theaters drew the crowds in and were usually packed. Loved those days !
It's really sad that this music (muzak) much like Malls, is fading from the American landscape...
When Malls had it all.
All this needs now is the Bluesmobile crashing through the wall followed by police cars.
I like that it’s got an open echo to it, as if you are listening to it in a mall. Other vids just have the music but without that nice touch. Love it!
This is so creepy and sad 😱 It's like a funeral for the 20th century. Am beyond lucky to be 49 (never thought I would say that !) The children will never know what America was.
I remember.
Sadly I’m Australian so I don’t get to experience the stuff you guys have :c lmao
@@evieanimates2019 Sucks to be you, I guess.
@@Daddy-ue1du Yep, indeed 😔
I'm 55 and it makes me happy and sad.my parents were full of life then,now tired and 76 years old,I sent this video to my Dad,he smiled because that's his time period
60’s, 70’s and Early 80’s for sure… simpler times
walking towards the food court...
sam goody is closed...
but that's OK, i have a pretzel and my mom picks me up in 20 min or so...
i wander the sears waiting for my mom by the side entrance.....
cya tomorrow mall...
you'll always be here.
This music is melancholy, but relaxing at the same time.
It makes me feel nostalgic for a time I've not yet experienced
And you never will.
This is better than the original. The reverb gives me a feeling of nostalgia for experiences I've never had. Such a strange but pleasant feeling. Also, it gives me a lot of inspiration for my book.
Worked at a mall for four years and it had its perks. Although closing and rushing to get everything in this store that shall not be named done. I always loved closing but getting into the mall and closing the gate was always a weird feeling. Just complete silence and vacancy, just realized I never took any photos. Music was playing from the billboards inside though it was creepy.
I'm so sad but so happy at the same time to have experienced this.
There is a shopping mall here in Madrid that plays music like this in the underground parking. Feels like you're at Heaven's door.
its only empty because its a sunday morning and it just opened and its a non winter holiday.. and you just bought many shares of a company called microsoft
Something about this Muzak makes me feel high like I'm in a trance or daze. Wow!
This is so calming, it is magical. ❤
Ahh....to stroll down Memory Lane! I miss the nostalgia and tradition of these types of Malls 😉 thank you for the upload👍!
A world of ghosts...
Bring a Bluetooth speaker and play this at the food court. Make the memories happen again!! No one will complain!!
Dude they still played this shit in my local grocery up until like 15 years ago. I was a little kid then so it's still nostalgic to me at 25. I've been looking everywhere for what that weird music was and I found it.😂
Perfect for my night shift. Thank you.
Somehow you find yourself alone, locked up in an empty mall. Creepy 70s muzak starts playing over the PA system. Shining vibes. Awesome.
This is beautiful. Thank you so much for uploading!
😷🙄🤔I got my first raise while working at a Sanger Harris Dept. Store in a Dallas mall in the summer of 1971 from $1.75 to a whopping $2.35 per hr!🤗I Was so overjoyed I could hardly stop thanking my manager. 😱😢😷
I bet you could buy a whole lot more with 1.75 then than the 15.00 per hour now..
Memories. ❤️