Southbridge Mall (Mason City, IA) - 1980s dead mall
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- Опубликовано: 26 авг 2024
- Mason City, IA may be most famous as the birthplace of Meredith Wilson (composer of the Music Man musical), but for dead mall fans, it houses a wonderful 1980s time capsule - Southbridge Mall.
Come join me on a mall built in the middle of the 80s - 1985 - that has the beautiful brown brick of an early 80s mall and a late 80s neon dream in its food court.
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We visited the mall in 2008, we had a very nice time. My wife did a lot of shopping at Yonkers they were having a very good sale. We are Broadway musical people, so we were in Mason City for obvious reasons.
Omg the place has changed so much. The food court use to have a cookie place, subway, ice cream place, Chinese, movie theatre, Aladdin’s castle. Stores there was tradehome, jc pennys, Yonkers, American eagle, footlocker, hot sauce store, video game store, buckle, vanity, Claire’s and much more there was only one areas for short periods of time that would have a gate shut and a new store would move in
That was the hang out since I was a child. I even got my ears Pierced at age 6 in Yonkers.
Aladdin's Castle, KB Toys. I loved going here in the early 90's when i was a kid. I'd love to come back and see it today. Great video
Thank you! I hope they can turn this mall around.
This is my childhood mall, it’s gotten so much more surreal over the years, all of note there is a hockey rink, mini golf, and a couple of food places. It’s almost all gone, there are plans for more to come, but not much is done yet. I hope that this place where I spent my childhood in the early 2010s somehow is able to survive.
I love the neon & 80s architecture here.
As a Mason City native, I just want to say thank you to Mankato and the former Mankato Mall for this idea of a downtown regional shopping mall. Nicely done video.
What a beautiful mall the green neon circles and brown tiles… this is a place that is now on my list to visit
Thank you for this amazing video! I used to live in mason and this brought back a lot of great memories
Great video! Glad Mason City knew to avoid Kohan. Kohan and Namdar have been bad to so many malls nationwide.
I remember when this mail first opened. Its steady decline into obscurity is sad. Southbridge Mall had so much promise. Note it’s just a sad reminder of what could’ve been. I rarely go inside, it’s just too depressing.
We were just there two days ago (mid-June 2023) and it is even deader now. I think there were only three stores open and no one in the mall.
I hope to make at least one more personal visit before the remodel.
Yeah! Long and hot day keeping the kids busy. Just sat down and so excited to watch this!
I hope you enjoy it!
Nice video well done. I have watched dead mall videos since 2016 or so.
I grew up in MC and remember downtown before the mall and of course after. There used to be two movie theaters downtown; Park 70 west of central park and the Palace Theater somewhere near the Younkers location in the mall. After the mall was created, the roads were looped through downtown. "The loop" was where many high school students would cruise through downtown in circles and pop into various parking lots to socialize.
I remember going to the mall during the first few days it opened. It was still a work in progress and was nowhere near capacity in terms of stores. It would take several years for the mall to get "decent" at least in my opinion and the opinion of my friends. The Cinema V theaters, arcade, Pizza By Piece of the Pie, B Dalton, Hals, Radio Shack, Walgreens, Younkers and Pet Parade were all worthy diversions for bored pre-teens and teenagers back in the 80s. Good memories here with my friends.
I had family in Albert Lea as well and remember when Northridge opened. I don't remember much about that mall aside from Herbergers. It was a bit disappointing... at least to my teenage mind at the time.
Nice video. Still no action at Southbridge but that's not surprising. Things often move at a continental drift pace in MC... or at least they did when I lived there. Once I left it started coming to life downtown which is very nice to see.
The space with the checkered tile and neon used to be aladdins castle arcade
Yeah I love this mall, I live in clear lake. Liminal spaces are my favorite… I feel so lucky to have been able to appreciate a fun mall as a kid and an amazing liminal space as an adult.
Mr. Taco is still Alive!! They’re outside of the mall under a new name. Happy Donkey!
Thanks for sharing! I’ll look for them next time I drive through Iowa!
Claire's is now out. turn out the lights, this mall is over. The last retail business is out.
A thing about the Northbridge vs Southbridge name thing. Some people might disagree with me on this, but having grown up miles from the Iowa/MN border, having lived in both the Des Moines area and the Twin Cities metro, North Iowa and Southern Minnesota have a lot more in common with each other than either of those places. So it makes sense -- Northbridge is north of Southbridge, the names relate to each other, in the same region, which I've really thought of over the years as mostly transcending the state boundary. The difference isn't entirely cultural, it's also subtle differences in climate, which you can see in the subzones on the USDA plant hardiness map.
Thanks for the insight. Maybe the “bridge” could be considered the state border.
Liked very much your video, we live thirty minutes away from it
The green neon circle reminds me of a well working Xbox 360.
Looks like a fun place to go drive rc cars in. Wonder if anyone would get upset...or if there would be anyone there to get upset 🤔
Ha, I visited on a quiet day, but I have seen maintenance on visits where I wasn't filming.
This looks like my local mall which we call a shopping centre in northern Ireland. It's name is connswater shopping centre and it's over 50% empty. Built around this same time as this one it was expanded in the early 2000s but now is failing. Sad seeing these cool buildings die 😢
Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, it is too bad. I have been to southern Ireland, but I hope to make it to Northern Ireland someday.
Great video. Love it
Brilliant insight into the death of another world
I used to work at the Finish Line that was in this mall next to the Yonkers. The mall had life then!
This video is amazing 🤩.
I’m impressed by the amount of repurposing throughout, particularly the ice arena conversion.
that arena sits vacant 6 m out of the year, they could run profitable even at the fairgrounds...what a joke
The Happy Donkey is a sister business of Mr. Taco and is in the plaza.
There was an entrance but I guess they redid it when they added the new addition where JC Penny was.
Update feburary 2023: I went here the other day and noting has happened yet. Not sure when they actually plan on doing something with this place but check it out asap if you get a chance before they do something with it.
malls were once jam packed with people now they mostly dead...sad
Interesting video! Thanks!
thai place is so fucking bangin here
So the mall is literally in the middle of the downtown area?
Yes, from what I’ve read they diverted traffic around the mall with one-way streets.
Meredith Willson has two l's in Willson.
I have been there i moved but i still miss i
Next time your in the area, the mr taco owner now owns and run the restaurant/bar happy donkey right at the plaza where your video first starts
They ruined downtown Mason City when they built this. Such huge mistakes.
its a dead town fam
Democratic run town at it's finest...not
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Willson