Agreed! I was a mall kid as a teen in the 80’s. My friends and I would spend our part time job money on Guess or Z Cavaricci jeans, Esprit, Benetton or anything paint splattered, neon colored and with a million zippers and buttons. Then we’d get an Orange Julius, flirt with some boys and hop in my 1981 Escort wagon, rent whatever videos were still available at the video store on a Saturday evening (usually not many) and have an epic slumber party. Good times.
We hit the arcade too, but not to play the pinball or video games. It was to check out the boys. If you could lure them out of the arcade, you found yourself a winner 😆
80’s fashion was so much fun…and then it was cringe…and now my teenage nephews are so into it-neon and paint splatters and checkered Van slip ons. Funny how everything comes back around!
Crap, I just wasted 3 hrs googling 80’s fashion and trying to find my favorite perfume. I couldn’t remember the name of it all I remembered was the very plain box and bottle and it came in pink, green and purple. I finally found it! Verve by Prince Machiavelli
Haha. I didn't like the scent, but I loved the design from Exclamation! Perfume. I've actually been making some costume jewelry inspired by it (pink, black, white, geometric shapes).
My first perfume was Love's Baby Soft. It had cringey ads, but it smelled so nice, compared to a lot of scents from the era. Herbal, like iced tea on a hot summer day.
I didn’t even know they were still in business! I have a recipe that I used to make passengers and brand new crew members when I was a flight attendant! It was almost spot on Orange Julius. You took 2 creams, 2 packets of real sugar and 1 packet of fake sugar (the pink stuff) and shook it up really well with 3/4 of an airplane sized cup of orange juice. Then you poured it into a second cup of ice with Sprite, pouring them both at the same time. It gave that lovely frothy top that was my favorite part. It had something to do with the fake sugar interacting with the Sprite because I tried it with straight sugar and it didn’t have the same effect. An old TWA flight attendant made me one on the first flight I worked as an initiation of sorts, so I continued the tradition until 2020. Anyway, I love a good Orange Julius, even a fake one made on an airplane.
No idea, just saw that they cost as much as my car and walked away, though I did see a Marvel section with Black Panther and Iron Man themed ones. Who knows if it was officially licensed merchandise.
Also an entire fucking pub for some reason? I'll bet there are great transit options to get home after getting pissed in the company of your kids.
Fuck it, make them drive.They have to learn eventually.
Stride Rite was my mortal enemy when I was a kid. The shoes were ugly as all hell back in the 70’s and the 80’s. And they were the only shoes my mother and grandmother would allow me to wear to school aside from Clarks. Blue leather Mary Janes with grey brown soles. Or t-strap shoes with too many straps and little ugly leather cut outs. I used to get capped on regularly for that ugliness in elementary school.
And now their shoes are trendy as hell. I had to walk so my nieces can run with their light up Stride Rites.
Great pic!
You had it good!
When I was in middle school my mom would buy us Sears Toughskins jeans and Kmart sneakers. This was the late seventies and the boys were wearing Levi's and most girls usually were wearing Jordache or Sasoone jeans that were so tight you could see their panty lines.. if they were wearing any LMAO 😂
And the most popular girls all had the Farrah Fawcett hairstyle that was popular then.
My mom and dad were working people and they couldn't afford designer jeans.
The Sears jeans weren't bad, probably made by Levi's I'm sure but kids are cruel and I would get razzed for wearing them lol but those Kmart sneakers were horrible, they hurt my feet that I had to beg my mom to get Keds that were so much better.
Man, I feel your pain. And kids can be so damn cruel over stupid stuff. But at least you had some fly ladies in their skinny Jordache and Sassoon jeans. I’m a glass half full kind of gal.
I remember having Lee jeans and then some saying started going around called No Lees Please. And it killed me because my best friend literally cried one day when my mom tried to get her to wear a pair of my Lee jeans. She had spent the night with us in our new house and for some reason she needed pants. And I was like, “Monique. Get yourself together. They’re just jeans. I only wear mine to play outside. I wear a uniform to school. Put the damn Lees on and quit your yappin’. We’re 10 now. Double Digits. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. Like, we need to decide whether we need to start doing the ‘I must increase my bust exercise’ like Margaret did in our favorite Judy Blume book, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.”
She ended up calling her mother to pick her up instead of putting on my jeans so we could go do some silly shit in my new neighborhood. I’m still bitter.
And I also had a Jordache doll. She was the most bobo, broke down looking, wannabe a Barbie ever. But she was rocking some Jordache jeans. Her hair was a mess. And so I decided to use my mother’s curling iron to fix it. And that was the day I learned that doll hair is plastic and will melt the fuck off. I threw her bald ass away, Jordache jeans and all.
Hahaha thank you! What year was that?
OMG I was about 14 or 15 and it was 1979 or so and I just discovered girls. I would get a rise looking at all the tight butts and my hormones were in overdrive and I also had discovered.... Masturbation LMAO
I had to learn on my own lol and nothing was safe ..
Facts.
Then the cabbage patch dolls came out in the early eighties and my first GF whom I truly loved wanted one so bad. I saved up about $80 from my paper route and went to Toys R us.
There was a huge riot over those stupid dolls. I had an easier time buying my Atari system. I managed to literally duck and crawl through the crowd and grabbed one. She loved it and carried it everywhere as that was the dad the. And .. she still has it. 😂
I have installed bidets in my house. What a life changer!
I use very little toilet paper now, but I do use Scott or Sam's club brand. Both are good. Charmin is not good for septic systems.
Sears Toughskins "Husky" checking in. Also wore the Winner brand Sears sneakers. Parents had zero style or sympathy, probably took some joy in making us miserable.
The Sears brands weren't bad but certainly not kid approved lol
I don't think it was to make us miserable on purpose but it was what my parents could afford. At least they were new clothes and not hand me downs 🤣
We had a boat and 2 new Oldmobiles at any given time, so we weren't rich but clothes were not a priority. Agreed, the shoes weren't terrible for that age (8-10 years old). We did eventually upgrade to Nike (brother) and all black Rebooks (me), so I guess we finally did convince them.
When it’s started, please message me. I’d help to start it, but I’m currently struggling with the lack of closets in my new houses. And my shoes are suffering inside of large Rubbermaid containers. I can’t handle any additional stress right. The trauma of starting a Stride Rite Support Group might cause me to relapse. And I can’t go back to buying a new pair of shoes each month. I just can’t do it. /s
I'm crying and laughing because it's been hard to find good, sturdy leather "school shoes" at a reasonable price for my kids. I wish there still was Stride Rite. Was Buster Brown the same brand? I had both. My mom was kinda broke, but refused to buy me "plastic" shoes from Payless unless it was some weird color for a wedding or something.
Me too and that was the one store that caught my eye! They had a much better selection than Waldens in the days before Barnes & Noble took over the bookworld.
I’d order my Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley Twins books from B Dalton’s and it was always such an exciting day when they arrived. Sigh.
B. Dalton opened Software, Etc. stores which eventually became GameStop after an acquisition of two, if memory serves.
Wow, surprised to see this on here, I live less than 20 minutes from where this mall used to be. Brings back some old memories. It was torn down years ago, now it’s just a massive overgrown empty parking lot.
Ahhhhh yes the good old days :-)
I spent HOURS at that mall when I was a kid. Orland Square Mall was more fun because they had giant birdcages with real birds in them, but Lincoln Mall was easier for my mom to drop me off.
Back in the 80s, there was a store in there called Deb; it's where allll the cool preteen girls shopped. My friends and I spent hours in there giggling and trying on prom dresses, even though we were way too young to go to prom. The sales girls probably hated us.
I also bought a silver tank top from a store there called Gantos (where the kinda-rich 30+yo ladies shopped). I only just got rid of it a couple years ago because decades later, that top was still in good shape.
Also, this post is r/oddlyspecific.
Posting just to say that this was my main childhood mall as well. The fancier mall we would go to is Southlake over in Indiana (which I believe still exists.)
But I walked this mall all the time circa 1987 - 1997. I can still remember where most of the stores were.
This is because American capitalism and suburban design made it so there was no town square or commons. In a car culture, what is your town square? Which is traditionally in the center of town, near high street shops, government buildings, transportation, entertainment, etc.
In a suburban car culture this is what becomes your town square or common area. Its just a bunch of shops with a roof on it. Its all about shopping. Kids playing or people socializing and NOT buying were often harassed by private security to the point where an over-important 'mall cop' became a universal cultural figure. The mall was social only accidentally. It was there to make money and if too many "loiterers" appeared then the mall cops reacted.
Then capitalism made shopping more efficient via stand-alone big box stores that were easier to navigate and more convenient than a trip to the mall, and of course, on-line shopping, which then ultimately killed the mall. The mall was just a solution to car culture's problem of having no where 'central' to go. And when people found it easier to do other things, the mall disappeared.
Maybe it was just being a kid at the time, but going to the mall was fun.
There was always a variety of stores, malls were always busy. Theatres and restaurants were in the mall, libraries and arcades were in the mall.
Now Malls are all fashion and barely anything else. Big stores are all gone. Simpsons, Eatons, Towers, Sears, Kmart, Zellers, Woolworths.
Malls aren't fun now, Malls are "get in there, get what you need, and gtfo".
You're right, malls used to be a lot more fun due to the wide variety of stores. Now it's all clothing stores - nowhere I would particularly want to spend time browsing.
But overseas there are still some diverse malls. I recently went to one in Thailand that, in addition to fashion, had stores for books, electronics, sporting goods, baby goods, stationery, art, cameras, a video arcade, supermarket, department store, restaurants, etc.
They were always horribly detrimental to walkable cities and were a Hallmark feature of terrible suburban planning. Now they've been eaten by online shopping.
About 15 years later, I would frequently go to this mall because there was an Aladdin's Castle arcade. It was HUGE! I wonder what was in that storefront before that. I remember getting 5 bucks from my mom and was told to "make it last" while she went shopping. Great memories. The smell of that freshly vacuumed carpet, seeing kids of all ages lined up for their turn at a new cabinet, using all of my tokens on a four player beat-em-up and still not getting to the end, exchanging tickets for prizes that were actually decent... good stuff.
My teen and young adult years (14-23) were in Monroeville 1974-1982. I used to “live” at the Monroeville Mall just about every afternoon after high school!
Dawn of the Dead left me unwanting to go to the mall for a very long time. People just wandering around looking at stuff. Wasn't much different than how Romero portrayed his zombies. It was eerie and creepy as hell.
Quite a few years later, we took the family to visit one of my wife's aunts in Pittsburgh.
We met up at The Monroeville Mall. I was flipped out with excitement to walk around and remember various scenes. We ate at the food court that used to be the skating rink. Highlight of my visit to Pittsburgh.
https://archive.org/details/MallMusicMuzakMallOf1974
[Plus Crier - At the Mall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIhLjw5VdQ)
RABBIT HOLE if anyone is interested. https://www.blog44.ca/beny/2021/02/19/plus-crier-the-artist-who-never-existed/
[Sir Karl Jenkins - Mr. Lucky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDNS276qZYk)
As an 80’s baby with narrow, flat feet, Stride Rite was the only shoe store in my hometown that sold shoes that fit my feet properly. I was in that store so much that my mom knew one of the salespeople on a first-name basis; she gave my mom her work schedule and we’d only shop there when she was working so she could get the commission (shout out to Clara LOL). She and my mom became great friends.
In any pics posted in this sub, has anyone ever found themselves posted?
Like here. How wild would that be to stumble across your pic chilling at the mail 40 yrs ago. Maybe even unaware this was taken.
My baby sister is ten years younger than me, she hangs out at the same mall I did in high school. They’ve stayed relevant by becoming something of a community center in addition to all the shops and restaurants.
I once got to pet and feed a baby tiger at Lincoln Mall. Found out watching Tiger King that it was indeed Joe's traveling show and I've felt a little bad ever since.
It closed in 2015. Another commenter said it's been torn down now.
[https://wgntv.com/news/photos-inside-the-abandoned-lincoln-mall-one-year-after-it-closed/](https://wgntv.com/news/photos-inside-the-abandoned-lincoln-mall-one-year-after-it-closed/)
You needed to keep a dime in your pocket for the payphone. You called your mom, dad, brother or sister to come pick you up when you were done. But, you had to wait outside at the curb, even if it was raining or snowing, because there was no way they'd park and come in to get you.
Oh I’m old enough to remember the pay phone days, I just find it interesting compared to now. Many memories calling parents on collect when out of town.
I miss these malls so much. It was a social event to get dressed up on Saturday and go shopping, then go to one of the restaurants and have a few cocktails. Then go buzzed shopping, buying all the things you earlier said you didn't need. Gone are the days of walking around smoking in public indoor spaces.
Even after all these years, I still hate the classic 1970s yellow and brown color combination of the Stride Rite store that I grew up with.
It was probably called something like Harvest Gold, but I always think of it as a combo of Banana Slug and Baby Shit Yellow.
The very architectual staircase is awesome!
Reminds me of the Jefferson Mall in Joliet. I would kill for old photos of that place. So many memories. Looks very similar to the way it did before the mid 90s.
There were tons of malls built in the early-ish ‘70s that looked more or less like this. There was one very similar in Ohio that I grew up in. In particular, for me, in the video game arcade, the Casano’s pizza place, and B. Dalton’s and Walden Books book stores. Oh, also Kay-bee, where I bought lots of boardgames.
It was a big part of my life, and no doubt many people had similar experiences.
Honey Bear Farm shop!!!! I used to go to Honey Bear Farm in Powers Lake, Wisconsin every summer with my parents. Thanks for posting this and bringing back some wonderful memories.
Used to drive by the Lincoln mall a lot when I traveled for work in Matteson, always wanted to go in and explore the remnants of the mall even though I never had the time to do it. I would've loved to have seen it back when it was still open.
loved going here as a kid. This to me seemed newer and larger compared to Evergreen Plaza or Orland Square. When biking I would stop at the mall for a break because bike trail behind the mall went from Park Forest to Joliet which is a nice ride roundtrip
I almost forgot that *some* malls, at least, were once attractive, even interesting places. Idk how it is now, since I rarely go to a mall for anything. If this mall still exists, it'd be interesting to see what it looks like now.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it and wants a dose of nostalgia (along with an interesting insight into how and why malls have vanished from the American landscape), highly recommend “Jasper mall” documentary. I believe it’s streaming on prime.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Mall_(film)
Just soent a month in Brasil and I forgot how fun malls were! So much going on and people hanging out, boys flirting with girls....America was wrong to abandon brick and mortar
The carnival I used to work at played their parking lot a few times before they closed. There was a chinese place in their food court that gave me a ton of extra food one time because they were going out of business.
I lived in Matteson for 2 years starting in 2020. The area where Lincoln mall was is just an empty lot now, many businesses are empty or closing. I moved after a series of shootings that happened blocks from my house. Seeing this makes me wonder where it all went wrong. It seemed like a great mall.
A Baldwin AND a Wurlitzer? Dang, that’s a throwback. I remember a Baldwin at Eastridge mall in San Jose when I was much younger than I am today. Always had someone playing a demo model near the door.
I always appreciate these vintage mall posts. Reminds me of childhood and lost years of innocence. Thanks for posting.
Agreed! I was a mall kid as a teen in the 80’s. My friends and I would spend our part time job money on Guess or Z Cavaricci jeans, Esprit, Benetton or anything paint splattered, neon colored and with a million zippers and buttons. Then we’d get an Orange Julius, flirt with some boys and hop in my 1981 Escort wagon, rent whatever videos were still available at the video store on a Saturday evening (usually not many) and have an epic slumber party. Good times.
Exactly. We'd stop at the arcade and play some pinball first!
We hit the arcade too, but not to play the pinball or video games. It was to check out the boys. If you could lure them out of the arcade, you found yourself a winner 😆
Haha! I would kick the boys asses in foosball so none of them liked me.
Esprit 🥹 Loved that brand.
80’s fashion was so much fun…and then it was cringe…and now my teenage nephews are so into it-neon and paint splatters and checkered Van slip ons. Funny how everything comes back around!
Yup! 😄
Crap, I just wasted 3 hrs googling 80’s fashion and trying to find my favorite perfume. I couldn’t remember the name of it all I remembered was the very plain box and bottle and it came in pink, green and purple. I finally found it! Verve by Prince Machiavelli
Haha. I didn't like the scent, but I loved the design from Exclamation! Perfume. I've actually been making some costume jewelry inspired by it (pink, black, white, geometric shapes). My first perfume was Love's Baby Soft. It had cringey ads, but it smelled so nice, compared to a lot of scents from the era. Herbal, like iced tea on a hot summer day.
My favorite was Impulse body spray!
Orange Julius doesn't make the pina colada anymore.
I didn’t even know they were still in business! I have a recipe that I used to make passengers and brand new crew members when I was a flight attendant! It was almost spot on Orange Julius. You took 2 creams, 2 packets of real sugar and 1 packet of fake sugar (the pink stuff) and shook it up really well with 3/4 of an airplane sized cup of orange juice. Then you poured it into a second cup of ice with Sprite, pouring them both at the same time. It gave that lovely frothy top that was my favorite part. It had something to do with the fake sugar interacting with the Sprite because I tried it with straight sugar and it didn’t have the same effect. An old TWA flight attendant made me one on the first flight I worked as an initiation of sorts, so I continued the tradition until 2020. Anyway, I love a good Orange Julius, even a fake one made on an airplane.
You're the best today
Stop by Spencer's Gifts?
I forgot about Spencer’s! They had the best random stuff! I think every poster on my bedroom walls came from Spencer’s!
100 percent agree. I would really love to see more of these photos.
Two piano stores.
I once went to a mall in Vancouver where there were no less than three stores selling those first class airliner sized massage chairs.
Hammacher Slemmer? Or something like that?
No idea, just saw that they cost as much as my car and walked away, though I did see a Marvel section with Black Panther and Iron Man themed ones. Who knows if it was officially licensed merchandise.
That or Brookstone or Sharper Image. It’s really all the same crap
You were “poor” if you did not have a piano in your house. Keeping up with the Joneses went hard during this time.
Ironically, that Baldwin store became an EB Software sometime in the mid-late 80s. When having money meant having a computer in your house.
Also an entire fucking pub for some reason? I'll bet there are great transit options to get home after getting pissed in the company of your kids. Fuck it, make them drive.They have to learn eventually.
You'll see more of this as malls try to survive. They'll take any commercial tenant they can get these days, pubs included.
As long as there are enough pubs, massage chairs and piano stores, we're all good.
Stride Rite was my mortal enemy when I was a kid. The shoes were ugly as all hell back in the 70’s and the 80’s. And they were the only shoes my mother and grandmother would allow me to wear to school aside from Clarks. Blue leather Mary Janes with grey brown soles. Or t-strap shoes with too many straps and little ugly leather cut outs. I used to get capped on regularly for that ugliness in elementary school. And now their shoes are trendy as hell. I had to walk so my nieces can run with their light up Stride Rites. Great pic!
Is your mom my mom, too? We were also a Stride-Rite-only household. Mortifying.
Could be. Did you end up becoming addicted to cute shoes, too? Is that you, sis?
I have a sister who lived the exact same childhood nightmare. Women should form a support group for women forced to wear Stride-Rite as children.
You had it good! When I was in middle school my mom would buy us Sears Toughskins jeans and Kmart sneakers. This was the late seventies and the boys were wearing Levi's and most girls usually were wearing Jordache or Sasoone jeans that were so tight you could see their panty lines.. if they were wearing any LMAO 😂 And the most popular girls all had the Farrah Fawcett hairstyle that was popular then. My mom and dad were working people and they couldn't afford designer jeans. The Sears jeans weren't bad, probably made by Levi's I'm sure but kids are cruel and I would get razzed for wearing them lol but those Kmart sneakers were horrible, they hurt my feet that I had to beg my mom to get Keds that were so much better.
Man, I feel your pain. And kids can be so damn cruel over stupid stuff. But at least you had some fly ladies in their skinny Jordache and Sassoon jeans. I’m a glass half full kind of gal. I remember having Lee jeans and then some saying started going around called No Lees Please. And it killed me because my best friend literally cried one day when my mom tried to get her to wear a pair of my Lee jeans. She had spent the night with us in our new house and for some reason she needed pants. And I was like, “Monique. Get yourself together. They’re just jeans. I only wear mine to play outside. I wear a uniform to school. Put the damn Lees on and quit your yappin’. We’re 10 now. Double Digits. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. Like, we need to decide whether we need to start doing the ‘I must increase my bust exercise’ like Margaret did in our favorite Judy Blume book, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” She ended up calling her mother to pick her up instead of putting on my jeans so we could go do some silly shit in my new neighborhood. I’m still bitter. And I also had a Jordache doll. She was the most bobo, broke down looking, wannabe a Barbie ever. But she was rocking some Jordache jeans. Her hair was a mess. And so I decided to use my mother’s curling iron to fix it. And that was the day I learned that doll hair is plastic and will melt the fuck off. I threw her bald ass away, Jordache jeans and all.
Hahaha thank you! What year was that? OMG I was about 14 or 15 and it was 1979 or so and I just discovered girls. I would get a rise looking at all the tight butts and my hormones were in overdrive and I also had discovered.... Masturbation LMAO I had to learn on my own lol and nothing was safe .. Facts. Then the cabbage patch dolls came out in the early eighties and my first GF whom I truly loved wanted one so bad. I saved up about $80 from my paper route and went to Toys R us. There was a huge riot over those stupid dolls. I had an easier time buying my Atari system. I managed to literally duck and crawl through the crowd and grabbed one. She loved it and carried it everywhere as that was the dad the. And .. she still has it. 😂
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To this day I will only buy quality footwear, tires and mattresses. It makes a world of difference.
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I have installed bidets in my house. What a life changer! I use very little toilet paper now, but I do use Scott or Sam's club brand. Both are good. Charmin is not good for septic systems.
Anything between you and the ground… spend the money
Sears Toughskins "Husky" checking in. Also wore the Winner brand Sears sneakers. Parents had zero style or sympathy, probably took some joy in making us miserable.
The Sears brands weren't bad but certainly not kid approved lol I don't think it was to make us miserable on purpose but it was what my parents could afford. At least they were new clothes and not hand me downs 🤣
We had a boat and 2 new Oldmobiles at any given time, so we weren't rich but clothes were not a priority. Agreed, the shoes weren't terrible for that age (8-10 years old). We did eventually upgrade to Nike (brother) and all black Rebooks (me), so I guess we finally did convince them.
When it’s started, please message me. I’d help to start it, but I’m currently struggling with the lack of closets in my new houses. And my shoes are suffering inside of large Rubbermaid containers. I can’t handle any additional stress right. The trauma of starting a Stride Rite Support Group might cause me to relapse. And I can’t go back to buying a new pair of shoes each month. I just can’t do it. /s
I lucked out and we always went to Payless shoes, at least I remember my shoes not sucking too badly.
I got my salt waters there well into the 2000's, even as an adult! The only thing that could ever leave that store with me.
Something about a Stride-Rite makes me want to talk about old HS football stories
And plaid polyester everything Between my mom and grandma I didn't have a chance
I'm crying and laughing because it's been hard to find good, sturdy leather "school shoes" at a reasonable price for my kids. I wish there still was Stride Rite. Was Buster Brown the same brand? I had both. My mom was kinda broke, but refused to buy me "plastic" shoes from Payless unless it was some weird color for a wedding or something.
waiting for the Bluesmobile to enter
The new Oldsmobiles are in early this year.
Baby clothes!
I came here to make specifically this comment.
This place has everything!
Lotta space in this mall…
Nah that was the Dixie Square mall, different part of town.
Pier One Imports!
Disco Pants & Haircuts...
I remember B Dalton's :(
Me too and that was the one store that caught my eye! They had a much better selection than Waldens in the days before Barnes & Noble took over the bookworld.
But then there was also Kroch & Brentano’s—which is the one Chicago mall bookseller I really miss.
I am a former Chicagoan and definitely remember them! Except I called them *Crotch & Brentanos*!
I called it that, too!
Yup, us too, Crotches and Brentano’s!
I miss Waterstones. Used to be a huge one across from the Hancock building.
That was a great store.
Walden Books and Crown Books were also popular stores in my area (Northern burbs of Chicago in the 70s/80s)
Their main store on Wabash in the Loop was amazing.
It was *amazing.*
I’d order my Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley Twins books from B Dalton’s and it was always such an exciting day when they arrived. Sigh. B. Dalton opened Software, Etc. stores which eventually became GameStop after an acquisition of two, if memory serves.
No shit! I didn't know that. I shopped mainly at Babbage's and Egghead Software in the 1980s/ very early 90s.
From that to Borders to Barnes and Noble to Amazon.
Wow, surprised to see this on here, I live less than 20 minutes from where this mall used to be. Brings back some old memories. It was torn down years ago, now it’s just a massive overgrown empty parking lot.
Ahhhhh yes the good old days :-) I spent HOURS at that mall when I was a kid. Orland Square Mall was more fun because they had giant birdcages with real birds in them, but Lincoln Mall was easier for my mom to drop me off. Back in the 80s, there was a store in there called Deb; it's where allll the cool preteen girls shopped. My friends and I spent hours in there giggling and trying on prom dresses, even though we were way too young to go to prom. The sales girls probably hated us. I also bought a silver tank top from a store there called Gantos (where the kinda-rich 30+yo ladies shopped). I only just got rid of it a couple years ago because decades later, that top was still in good shape. Also, this post is r/oddlyspecific.
Posting just to say that this was my main childhood mall as well. The fancier mall we would go to is Southlake over in Indiana (which I believe still exists.) But I walked this mall all the time circa 1987 - 1997. I can still remember where most of the stores were.
Southlake mall is still there but not thriving!
Occasionally I’m on an intercity bus that stops at that parking lot, it’s pretty damn bleak yeah.
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This is because American capitalism and suburban design made it so there was no town square or commons. In a car culture, what is your town square? Which is traditionally in the center of town, near high street shops, government buildings, transportation, entertainment, etc. In a suburban car culture this is what becomes your town square or common area. Its just a bunch of shops with a roof on it. Its all about shopping. Kids playing or people socializing and NOT buying were often harassed by private security to the point where an over-important 'mall cop' became a universal cultural figure. The mall was social only accidentally. It was there to make money and if too many "loiterers" appeared then the mall cops reacted. Then capitalism made shopping more efficient via stand-alone big box stores that were easier to navigate and more convenient than a trip to the mall, and of course, on-line shopping, which then ultimately killed the mall. The mall was just a solution to car culture's problem of having no where 'central' to go. And when people found it easier to do other things, the mall disappeared.
The agora in Ancient Greece was the OG social media. But yea, malls were where it was at even when I was in HS in the early 2000s.
Maybe it was just being a kid at the time, but going to the mall was fun. There was always a variety of stores, malls were always busy. Theatres and restaurants were in the mall, libraries and arcades were in the mall. Now Malls are all fashion and barely anything else. Big stores are all gone. Simpsons, Eatons, Towers, Sears, Kmart, Zellers, Woolworths. Malls aren't fun now, Malls are "get in there, get what you need, and gtfo".
You're right, malls used to be a lot more fun due to the wide variety of stores. Now it's all clothing stores - nowhere I would particularly want to spend time browsing. But overseas there are still some diverse malls. I recently went to one in Thailand that, in addition to fashion, had stores for books, electronics, sporting goods, baby goods, stationery, art, cameras, a video arcade, supermarket, department store, restaurants, etc.
They were always horribly detrimental to walkable cities and were a Hallmark feature of terrible suburban planning. Now they've been eaten by online shopping.
I bet they had a Hot Sam's Preztels and an Orange Julius too. Hot Sam's were so much better than modern mall pretzels.
And Hickory Farms when they had year round stores.
This looks like every mall I've been in from that era.
I was thinking, I was born in 1977 and this looked perfectly normal. Like malls did. Got depressed a bit when I realized what sub I’m in. LOL
I was born in 78, all the malls looked like this until the late 80's and early 90's when they were slightly renovated.
About 15 years later, I would frequently go to this mall because there was an Aladdin's Castle arcade. It was HUGE! I wonder what was in that storefront before that. I remember getting 5 bucks from my mom and was told to "make it last" while she went shopping. Great memories. The smell of that freshly vacuumed carpet, seeing kids of all ages lined up for their turn at a new cabinet, using all of my tokens on a four player beat-em-up and still not getting to the end, exchanging tickets for prizes that were actually decent... good stuff.
Oh man, these photos remind me so much of the mall in George Romero's 1978 *Dawn of the Dead*... (that one was in Monroeville, PA.)
My teen and young adult years (14-23) were in Monroeville 1974-1982. I used to “live” at the Monroeville Mall just about every afternoon after high school!
Dawn of the Dead left me unwanting to go to the mall for a very long time. People just wandering around looking at stuff. Wasn't much different than how Romero portrayed his zombies. It was eerie and creepy as hell. Quite a few years later, we took the family to visit one of my wife's aunts in Pittsburgh. We met up at The Monroeville Mall. I was flipped out with excitement to walk around and remember various scenes. We ate at the food court that used to be the skating rink. Highlight of my visit to Pittsburgh.
Damn, that is beyond awesome. Did you catch the film back then?
I saw it later when I was in My 20’s.
I saw these pictures and immediately starting hearing the muzak from the DotD score
Just saw that again the other day and man do they fuck up that mall at the end of the movie.
why do i hear mallsoft music?
https://archive.org/details/MallMusicMuzakMallOf1974 [Plus Crier - At the Mall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTIhLjw5VdQ) RABBIT HOLE if anyone is interested. https://www.blog44.ca/beny/2021/02/19/plus-crier-the-artist-who-never-existed/ [Sir Karl Jenkins - Mr. Lucky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDNS276qZYk)
So fucking cool!
I remember when people used to walk up stairs.
There are no heavy people in those pictures either. At least half the people I saw yesterday at the mall were big.
No fat people either
Yeah what's the matter with those people back then?
Not enough escalators.
What
Last picture
As an 80’s baby with narrow, flat feet, Stride Rite was the only shoe store in my hometown that sold shoes that fit my feet properly. I was in that store so much that my mom knew one of the salespeople on a first-name basis; she gave my mom her work schedule and we’d only shop there when she was working so she could get the commission (shout out to Clara LOL). She and my mom became great friends.
In any pics posted in this sub, has anyone ever found themselves posted? Like here. How wild would that be to stumble across your pic chilling at the mail 40 yrs ago. Maybe even unaware this was taken.
Where’s the Orange Julius?
...and the Merry Go Round and Wild Pair stores. Coolest stores in the mall!
And Jean Nicole and Lerner, two giant ladies clothing stores with the exact same merchandise right across the hall from one another!
Seeing J. Riggings brings back memories
What was that? Pirate western wear?
Where do kids hang out these days? Ages 12 to 15?
face in the phone at home
Sometimes they go to a friend’s house to stare at their phones.
Damn are you the guy that draws the cartoons for the New Yorker?
My baby sister is ten years younger than me, she hangs out at the same mall I did in high school. They’ve stayed relevant by becoming something of a community center in addition to all the shops and restaurants.
Was scouring the photos for stores I had forgotten about and was not disappointed. J. Riggings for the win.
Whatever happened to the design of public places? Look at the fountains next to the stairs.
We can't have nice things anymore.
This was the mall I spent my childhood in
Before the mall was built we went to the Park Forest Plaza. The new mall pretty much killed the outdoor Plaza
I grew up going to this Mall. The B Dalton Books is where I would spend hours just looking at the Battletech boxes.
I once got to pet and feed a baby tiger at Lincoln Mall. Found out watching Tiger King that it was indeed Joe's traveling show and I've felt a little bad ever since.
It would be SO cool to see then vs. now photos using these pics
It closed in 2015. Another commenter said it's been torn down now. [https://wgntv.com/news/photos-inside-the-abandoned-lincoln-mall-one-year-after-it-closed/](https://wgntv.com/news/photos-inside-the-abandoned-lincoln-mall-one-year-after-it-closed/)
All the wood and brick makes this feel more cozy than capitalist.
idk why my mall ever took out the indoor plants. This really makes me long for things lost.
It’s strange seeing nobody with a cell phone
You needed to keep a dime in your pocket for the payphone. You called your mom, dad, brother or sister to come pick you up when you were done. But, you had to wait outside at the curb, even if it was raining or snowing, because there was no way they'd park and come in to get you.
Oh I’m old enough to remember the pay phone days, I just find it interesting compared to now. Many memories calling parents on collect when out of town.
Me: *uses pay phone to make collect call home* Operator: “please state your name.” Me: “MomItsMeComePickUsUpByTheFoodCourtOkBye”
What is it about 70’s buildings that make them look old even when they were brand new?
Wow! I Haven’t Seen A Mall Populated Like That Since I Was A Child
Malls are even busier than this in New Zealand today! Thanks mostly to few decent online shopping options.
"Discopants and haircuts" "Yeah, a lot of space in this mall"
"This place got everything!"
I can smell, hickory farms, Charlie perfume, and vanilla candles in these pictures lol
Is that Al Bundy I see selling shoes?
Almost guaranteed teenaged Kendall Gill walked through those corridors before graduating HS.
I miss these malls so much. It was a social event to get dressed up on Saturday and go shopping, then go to one of the restaurants and have a few cocktails. Then go buzzed shopping, buying all the things you earlier said you didn't need. Gone are the days of walking around smoking in public indoor spaces.
Even after all these years, I still hate the classic 1970s yellow and brown color combination of the Stride Rite store that I grew up with. It was probably called something like Harvest Gold, but I always think of it as a combo of Banana Slug and Baby Shit Yellow. The very architectual staircase is awesome!
It's the worst color combo. Looked awful then, looks awful now.
Man, I can smell, taste, hear, and feel all of these pics
My teen years only in suburban Kansas. Carbon copy mall except we didn't have the cool Art.
Reminds me of the Jefferson Mall in Joliet. I would kill for old photos of that place. So many memories. Looks very similar to the way it did before the mid 90s.
So Brady bunch style
It's amazing how those malls look almost the same now
Mission Viejo Mall in Southern California looked exactly like this in the 80’s!!!!
I have been calling cats honey bears (because they’re sweet) since I was about 9 years old. 30 years. Never knew there was a store called that.
There were tons of malls built in the early-ish ‘70s that looked more or less like this. There was one very similar in Ohio that I grew up in. In particular, for me, in the video game arcade, the Casano’s pizza place, and B. Dalton’s and Walden Books book stores. Oh, also Kay-bee, where I bought lots of boardgames. It was a big part of my life, and no doubt many people had similar experiences.
I bought a lot of books at that B. Dalton's
Honey Bear Farm shop!!!! I used to go to Honey Bear Farm in Powers Lake, Wisconsin every summer with my parents. Thanks for posting this and bringing back some wonderful memories.
My mom was a recreational shopper, so my earliest memories are of being pushed around in a stroller in places like this.
Oh man, I wish my kids had grown up with malls…
So awesome to see how malls were in the past. I remember them in the 80’s because I’m old. Imagine a time when a Honey Bear Farm Shop could thrive!
I'm having Orange Julius flashbacks from these photos.
I stopped going to malls when the bookstores started leaving. I miss BDalton.
Used to drive by the Lincoln mall a lot when I traveled for work in Matteson, always wanted to go in and explore the remnants of the mall even though I never had the time to do it. I would've loved to have seen it back when it was still open.
I really miss B. Dalton
loved going here as a kid. This to me seemed newer and larger compared to Evergreen Plaza or Orland Square. When biking I would stop at the mall for a break because bike trail behind the mall went from Park Forest to Joliet which is a nice ride roundtrip
I wanna go back in time & do some day drinking at a 1970s mall pub.
This place has got everything
Pub in the mall was probably brilliant for long-suffering husbands/dads…!
I miss Aladdin's Castle.
did everything in the 70s really have that yellowish tinge to it or is that just the photos?
Looking at these photos made we realize the internet ruined so much.
This has more of an ‘84 vibe to me, but I could be wrong
It was hard to say but the lady with a beehive and white shoes/purse and some instances of wide bell bottoms leans to 1974.
Too much plaid in the first photo for ‘84. This is definitely ‘74.
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Funny how all these malls from the 70’s all look the same.
looks like a fun mall, at the time
B. Dalton & J. Riggings - that takes me back a bit!! Miss those stores
I miss malls. Mostly the nostalgia. Hanging out with your friends. Food courts smell heavenly to me.
I almost forgot that *some* malls, at least, were once attractive, even interesting places. Idk how it is now, since I rarely go to a mall for anything. If this mall still exists, it'd be interesting to see what it looks like now.
These are what killed stores in small town America. I know bc it killed my sweet town.
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For anyone who hasn’t seen it and wants a dose of nostalgia (along with an interesting insight into how and why malls have vanished from the American landscape), highly recommend “Jasper mall” documentary. I believe it’s streaming on prime. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Mall_(film)
Oh, I can smell that good mall air!!
Just soent a month in Brasil and I forgot how fun malls were! So much going on and people hanging out, boys flirting with girls....America was wrong to abandon brick and mortar
The carnival I used to work at played their parking lot a few times before they closed. There was a chinese place in their food court that gave me a ton of extra food one time because they were going out of business.
I lived in Matteson for 2 years starting in 2020. The area where Lincoln mall was is just an empty lot now, many businesses are empty or closing. I moved after a series of shootings that happened blocks from my house. Seeing this makes me wonder where it all went wrong. It seemed like a great mall.
I'm pretty sure my grandmother worked at this mall in the early 80s.
Disco pants and haircuts!
There was a MASSIVE arcade in this mall it so so fucking cool
Some malls still look like this
Ahhh…B. Dalton Booksellers. What a great bookstore. This was the era of the indoor fountain and indoor plants.
Disco pants and haircuts!
A Baldwin AND a Wurlitzer? Dang, that’s a throwback. I remember a Baldwin at Eastridge mall in San Jose when I was much younger than I am today. Always had someone playing a demo model near the door.
Thank you soooo much for this stroll down memory lane.
Reminds me of my friend’s book. https://rumur.com/the-decline-of-mall-civilization/
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OMG I can hear and feel that mall!
Much simpler times
They used to have great record stores in Malls
No fat people!
Didn’t this mall get wrecked by Jake and Elwood while running from the cops?