These Haunting Pics Show Us How Malls Have Changed
For people of a certain age, the shopping mall was once a beloved institution: A vast indoor space protected from the elements, full of stores of every description, along with ample space to walk around or just hang out.
However, the shopping mall is a dying breed in the 2020s, with societal trends shifting towards online shopping. But many of these retail behemoths still exist, and their liminal, largely abandoned spaces trigger a certain kind of wistful nostalgia.
Virginia Center Commons: Glen Allen, VA
This mall was constructed in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, in the early '90s. It was a boom time for malls, as evidenced by the fact that it moved into a market that was already served by three large malls.
The VCC, like many other malls, saw its soul ripped out after its anchor tenants left in the 2000s. The area is being redeveloped, and parts of the mall will be put to good use.
Chesterfield Mall: Chesterfield, MO
During November and December, you'll sometimes see these Santa set-ups in dead malls. Something about the juxtaposition of the merry decorations against the deserted storefronts and empty concourse is deeply poignant.
At its peak, the Chesterfield Mall was the biggest shopping mall in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Now though, with no anchor stores remaining, the mall is in its final days. It's set to be redeveloped into a multi-use area.
Exton Square Mall: Exton, PA
This pic shows us that this mall in Chester County, Pennsylvania, isn't quite dead yet. But the Redditor who posted it points out that this was snapped on a Saturday night — a time when any mall would have been busy in decades past.
The mall, which first opened in 1973, still houses a number of retail operations. But with its owners in deep debt, it's hard to say how many more years it may have remaining.
Harrisburg Mall: Harrisburg, PA
This image shows the Harrisburg Mall in its dying gasps — while it wasn't officially closed to the public at this point, it was devoid of any storefronts and completely deserted.
The mall was redeveloped in the early 2020s, with Bass Pro Shops as the sole anchor tenant. While Bass Pro Shops will remain at the site, the rest of the mall is now officially closed, and demolition is set to begin soon.
Crystal City Shops: Arlington, VA
This upscale area south of D.C. demanded some upscale shopping back in the day, so Crystal City Shops was built to serve the locals. The mall is still in operation, although it's mostly dedicated to restaurants and its food court now.
The red neon aesthetic was once in vogue, but thanks to Stranger Things, it's hard not to see this as some kind of ominous portal to a different world.
Eastern Hills Mall: Williamsville, NY
This photo showing a Barney-themed kids' ride in an otherwise deserted mall was posted as an ode to this space by a Redditor who clearly spent a lot of time in the shopping center back in its heyday.
"Thank you for the music stores and the hippie store and the alt fashion store and all the other places I could try on pieces of myself," they wrote. "Thank you for being a safe place for a teen to walk around with her friends and taste independence."
Valley View Center: Dallas, TX
Big malls required a big security presence, and security stations like this were present in virtually any sizeable mall. While some were hidden in back rooms, others were more centrally located along the main concourse areas.
This security station at the defunct Valley View Center in Dallas is absolutely trashed. The equipment evidently wasn't worth hauling out after the mall closed its doors in 2022. The following year, the mall caught fire.
Lougheed Village Mall: Burnaby, BC, Canada
This is a fantastic example of a commuter mall — the kind of subterranean retail space that's built underneath an office district or apartment complex. In this case, the mall is located under an apartment building in a suburb of Vancouver, BC.
The Redditor who posted this noted that while the two-floor mall isn't dead, only four stores remain. It's stuck in time, as there's still a place that rents VHS tapes and a pharmacy that sells glasses with packaging from 1989.
Alabang Town Center: Manila, Philippines
Most dead malls are located in the United States, which makes sense as the U.S. is the birthplace of shopping malls and mall culture in general. But these retail spaces spread to other continents, thrived on other continents, and — eventually — died on other continents.
This arcade at Manila's Alabang Town Center is still in operation, as is the rest of the mall. But it's evident just from this picture that fortunes have taken a downturn.
Vallco Mall: Cupertino, CA
The hot pink neon lighting brings us right back to the 1980s peak of shopping mall culture, but the emptiness reminds us that malls are a dying breed in the 21st century.
The Vallco Mall saw a number of expansions in its nearly four decades of existence, including a movie theater, bowling alley, and skating rink. Now, though, the mall is mostly demolished and will likely be gone entirely within a few years.
Concord Mall: Wilmington, DE
This is described as a "holy grail," and when you get the context, it's easy to see why. You're looking at a vintage Burger King, complete with its '70s-'80s woodgrain motif, that's been sitting abandoned since 2009.
It was essentially sealed up behind a wall at Concord Mall, which is north of Wilmington, Delaware. It's the state's second-largest shopping mall and remains open, even if its Burger King was forgotten by time.
White Flint Mall: North Bethesda, MD
If you put on your rose-tinted glasses, it's almost possible to experience the feast of the senses that this '80s food court would have been. The White Flint Mall originally opened in 1977 and boomed through the '80s and '90s.
However, the same economic conditions and changing consumer habits that have doomed other malls eventually came for White Flint as well. The mall had a swift decline and closed for good in 2015.
Manhattan Mall: New York, NY
"Manhattan Mall" sounds like it should be the grandest shopping center in the world. However, this mall in Midtown Manhattan was never anything more than a relatively quaint retail space tucked into Manhattan's towering skyscrapers.
The mall was constructed to serve as a flagship of the Gimbels department store way back in 1910, and was redeveloped in 1989. The mall enjoyed a few prosperous decades, but was essentially abandoned when the pandemic hit in 2020.
Rolling Acres Mall: Akron, OH
Lots of shopping malls have continued to exist largely in their original form, even as store after store moves out. But Rolling Acres Mall in Ohio shows us what happens when a mall is thoroughly abandoned and left to rot.
While it looks like something from an apocalyptic TV show, Rolling Acres Mall was once a regional hotspot. It was in operation until the early 2010s, but the writing was on the wall after anchor stores moved out.
Myrtle Beach Mall: Myrtle Beach, SC
Myrtle Beach Mall is located at the hub of two major highways near Myrtle Beach and, at the time of its construction in 1986, was a major attraction in the area.
The mall was able to hang onto its anchor tenants longer than some other malls on this list, as JCPenney closed its doors in 2020. It still has several large stores, but plans have been floated for redeveloping the space.
Burbank Town Center: Burbank, CA
The Burbank Mall in the San Fernando Valley is an encapsulation of what we see in many dead or dying malls: A movie theater that's somehow still active, along with storefronts that are either empty or have been turned into recruiting centers.
Several redevelopment plans have been carried out over the years, and the mall isn't completely dead. That said, it's fallen a long way since it opened back in 1991.
Century III Mall: West Mifflin, PA
It's an easy day at work for whoever's in the Easter Bunny suit because it seems unlikely there will be any visitors on this day. Given the barrenness of the mall around this display, it's weird that they'd even bother having an Easter Bunny in the first place.
This mall in suburban Pittsburgh was built on the site of a slag dump in 1979. Exactly 40 years later, it closed its doors.
Hamilton City Centre: Hamilton, ON, Canada
Once known as Hamilton Eaton Centre, this was one of several Eaton Centres that opened up in various Canadian cities in the '70s and '80s. Eaton's, the store that once anchored these spaces, went out of business in the '90s, but the malls stayed in business for awhile longer.
This particular photo is especially haunting because this area is clearly the hub of the mall — but, aside from the sad Santa display, it's completely empty.
Mercatone Emmezeta: Zagreb, Croatia
Those colorful pot lights on the ceiling offer a unique ambiance to this mall in Croatia, but no amount of mood lighting is going to change the fact that this mall is pretty much deserted.
There's something about these liminal spaces, largely empty apart from the occasional display or lone wanderer, that's incredibly captivating. The mall still appears to exist, but it's hard to imagine that it's in good health.
Citi Plaza: London, ON, Canada
Opened as the Galleria in the mid-'90s, this mall was built in downtown London, Ontario, on the site of an earlier mall. Its prime was short-lived, though, as it was a shell of a former self less than a decade after it first opened.
Today, the mall is still in use with a big central library location, a movie theater, and some other stores. But a stroll through the former Galleria is a lonely experience.
Eastgate Mall: Chattanooga, TN
Most shopping malls, even the smaller ones, had some sort of feature designed to set them apart — whether it was a big central elevator hub, a green space, or (in this case) a big water feature.
Considering how often these fountains are seen dry and disused in dying malls, it's nice to see that this one was still functional when it was photographed. Eastgate Mall has been redeveloped and given a second chance at life.
Forest Fair Village: Cincinnati, OH
This spooky photo shows the food court of Forest Fair Village in the suburbs of Cincinnati. Some lights are out, some are still on, and none of the establishments are open anymore.
The mall opened its doors in 1988 as the second-biggest shopping center in the state of Ohio. Despite constant renovations and re-inventions through the '90s and 2000s, Forest Fair was unable to recapture its old momentum and it finally closed in late 2022.
Aviation Mall: Queensbury, NY
Aviation Mall serves the Capital District of Albany, New York. It first opened in 1975 and is still going today, nearly half a century later.
That isn't to say that its entire history has been smooth sailing, however. While it started out as a conventional mall with big-box tenants, today it's anchored by a gym and a movie theater. It still has a JCPenney location, but lost its Sears a few years ago.
Staunton Mall: Staunton, VA
This dreary look down the concourse of Staunton Mall shows just how thoroughly abandoned this place was before its 2021 closure. It was an older mall, with construction originally beginning all the way back in 1966.
Surprisingly, given this dark and windowless view, the mall was actually an open-air plaza in its early days. It attracted a number of big tenants over the decades, but in its final days was occupied mostly by outlets and a gym.
Jamestown Mall: Florissant, MO
This mall in suburban St. Louis has been left to rot, and at some point along the line, whatever was in place to protect the interior from the elements failed.
Some dead malls are clean and sterile, looking much as they did in their prime, just with no stores. Other dead malls were abandoned in a more chaotic fashion and are home to mold outbreaks and random debris. This is clearly an example of the latter.
Gwinett Place Mall: Gwinett, GA
The potted palms and natural light add some ambiance, but there's no hiding the fact that Gwinett Place Mall is a mere shell of its former self. This shopping center's peak-'80s ambiance made it an ideal shooting location for season three of Stranger Things.
Gwinnett Place Mall has fared better than some of the other malls on this list in that it's still technically open — but at this point, it's almost completely vacant.
Lansing Mall: Lansing, MI
Malls tend to be repositories for big, unwieldy objects like arcade and vending machines. When times were good, these things were cash cows and served an essential purpose. But when fortunes change, they often get abandoned.
It seems that no one cares enough about these various arcade machines to haul them out — or, at the very least, the desirable arcade machines have already been removed, leaving these sad examples to remain.
Market Mall: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
For awhile, putting mini-golf courses inside malls was all the rage, as they added visual interest and a unique attraction to these vast indoor spaces. In cold-weather climates, they were a kind of oasis.
Most malls removed their mini-golf courses long before they became dead malls, but at least one holdout still exists. Saskatoon's Market Mall is practically deserted today, but anyone who makes the trek can still play a round or two of mini-golf (and there's no line).
Techniplex: East Rochester, NY
Most dead malls we see showcase '90s trends with white marble and turquoise accents. This example shows us what malls looked like a decade earlier when exposed wood and dark brown tiles were the order of the day.
The Techniplex in East Rochester has been preserved in all of its '80s finery, even if there aren't any stores to complement its dark vibe. It looks like a cozy mall, with lower ceilings than most.
Lycoming Mall: Williamsport, PA
This sign captures up the sad end of life of many shopping malls. They were once hubs of retail activity, then became a refuge for mall walkers as their retail stores died off.
Following a few years of uncertainty and attempts to reinvigorate the space, malls are often forced to close. In this case, they offered a nice send-off message to the mall walkers, who will now have to find somewhere else to do their strolling.
Middlesboro Mall: Middlesboro, KY
This view shows the Middlesboro Mall at about the liveliest it gets these days. Rose's, seen on the right-hand side, is one of two remaining stores at this dying mall in Kentucky (the other one is Belk).
Middlesboro Mall opened its doors in 1983, expanding on a retail-focused area that had been there since the late '60s. The mall thrived through the '80s and '90s, but entered a period of decline following the 2008 economic downturn.
Liberty Village Premium Outlets: Flemington, NJ
Practically any town can boast a dead indoor shopping mall, but dead outdoor shopping malls are a little less common. The 23-acre Liberty Village outlet mall in New Jersey was the country's first major outlet center when it opened in the 1980s.
Today, its outdoor concourses are mostly a ghost town, with almost every store boarded up. "The stores have been closing, the retail market has been changing, and it's now basically a ghost town," Flemington mayor Betsy Driver told NJ.com in 2022.
Embarcadero Center: San Francisco, CA
The Embarcadero Center in San Francisco's financial district has more than just an enclosed mall — it also features bars and restaurants, a gym, and even an outdoor skating rink. But the mall portion is in a state of deep decline.
The mall expanded several times between its opening in 1971 and its final expansion in 1989, and today hosts a number of stores. It received a major blow when its movie theatre closed in February of 2022.
Pittsburgh Mills: Tarentum, PA
Pittsburgh Mills (full name: The Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills) was opened in 2005 to attract shoppers to the busy intersection of PA Route 28 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, northeast of Pittsburgh.
Unfortunately, the mall couldn't have opened at a worse time, as the financial crisis hit just as the mall was starting to find success. The mall is currently owned by a realty company that's allowed the space to decline.
Midland Mall: Midland, MI
Like many malls that opened in the 1990s, Midland Mall (which opened in 1991) features bright, airy concourses with plenty of skylights and light-colored tiles throughout. Midland Mall, to its credit, is still a relatively busy shopping hub in this central Michigan city.
Midland Mall actually has the lowest vacancy rate of any mall in the region, which seemingly speaks to retail success — but it's really a sign of how poorly malls are doing in the 2020s.
Westminster Mall: Westminster, CA
Some of the '80s heyday of this Orange County mall can still be glimpsed by any shoppers who venture inside. It still holds down tenants in three of its four anchor locations: JCPenney, Macy's, and Target.
The vacant anchor location was occupied by Sears from the time of the mall's opening in 1974 until 2018. Today, the mall features one store that was originally there when it opened: Spencer Gifts, which can be found on the second floor.
Washington Square Mall: Evansville, IN
This image looks like something straight out of a horror movie, but it actually just shows the present-day state of Washington Square Mall. Before it was empty and ominous, it was a bustling destination and the first enclosed shopping center in the state of Indiana.
Washington Square Mall entered its period of decline early on, after the opening of a competing mall in 1982. The mall is still open, but has no remaining anchor tenants.
Willowbrook Mall: Wayne, NJ
This creepy pic of endless mannequin parts was taken inside the Lord & Taylor location at Willowbrook Mall, before the chain filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and then closed all remaining stores in 2021.
Willowbrook Mall is well situated in Wayne, New Jersey, and saw brisk business in its early decades. Renovations in 1970, 1988, 2006 and 2015 helped extend its lifespan, and it's still home to a good number of stores.
Oviedo Mall: Oviedo, FL
The abundant neon signage in front of Regal Cinema at Oviedo Mall suggests something out of the '80s, but this retail area is actually considerably newer — it first opened back in 1994.
The mall never really thrived, as a relatively small footprint, competition from other malls, and poor foot traffic saw it continually struggle with occupancy. It still features the aforementioned movie theater, along with Dillard's as its only remaining anchor tenant.
Chambersburg Mall: Chambersburg, PA
This Pepsi machine at the Chambersburg Mall became a bit of an internet meme, with Redditors marvelling at the fact that the still-functioning machine featured imagery from Star Wars: Episode 1, which came out in 1999.
While the Pepsi machine performed ably for several decades, nothing could save it from retail apathy. After years of dwindling business, the mall — and the Pepsi machine — were shut down for good in June of 2023.
Phillipsburg Mall: Warren County, NJ
While many malls were doomed by the 2020 pandemic, the Phillipsburg Mall actually closed down on March 18th, 2020 — the very early days of the pandemic, just before widespread shutdowns. This pic was taken about a week before that closing date.
Back when it opened in 1989, the mall featured Bradlees, Sears, and Hess's as anchor stores, along with dozens of smaller retail locations. Fortunes declined through the 2020s, and a roof collapse in 2018 didn't help matters.
Playground Pier: Atlantic City, NJ
This former retail space can trace its lineage back to 1906, when the area was known as the Million Dollar Pier. A mall opened on the site in 1983, closed its doors in 2003, and then a second mall was built on the same location in 2006.
Like many malls built in the 2000s, Playground Pier was doomed by the financial crisis. It still exists, but it's been rebranded as ACX1 Studios — a live entertainment and movie production space.
American Dream Meadowlands: East Rutherford, NJ
This mall was first proposed in 2003 as Meadowlands Xanadu, a massive shopping and entertainment complex located just a stone's throw away from New York City. The project faced endless challenges and legal hurdles, and didn't open up until 2019 — close to two decades after it was first proposed.
The mall is doing about as well as any mall can in the 2020s, and it's currently the second-largest mall in the United States. Still, it's never lived up to its full potential.
Galleria at Erieview: Cleveland, OH
The Galleria at Erieview opened up in the late 1980s as a revitalization project for the east side of downtown Cleveland. At the time, it was the first major retail venture to open in downtown Cleveland since the 1920s.
The mall saw reasonable success throughout the '90s, but started to slip in the early 2000s. It had a vacancy rate of nearly half by 2005, and is mostly occupied by a YMCA location today.
Santa Rosa Mall: Fort Walton Beach, FL
The neon food court signage could only come from the 1970s or '80s, which makes sense — the Santa Rosa Mall first opened in 1976 and flourished for the next decade or so.
A project to renovate and modernize the mall in 2007 led to a brief resurgence, but it never regained its former popularity. Today, it still features a movie theater, but no longer has any large anchor stores.
