Hanging Out At The Mall In Jr. High

Cant smoke cigerettes at the mall, my hang was the bowling alley around the foosball table

New Jersey thread 

my friend and I would always get Icee's at the food court and then go play atari in the Sears' "electronics/games" section ... that had a working demo

Sam Goody's for sure.

They were franchised on Ibanez electric guitars and had a two Artists models one like Bob Weir's and a double neck, way out of my price range as a Jr. Higher.

Pretty good record department, but not as good as Record World.

The Ralph Lauren store had a complimentary bar and the bartender would hook us up with shots if management wasn't there.

derp

...

It seems that Java Dave is once again passively trolling a thread of Mark's.  I've been noticing a pattern.

Admin?

Encino is like so bitchin'...

I think he's just intimating that he hung at the same stores as Ms Stewart. 

I skated outside the mall and shopped at the Santa Fe Springs(La Mirada) Swap Meet. 

Crying to admin is pretty comme ci, comme ca, Jeff.

Nice equivalency exam logic, Slackman.

Caca?

We never hung at the mall. It opened in the next town over in 8th grade, so it wasn't our scene.

We hung in the woods and a couple of pizza joints. The closest mall was a town away, but I wasn't much into shopping, so the attraction wasn't there for me.

i used to grab my skate, and take the bus into down town seattle... i would head to pike market for a cinamon roll, and head up to 6th ave, where the seattle drum store was.... it was an awesome drum store.... i would constantly bug the guys there, and it was fun...  i would lunch at the mcdonalds either on 2nd ave, ot the one on 6th, that still has the huge fish tank in it!!! on the second floor... it was, and still is an upscale mcdonalds....

then i would buss home, and hitchhike up the road, to the little trail i had to hike through to get to my neighborhood....

twas simple good times...

We always fucked with the moustached mall cops who used to cruise around in golf carts.  Ha ha. 

Roller skating rink, fun & games (near the mall) and beach boardwalk got all my arcade money.

Mall was 20 minutes away that was for sporting goods, music, clothes & spencer's gifts for there posters (of weed, psychedelics, women, music) & novelty adult gag gifts as well. Fun and games after.

Almost forgot the cheap sunglasses, sharper image & Orange Julius!

We skated the parking structures.

Yep, foosball and cigarettes here too.  Was no malls.

Suburbanites thread.

The Burbs shuffle

The nearest mall was about a forty minute drive when I was in 7th - 8th grade, so no mall-loitering for me.  But I would have maybe 30-45 minutes to visit a few shoppes while Mom was getting clothes or whatever.  There were three record stores, none of whose names I remember. One also sold musical instruments, one had a fairly extensive headshop, and the third actually sold just LP's and Cassettes, maybe a few posters.

The one with the guitars also had a Ticketron outlet. I think that one still existed into the late 80's or early 90's as I would get good seats there for 'sold-out' GD shows at the Garden or Spectrum, day of show.  The arcade was "Space Port".  The tobacconist shoppe also had many bongs, pipes, etc. until Nancy Reagan era. There was a Chinese store that had tapestries, tie-dyes, posters, incense, all the hippy shit.

Of course, all the usual chain stuff you'd find at any eastern mall: GAP, Radio Shack, Spencers, movie theatre, couple chain book stores, 3 different department stores. I actually had not been in that place in a few years but went to Sears a few months ago looking for an axe handle. They completely gutted and redid the mall interior, but the three dep't stores still remain. Everything else was unrecognizable.

That's rich, Mark, considering you're unemployed, unless you count diaper changing and housecleaning.  

At least you earn points for not crying for Admin.  Talk about simpering.  

Fact is, you've trolled me on Stones threads and Summer Of Love Anniversary Threads I wasn't even on, not to mention the redundant weak sauce Jane Goodall jabs.  

You're a dude hitting his 40's, realizing his best years have passed him by, and posting nostalgia threads on the interwebz.  Total trainwreck.

The big FU to all parents out there. Awesome

Raising children ain't a job you fucking losers!

Isn't that a picture of Dave and Martha? That's trolling?

Re:  Gravy's 3:59 post of "Sherman Oaks Galleria" --

Not 100% sure, but I think that was the place where all the food-court and interior mall scenes were shot for 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High'.

Whichever Galleria it was, they rented out the location for whatever length of time and filmed all night so that the mall could do Biz as usual during the day.

I think that today has brought the least drama of any Sunday in recent memory.

Sundays tend to be a day for the Lord, family and Zone drama. 

Time is waning though, because all the Sunday night cable shows start soon on the East Coast.

Who's got my Blue Oyster Cults?

We used to get  baked and go...

>>post of "Sherman Oaks Galleria" --

That's right, Stu, Fast Times was filmed there. So, too, were scenes from classics by would-be future-Governor Schwarzenegger in Commando and Terminator 2.

Disneyland

lol

>>You're a dude hitting his 40's, realizing his best years have passed him by, and posting nostalgia threads on the interwebz. 

funny mark, we had a wilsons leather in the Bellevue Square mall.... man it was the shit!! but all the coats were so gay. i just could not deal....

Hi Mark. Never heard of it.

Let's talk about leather...

We went to Melrose for punker stuff

Strawberry's music (concert ticket outlet), Sam Goode music, Al Bums music, MacDuff's music store (guitars), Friendly's (fribble & grilled cheese), Movies (pint of booze), CVS (snowcaps for movies), Spags, Sharper Image, Hermann's sporting goods, Filene's Basement, Spencer's gifts, Orange Julius, Midtown mini mall for music tapestry & posters (AC/DC, Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, WASP, Ozzy, Motley Crue & Van Halen)

Once my friends & I were drunk and got chased out of the Toy 'R' Us store for having a shootout grabbing those loud ass fake machine gun toys and chasing each other over the entire store Rambo style for like a 10 minute siege before a fat mall cop who was highly overmatched joined the pursuit. We ran away before doughnuts could get there. 

I think the Pleather shoppe was named "Wilson's House Of Suede & Leather".

Never saw one, but heard their catchy Radio jingles.

Every 70's -> 80's mall also had the Lowrey organ store with a underworked keyboardist demo-ing them contraptions.

Maybe a stinky deep-fried Cod scrap place called "Long John Silver".

For me in the '70s it was Tower Records, Plants and Posters (and major head shop) in Campbell CA and Taco Bravo next door for me.

Taco Bravo is still there.

Which is pretty cool.

Pinball arcade was where I quickly spent my hard earned $$$$$$$. Also Listening Booth, the record store and head shop

Funny Mall Story:

I was 12 or 13 at the time and I loved listening to Dr. Demento, so my Mom wanted to get me a comedy album for Christmas. She goes to Listening Booth and asks the stoner girl behind the counter "what would be a good funny album to get for my son???? Imagine my wonder and amusement when I opened up Cheech And Chong's Wedding album on Christmas morning!!!!!! SCORE!!!!!!!! Well later on that day when she was wandering past my room she heard "Earache My Eye" coming from my speakers and runs in and loudly asks "What in the world are you listening to????????" and I said "The album you got me, Cheech And Chong!!". She says to my loud complaints "Well I have to take that right back!" and I start wining like a little bitch, to which she finally says "You can keep the album as long as you never repeat any of it in school or let your friends listen to it". 

SURE MOM, NO PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!

And so it began...........................................................

Good one RocknRye.

Saved my paper route money to buy music at the Korvettes record store, and play pinball at Space Port.

Amongst the classic mall stores we had East & West.  They sold throwing stars, swords, switch blades, nunchucks, velvet paintings and I'm pretty sure they had a 'massage parlor' in the back room.  They were eventually sued out of existence.  Star to the eye, nunchuck to grandma's head... All in good fun. 

Wilsons leather was big but the Chess King was even bigger. They served leather to the bro's and ho's and made major bank.

*double post

So how many of those mall stores are still open?

I did my fair share of hanging at the mall in Jr. High (and worked at a Baskin Robbins there for a while), but I was back in a town a few years ago and went to one of the anchor stores for something and wandered around a bit.  75% of the stores were shuttered.   It was really weird.  A zombie mall without zombies.   

I just looked it up and apparently the mall is now officially closed.  According to news stories, the mall instituted a , new mall owners implemented a teen curfew in 2007 requiring anyone under 16 to accompanied by an adult after 6 p.m. on weekends called "Family First".   What dip shits.   The under 16 crowd has been the life blood of shopping malls since the get go.

Malls replaced Main Street and now we're abandoning them and other social places as we retreat into ruggedly individualistic bunkers where we don't even have to leave our houses to shop anymore.

Malls are now being repurposed for things like old folks homes.

Mine was a strip mall in Hamden..."the plaza"

I would walk the couple of miles usually, sporting my Jordache jeans, comb in the back pocket~ too cool

My jam was the arcade. George, the owner, was so BadAss, pool tables in the back, games up front. 

For many years, he'd hold weekly high score contests for movie tix or albums. I won "the Wall" thanks to my amazeballz Tempest skills. 

I can hardly remember the stores, but, I'm such a geek that I'm sure my fave was the stationery store (;

There was also duckpin bowling that i loved. 

Oh, and, Ashley's ice cream  (:

I can actually recall the mall cuisine options 35-40 years later. Food court area was near Space Port; they had a pizza joint, Mexican place, Orange Julius, Cinnabon and Frogurt. Then there were a few others scattered around the two level mall: McDonaldland, Friendly's, Roy Rogers and some nicer place that had actual wait staff & dim lights. That one changed names a few times over the years.

The other side of Rte. 1 had an older strip mall with a K-mart, various shoppes and restaurants, and a "Twin Cinema". That place had midnight  movies so when I got old enough to drive, that was cool entertainment. One theater had Rocky Horror forever and the other one had different Rock movies each weekend. Among the many I saw there; Last Waltz, The Led Zep movie, Skynyrd movie, Woodstock. All the kids would show up and party, until there was some sort of riot resulting in smashed plate glass theater-front. That sort of put the kibosh on the late-nite fun.

They tore out the theaters I  don't know when and added all sorts of other buildings: an REI, Hooter's, Olive Garden, all kinds of crap.

Those two, mall & strip mall were really the only ones around the Princeton area for ages. Within a mile or two of there, the late 80's saw many more modern, upscale places built, which killed biz at the original two-level mall. That place became all ghetto and had many abandoned stores, until the recent major renovation.

A news article about the death of the American mall:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/19/-sp-death-of-the-american...

The ones that have been constructed in this part of Jerseyland over the last 10-12 years are the mega-strip mall design. Not a 2-3 level Hive with many tiny cells but all ground level " C" or "U" shaped strips with parking in the middle, no two-story buildings.

When I was in 6th or 7th grade we had a car pool setup where the parents took turns taking the kids to school. My Dad would always ask little Stephanie what she did that weekend and inevitably She would say "We went to the Oxford Valley Mall." Apparently her folks liked that one better than the local.