Gateshead MetroCentre - 1987
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- Gateshead MetroCentre - 1987
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i miss the water features, sounds silly but it was quite enchanting as a child, now it's just a sterile white generic shopping centre. :(
They want this generation less imaginative
Money a threw in there.. at least 10p in pennys as a child lol
Doesn’t sound silly at all.. I grew up going there in the late 80’s through to the late 90’s and it was an amazing place as a kid. A massive part of my childhood spent in the arcades and metro land. Totally agree know it’s totally soulless. Great memories though
A bit unrelated, but just this past few months the water feature at Designer Outlet, Livingstone has been removed and what was once a relaxing point would would lean on and admire is now a Costa. Soulless doesn’t even cut it. The same happened to Silverburn, Glasgow. It had an impressive high jet water feature that was again removed for floor space even though kids loved it.
@@MartinHannett_ I also feel that they took out these water features and fountains etc as of the last decade and more, it's been health and safety gone mad. So sad.
It's mental to think people in the video who were in their early 30s then are now in their early 60s!!!! Perfect example of never take time for granted because it's over before you even realise what happened!
Kev C yeah that's crazy
Wise words Kev.
Yeah , if I was my age then then I would have a bus pass now
The toddlers will be like 40 to 45
Mad how we all get a small moment in time. These videos are like a time machine to the past. Wish i could go back to the 80s and have a look round again.
I really miss it looking like this, I liked the themed villages too, they should have kept it where it had fountains and plants but just modernised it and made the plants real.
Metro centre is a load of bollocks now like. This looks like a proper enjoyable unique shopping centre and it was until they took out metro land
Metroland was starting to attract some seriously unpleasant types and a lot of crime. I don't think they had much choice in the end but to remove it. In any event, the rest of the MetroCentre is enough of a mess as it is, reflecting the wider problems there are with shopping malls. Online shopping has made their future questionable.
To be fair now by the yellow entrance it has this whole obstacle course thing that reaches to the second floor by the Odeon cinema.
Wow, just wow. I’d totally forgotten how it used to look with the balloons, trees and water feature (remember the chlorine smell from it😄)
I watch this from time to time for a nostalgic buzz. Others will never know how much this place shaped our childhoods ❤
God, how i wish i could step into this video and embrace my past again.
I would to if I could, question is though would you come back to now? I would personally stay there in 1987
@@TrevJericho
I'd almost certainly stay in a continuous time loop from around the mid-late '70s to '87 or early '88.😉👍
@@hallgos7319 85-95 for me.
When the Metrocentre was unique! These days it's just another generic shopping centre. That video nicely captures the centre as it was.
DistrictDriver Metro centre needs a good refurbishment, looking a bit tired these days
Tom Jardine Have you being Since Intu bought it? They have some many less empty stores, a huge next underway, and they have rebuilt the village.
I like the way it is now thanks 😳😂
DistrictDriver your completely right!!! 2018
Yeah then thee internet came along and fucked everything 👍
I remember when I was a bairn, and me mam used to take is there during the day. I used to love the little bridge over the river and big plastic rocks and water fall, where I'd hoy a penny in and make a wish. Good old childhood ey.
Now with its white walls and empty halls, you'd be hard pressed making any happy memories there.
Back in the '80s TMC was a wonderful sight to behold. So unique. Now the place is so lifeless and soulless. Devoid of that special something it once had.
Why they took all the trees and water features out I have no idea! It was amazing back in the day, just how I remember it as a kid
As a kid (born 1986) this place was magic! Could spend a whole day there it was brilliant. Many MANY happy hours spent in Metroland or traipsing round after my mum in M&S. now as a 34 year old I’m in and out of there as quickly as possible it’s so clinical 😭
TMC has slowly but surely lost it's identity over the years and all that made the property special back in the '80s is now sadly long gone. Visiting the place back then was a magical experience. Not so in these dark days.😞
Developers (who don't use them) don't get why people like these things and always think they have to "modernise" it, but they wouldn't do that if it was a Victorian building... then you would embrace the place's history. With the whole Stranger Things look, they missed a trick keeping it 80s, and could've at least kept an 80s/90s look food court.
@@hallgos7319 Back then, there really was nothing else like it, and it was a breath of fresh air from the fairly dark, run down place that post industrial Tyneside was in the 80s. If we were kids, we were also looking at it through the wide eyed naive eyes of a child too. Interestingly, I remember a lot of adults back then absolutely hated it, and felt it was claustrophobic. Metroland went because it was attracting some very dodgy people. Nowadays, it really is a mess, but that's part of a trend across much of the western world. As things have gone online, bricks and mortar stores have disappeared. It's a shame, but I can well imagine that the Metrocentre will be a housing estate within a number of years.
It's interesting - I well remember a lot of adults in the 80s who felt the same about it back then. The common thing I'd hear was "it's claustrophobic, I much prefer the town". I think everything seems a bit more magical when you're a kid, although it absolutely is a terrible mess these days.
1987 was my first year of freedom and independence from my family. I was 17 years of age and having fun. I lived in Cambridgeshire back then and used to travel regular for the next 13 years to Scotland by train passing by over the River Tyne and what a spectacular view!! I stopped in Newcastle once back then. I remember the Newcastle beer I drank while I was visiting. These were happy times and still are for me now at 51. Never right your self off and never take things for granted. Never waste your life away like many I knew did because your life could be over and you can regrett it. At least I can look back with good memories.
write
The metro still doesn’t run to the metro centre 😂
Was wondering like ha
Lolol
There is hope yet XD
I wish it was still like that..
fragrancematt. I think we all do.
I couldn't agree more.
I never got to witness the metro centre in the eighties, I was a 90s child.. and even then the metro centre was a million times better than it is now, this actually made me feel sick to my stomach, just thinking this is the world my parents were living when they were my age, and to think most of the lovely people will be gone now, it's heartbreaking.
Memories are the only thing we take with us when we're gone, cherish them.. there all that will be left 🥺
Love how m&s has been there from the start and in the same place ahaha
I miss the older Metro.
Red Balloon café above ASDA.
Bowlin Alley next to Lazer Quazer.
Escalator goin up to Metroland.
UCI cinema. Even Toys'R'Us over the way...
God, how i miss that escalator and what was waiting for you beyond it.
@@hallgos7319 some amazing times! 1st time on that rollercoaster I was brickin it. Such a shame that kids today wouldn't be able to experience or appreciate
@@tm5267 You said it. Amazing times indeed. Gone but never forgotten.
I miss Maughan Microcomputers (upstairs in Red Mall) where I bought my Commodore Amiga from, Gamestation, and Music Zone (mostly sold DVDs.
@@Vargon7 Commodore 64...
Memories. Used to be a small clothes shop upstairs on the left as you walked towards Red Balloon.
Used to complain it was tiny. Now I think it of it as a quaint cozy cave of good clothing
Back then, you could never have foreseen the future of computers and internet, and neither could you have foreseen the effect that they had and that as a consequence, in just a few short years, iconic and legendary shops like BHS, C&A, Dixons, Comet, Woolworths, Debenhams, ToysRus, and countless others, would be out of business, never to be seen again. Those shops were rammed full, and today you'd be lucky to get 10% of those numbers. Like I said, who could have foreseen the future then? I miss those days.
I miss the '80s with an unbridled passion.
Not a faultless or flawless decade for certain but definitely and infinitely preferable to now.
What a special period of time that has been captured here. Thank you for making this available; so many magical memories!
This is brilliant! I love the way the mannequins have been captured showing what was ‘in’ at that time. About a year ago I was at the Metrocentre with my son and I started filming him and some of the Christmas decorations on a camcorder the size of my palm....minutes later I had security approach me telling me to stop. Sad.
Authority doesn't like being caught on camera. All the more reason to keep on filming then.
as a windowdresser no shop would buy such rubbish they do today no realistics at all no glam
There’s laws against filming in kids playing areas
This is so magical. I used to come here as a kid with my mam and dad and fondly remember it like this. I haven't been since the mid 90s but i imagine its a sad sight nothing like it was. I loved throwing a penny into the fountains making and wish and spent hours in metroland. Amazing footage, thank you for sharing!
It's very clapped out now, sadly. Empty shops and large parts of it need a major overhaul. Really looking its age.
@@zeddeka So sad, but we knew it was coming. Another dead mall in the waiting. You should check out Dan Bell's dead mall series, if you're into that kind of thing...
I wish I could've been around to see it like this. It looked so warm and inviting. I do still enjoy going to the Metrocentre now, but seeing videos like this makes me wish it still looked this way.
Who would have thought that filming this back then would turn out to be a bit of social history , In the early years it was an amazing place , rich with trees and foliage , a really great feel to the place it even had uniformed security guards patrolling the centre like a local police force watching out for antisocial behaviour and such ..they were from a company called "Burns security " as I recall ...not now though to expensive to have guys in unifiorms walking around not earning the owners anything ...many of the trees have gone the nice feel has gone now it's just a giant indoor space which just want people to spend and be consumers ..shame as in it's day it was a genuine "experience" to go there . thanks for the upload
Someone famous once said that you should always take pictures of everyday life. As time passes, they'll always become of historical interest.
The whole idea of it always *was* to get people to spend and be consumers. That's the whole idea of an "experience", Inthe MetroCentre's case it was short for "shopping experience". The trees etc. were there to get you to spend more time in the centre, therefore increasing your chances of spending more. In that sense, absolutely nothing whatsoever has changed, just the fashions.
Also, my mam died that year, I seemed to have a mental block, and these things help jog my memory, as I was just walking around in a stunned state at the time, thank you, you don't know how much this helps me.
Thanks.
We never get over losing our mam 😢
Thanks mate, but it was a difficult time during that period, thanks much appreciated.
@@paulcrombie9623 👍
Born in Winlaton in 1985, spent much of my youth here. Lovely memories particularly walking round with my Grandma, shopping, helping her with bags then she’d treat me to dinner at Littlewoods cafe. 25 years since she passed away and this has brought it all back.
Love this. Captures a moment in time x
Great videos!! Liked the Interview in the cafe..Fantasy land became Metro land, it never had dry ski slopes and 30 years on the Metro line doesn't run to the Metro centre.
Xt007 3 decades ago.
Why not bring it back
@@stewartchappell5534 I don’t think the metro ever went to the metro centre !
Was such a lovely place to work in, or to spend a few hours of leisuretime back in the day, and it had a certain classiness about it. And it was always kept spotlessly clean.
Fast forward 25 years, and it's a lot different now, clinical, sparse, cold, and uninviting. Thanks Intu!
Did the guy serving at the restaurant say that Fantasyland was opening soon and that next year the metro train line will run directly to the metro centre? Maybe Fantasyland was the original name for Metroland. Also those cucumber and salmon sandwiches were like £1.28 each!! These days they'd be like £8 each served with crisps or chips.
That is probably more than £8 allowing for inflation!
The people are so vintage! It really makes me realize how long ago 1987 is!!! I'm 37 in 2021..... if I'd been 37 in 1987 I'd be 71 by now!!! Extremely scary!
Fully stocked boutiques, clothes shopping was a pleasure. Until Internet shopping ruined it 😔
They are pushing internet shopping on us. It's all about getting rid of CASH and it's better for them as most clothing you buy never gets returned.
@@dylendog bollocks. People shop online because they find it more convenient. If they didn't, the so many shops wouldn't closed down. Nobody is "pushing" anything. As with any era, technology changes and makes things more convenient and old ways of doing things increasingly obsolete.
I remember it being like this. I miss the water fountains. And I miss.metroland. Bring metroland back. Call it metroland 2! All the people in there 30s and me will be going back. Not all the kids. This our childhood... Not there's! 😂
I use to go to the metro centre nearly every Saturday with my little friends, couple of pounds in my pocket which got me full on Macdonald's, a big bag of pic n mix from butterflies sweet shop & some novelty toy or gadget ... Metro centre was brilliant in those days, going down hill now thanks to the economy & progression of technology. In another 20 years I can only predict it's closure in a very bleak world. Such a shame ... 😐
What an absolute nostalgic treat! I loved the MetroCentre as a kid, and it wasn't christmas for me if we hadn't visited. Santa's grotto was in middle, sunken in the floor with glittery polyester snow blankets. They should bring back the trees and water features
thats probably due to the health and safety snowflakes that they are gone
I have fond memories of the metro center because i was 20 when it was constructed but it was always a bit souless. Now the old Grainger market was a totally different kettle of fish. I remember going there with my mam in the 70s, the place was alive with character. I can still taste those delicious sweets and the famous Russian cake,i think it had about 40% proof, or it tasted that way 😂 I've never tasted cake like it again. The heart and soul was ripped out of the Grainger market. Although to be honest, even if it had remained the same, i don't know if todays society would shop there. Those times have gone for good sadly.
I miss this so much! The memories 😭
Intu have ruined it, it's lost it character and appeal. Now you could be at any other of their Intu shopping centres around the country they're just bland. The Old Town square has gone along with the Roman forum, Metro-Land, the fountains and water features, they've all gone. It used to be a day out, now it's just in and out. Nothing there anymore of interest you can't find in town.
Intu went bust and MetroCentre is owned by someone else now.
‘If you become lost or separated from friends or family, meet under the clock in town square one’
Back when the Metro Centre had a feel to it, now it's just a boring money making business.
Probably most water displays in U.K. shopping centres have since been removed because of stupid Health and Safety rules.
Sad but true.
Think the explanation was much more straight forward. They absolutely stunk after a while, as I recall. Groups of kids used to try and steal the coins that people had thrown in to make wishes. It was becoming pretty unpleasant.
@@hallgos7319 Think the explanation was much more straight forward. They absolutely stunk after a while, as I recall. Groups of kids used to try and steal the coins that people had thrown in to make wishes. It was becoming pretty unpleasant.
it's honestly quite sad looking at it now
Gold....no other word for it 👍
Nostalgia gold.
I’m 52 and OMG the song in the first few seconds I literally haven’t heard since the 80s. Really surprising how much info there is stored deep in the back of one’s mind.
Ps these shopping centres could well be mostly gone in another decade or so thanks to Amazon and the internet.
This made me cry. Love it. Thank you.
Loved going to Metro center in the 80s. Used to meet friends there and wed go to the cinema, MacDonalds, metroland, the computer game shops. Remember watching mivies such as RoboCop, Beverly hills cop, predator, fletch lives. Playing outrun, endro racer, wec le mans, teenage Turtles, steeet fighter in the arcade. Also playing the shooting gallery. You could spend ages there having fun. Was s great place.
I was born 1988 and remember the metro looking like this. Great memories of days out with my granda. Thanks for uploading this
Thanks Claire, dad loved to video everything. He never would have guessed his videos one day would be seen by so many.
Claire h kkvbk
Great memories also with my mam and nanna was born in 1989 and have some fantastic memories of this place and eldon Square. Wow how times have changed for the worse
@@Rob-ze4ic You said it with your last sentence. I tend to nickname the North East 'Desperation Central' now.
@@hallgos7319 such a shame how it's going but good memories never the less 👍
lovely, and thanks for the upload
Looked better then it had a theme, more novelty shops and entertainment. now it's all patched up and you dont wanna spend time in there
Remember going as a kid with me mam Christmas shopping to spend the money she had saved all year fantastic memories back then I seem to go all the time now and can't stand the place
i was born in 1995 i remember the metro as a kid it was amazing you had metro land loads of shops. To see what it was and what it is now is really sad. they’ve completely ruined it.
A wee bit of dire straits, takes me bk to being a young 17yo lad in glasgow. And life was wonderful .
YO YO how was Glasgow in the 80s
Wow fab video I'm a 1993 baby so it's really interesting to see these places before I was born
Great video of Metrocentre.
It's good that you have these videos taken a while back. 👍
I agree and these '80s themed local VHS excerpts are a Godsend to me.
I only wish there were many more of them here.
Yes it's a shame they got rid of the fountains.... Has anyone noticed no one is a "Phone Zombie" No ones looking down at their phones :)
I call them 'The Texting Dead'.😞
The years pass by so quickly..
Too quickly.😞
These were the best days! I loved the greenery and the independent stalls dotted all over the mall. Now it's been stripped of all its individuality.
They went because too few people were buying anything. It's a mistake to think that it's been "Stripped" as if someone took it away. The bottom line is that they went because we, the public, stopped spending enough money there to make the independent shops viable.
Because the rates just kept going up and up until it was impossible for small retailers to survive.
@@zeddeka I think you've misread my comment. I said that the Metrocentre has been stripped of all its individuality, not its shops.
Honestly i've just looked at this now and its so upsetting to see that things like the metro going directly there was scrapped and more, would be so much more useful! I honestly dont know how it never got one to be fair.
This is when the metro center was a place you wire your best clothes to go and buy new stuff. Our family would make a day of it. Go first thing in morning and have our breakfast dinner and tea go to cinema do our shopping then go home. Happy memories.
Brought back so many memories its not the same now
metro land was my childhood playground lived only 1 mile from the metro
2:12 Smooth Criminal was a new release.
Do you know whats sad, is we have the ability to function malls this way still, we could design the malls this way with greenery, saturation. Everything nowadays is just so sterile and dull, I visit the metro regularly (1994 Kid) so I didnt witness this era of the metro, more so the tail end of it around the early 2000's when they were starting to remove most of the trees, water features and the demise of Metroland in 2008. I remember the theme of it still, green light fixtures and a warmer beige colour than the bright white we have now. It just looked so inviting.
I hadn't been for years, until 1st December 2023, what a thorough DISAPPOINTMENT!!!!
Remember taking my youngest niece quite a few times. I was 23 the year it opened.
I was about 29 then now i am 65 where has time gone
Back when ladies knew how to dress appropriately. These days, it's cropped tops and flip flops no matter the season. Nostalgia.
stfu
Maybe flashing a little ankle to be risque
The Metro still doesn’t run there to this day.
31 years later and the metro still doesn’t run to the metrocentre hahahahah
No but Metro Radio was just around the corner - hence the name.
Crazy to think 95 was only 8 years after this and the UK had changed completely.
?
@@liamb8644 4 people got it, whatever it was.
i still love the place but it lost all sense of individuality after intu bought it. just looks like eldon square 2.0
Agreed. TMC was at it's most unique back in it's '80s heyday. Now the property is all too generic.
I much prefer Eldon square
@@forza223bowe5 ES rocks too.
After my gran died I read her diaries and she wrote about the Metrocentre opening and wondering if it would catch on, she also wrote about the huge Christmas tree she saw there. Simpler times.
Tremendous. Look at all the foliage!
It was all fake tbf mind 😂
Its insane to think that young lass at 3:05 is kicking into her 60's now.
£ 1 - 20 lunch? Happy Days.
Much better back then than it is now. It was madness getting rid of Metroland and all the other features. Now it's just your average shopping centre.
We've seen the metrocentre built and we'll see it knocked down the amount of empty shops and the land that was never used, now in 2024 its become a expensive white elephant.
Plants inside the MetroCentre. Couldn't have that now you'd have kids ruining it!
Metroland was a brilliant place for kids, gone far too soon to make way for big business money grab. Fond memories of the all day wristband, whatever the weather.
just think all that stuff in the metro centre is now recycled or buried in a land fill site ha ha
A shameful end to a memorable part of my '80s childhood.
Thanks for the upload wow
thank you for this fabulous wander down memory lane. we moved to Sunderland in 1987 and spent so many many happy days at the metro centre it was quite something special then, and metro land was phenomenal and awe-inspiring for kids! the 80s were such a fantastic time to be alive and for a short time you e transported me back. I was 12 in 1987, im 48 now!!
16 in 1987… Metrocentre was the place to be!🎉😂
I miss this so much! The memories 😭
Before the metro centre I played tuggy with air rifles on the silt fields and shit ponds. My name is Darren.
No facebook/twitter mongs taking selfies on phones either.
Blatant attention-seeking at it's most irritating.
It looked loads better back then, now it’s just a boring soul less hole
Thank you so much for sharing these videos, what an incredible catalogue of local history you have captured for us! I tip my hat to you sir.
This was probably the last time I was there I can't stand the place it's like one big torture chamber.
Brings back, so many memories of being a kid this place. Not the same as it once was
This brings back nostalgic memories of going there as a kid, however I can’t actually anything tangible that isn’t there now. 20 years from now kids will have the same nostalgic memories about today.
Fantasy Land? That’s what must have ended up being Metroland, no dry ski slope though.
I wish those days were back the traditional Metro Centre and I was born that year.
who knew there was mf trees
Kimberly xx I think I remember those trees been there for many years.
I wonder what they are doing now? that young Lass is lovely, I wonder what she is doing now, I was in my twenties in 1987, all this was new then, I hope all in the video are doing okay now.
£1.20 for a salmon sandwich!
Great shopping killed by online shopping. Shame.
Saturdays were fun back then.
this is vital history..thank you
Was 7 at the time loved the metro centre back then now its just zombies on mobiles
The texting dead? You betcha.
Back in 1987 the metro centre was first 🥇 class I haven't been in 5 years friends who have visited have said half of the shops are shut ☹️🙁😲😳🤯
My uncle worked for the cosntruction company that built the steel outta skeleton of the metrocenter, at the the time it was being built the main road hadnt been constructed yet and the company had to use the Dunston road to get to and from the A1. when the metrocenter opened my uncle told my mam to to use the Dunston road as it was now a backroad in and out bypassing the traffic conjestion on the main road to the A1, i still use this turn off to get there. Miss the water features and the hussle and bussle of the metrocenter, i still remember the christmas event they had and i think there was a superrmarket too, it was busy in 1987 unlike now with half closed shops.
Look at the atmosphere compared to now, were everyones walking full speed, while looking at their mobile phones, and acting like mindless robots.
communism my dear friend
paul holland i agree. Such a shame though because these days we are like a hoard of zombies, like off the walking dead, shuffling to our next location.
@@paulholland5270 WTF???
Mate, you'd have to have been fairly desperate to have gone to the MetroCentre looking for "atmosphere". Even back then, many people hated it because it was so sterile and American. I remember lots of people back then saying they much preferred Newcastle because the MetroCentre was soulless.
@@paulholland5270😂😂 you mean unbridled capitalism I think. All people seem to do now is shop, buying crap they don't need and then chucking it.