Dead Malls Season 6 Episode 8 - Lakeforest Mall
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- čas přidán 5. 04. 2024
- Up next and to round out our short BW mall binge, we have a mall in its final days. A mall I couldn’t resist not seeing, before it closed up for good. Between its trapezium glass courts, and several gigantic sculptures, Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg, Maryland was a tragic and sad case. A mall that was closing up shop in 1 week.. The doors were boarded up shortly after this cause where the mall sits to this day awaiting demolition (pending this year).. Also I wasn’t the only one here! We see several locals, and even some other personalities from the dead mall community, come to pay their respects to Lakeforests grave…
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I just found out they'll be tearing down my local small town neighborhood mall. It's been virtually empty for 15 years now, but I find very few people understand the sense of loss it will bring. I spent many good years in that mall with friend and family, lots of good experiences. Anyway, I comment here because I know others will also get what I'm saying.
Ya... it really is sad this is happening to pretty much everything I used to love. Shoot even Toys R Us is gone too. Remember going there around Christmas time. Burnsville center in MN will soon be gone. Went there with my mom and brother a lot. Where is your mall at?
Imagine the energy it takes to keep such a massive indoor space temperature-controlled for practically nobody.
Turn it into a haunted mall and have escape rooms set up in the stores. I want to rollerblade through there.
41:35 - I appreciate the energy used in 2024 to keep the color lighting on this elevator.
Powered by retro vibes
A mall is practically the size of an aircraft carrier, If not closer to the size of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek the next generation. Imagine that the next time you’re walking around in one, bored out of your mind as your wife shops for hours.
@@Dad_Brad Shopping malls aren’t for Dads, Brad. They’re for Mums and kids!
I shopped here as a kid, and I have fond memories of it as a kid
This was my childhood mall in the 80’s and 90’s. Sad to see it closed.
My memories of it was that there used to be two K B toy stores, several book stores, a Herman Sporting Goods store, countless hair salons, a Friendly’s restaurant, an Arby’s, a Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant, a Sterling’s optical, and a Radio Shack to name a few.
Always a good day when North uploads!
A common phenomenon with comparing old film clips and pictures from a mall in the 80s to today is that it seems malls in the 80s were darker and not as brightly lit. Not sure if it’s because of all the stores being abandoned or less things in the mall absorbing the light or if a redesign in the 90s or 2000s made the lighting brighter. But dead malls today with the power and lights still on seem brighter than in the 80s.
They were all as bright as they are today. It is the quality of the old film that you are seeing that makes them seem darker.
This mall was always fairly bright inside. I also think lighting tech has gotten cheaper and better and the stores are using brighter lighting. There is a lot of 6000K LED High CRI lighting in commercial spaces today which mostly didn't exist back then. I think this mall was lit with mercury vapor cans and halogen spotlights back in the day.
I love hearing all the locals and their memories!
Me too, it really gives character to the place!
Something about this video in particular reminds me, so powerfully of my last day of high school, the very strong sense that I was going through the motions for the last time ever. Yet, there’s something somber and morbid too. It’s just a bit like a funeral.
I didn't get to go around the time. This guy did, but I did around a month before the closing and it was so depressing.
Someday there will be a Mall-Museum with all the former shops and brands rebuilt by passionate collectors. With all the products we know from the 70's/80's/90's. And people will be willing to pay a lot of admission to relive all the beautiful memories of the past. And Tiffany and Debbie Gibson will give a concert with all their hits from back then.
Imagine being chased by a kids train like the ones you see in the mall, but the rolling gaint is the driving the kids train.
That sounds like a bad dream😭😭 the rolling train is definitely Lakeforests giant
RIP your wallet! XD
IDK why but I've really taken a liking to alot of the old store aesthetics, especially wood tones and eye catching color choices- Shout out to that Marie's at 27:50 with its glass block wall too.
I've been watching Dead mall series for a while and find these old, often magificent buildings with their forgotten storefronts to be captivating. Alongside the development history they tell so many stories, and prompt some deep contemplation on what the future holds/ folleys of previous development projects, etc.
Thank you for the awesome tour of this mall!
Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoy them!
Really like your music choices. I don’t know what group to pity or envy more. My generation who grew up throughout the 80’s and 90’s in the heyday of malls and got to experience them in all of their glory, or your generation that didn’t. As for me, malls growing up were just THE best, and something that were the absolute world to me. But…I’ve had to experience their almost total collapse and haven’t found any alternatives that fill that void for me. For your generation, you didn’t get to experience them in their heyday, but I think today you haven’t felt that loss as deeply, and have been much more resilient and able to adapt. So…sigh…I just don’t know. All I do know is that I miss my malls to go to.
This is wild. This was the 1 of 2, maybe 3 malls closest to me as a kid growing up. Frederick Md and Gaithersburg Md were equal distances away. The tiered area with that elevator really brought me back. So strange to think how many times we’d just walk the mall on a Friday or Saturday afternoon. My best friend’s mom had a place in Montgomery Village up until around 10 yrs ago.
i last visited it in early 2023, there were still people there, just not too many. lake forest is where i took eye exams and got my glasses.
When the malls in Michigan closed...the Southfield library got one of the sculptures and the other mall sent a sculpture to the local hospital
I just love your videos; your storytelling really brings the mall (back) to life, and your soundtrack selection is always sooooo good. Thank you for these awesome mall time capsules! 💜🙏
Thank you so much!
Wow. Another nice mall gone. I liked the music choice and especially the Dippin the bisquit one. Thanks for another great video.
Thanks for watching Seabee!
Can’t wait to watch it! RIP Lakeforest… awesome mall!
What a great tribute to this beautiful mall. I’m glad you added it the short interview with the local residents who fondly remember this mall. I never thought malls would close until I saw the dead mall community in 2020. I just figured people need to shop. But one stop stores like Walmart have taken over as well as online shopping.
Another great dead mall exploration and the music was perfect.
Thankyou! That was a really great video. You give really good commentary! My shopping centre (England here) is actually still thriving! It was built in stages from 1964 to 1984. It was very Taubmanesque when new! All hexagons and palm trees and brown bricks/brass rails etc. It was like stepping into something from Logan’s Run.. There were fountains and murals/mosaics everywhere. What I enjoyed about the mall (see what I did there?) was that the shops themselves were like crystal caves shining from the edges of a pretty natural-looking, darker colour palette of the shopping centre itself. Cut to 1998ish when the management decided to rip out all the plants, change the colours to blinding white, close the huge open market to plop another Anchor store in its place and remove all the seating.. don’t get me wrong! You can still see the remnants of the style it once had!! But now the shops are darker than the interior of the mall.. you can’t just sit and people watch. You can’t sit at all! Unless you pay for a coffee etc in the “open air” cafes that clog up the once breezy main squares.. The saving grace of the shopping centre? It was built in the exact centre of my once-dying small town when it became a “New Town”. The walkways even follow the same path as the streets beforehand! The Anchor store has gone (they still can’t decide what to do with it) but out of the dozens and dozens of shops, only a few units are empty. Still! In 2024!! I miss the old mall.. but atleast it is still bustling. By the way, it is called “The Kingfisher Shopping Centre” in Redditch, England. Before going to its website to check it out (if you are so inclined), go and Google image it in the old days.. You will actually think you are in an American mall. Thanks for finishing reading my ramblings! 👋🏻
I love your vlogs. You go over so much info and the music is amazing.
I’m so glad you enjoy them!!
THE FOOTAGE AT THE BEGINNING OMGGGG!!!!!!!
on a real note, it has been years but i still have dreams of every hallway and every branch of lakeforest, behind the walls where delivery are made behind the stores there was signatures and weed leaves dating back to the 1970's. its amazing still being able to fly through the mall in my dreams, thank you for the walkthrough
Always love the vintage photos and video superimposed while you go around the malls. Really helps show just how the mall looked in its busier days and how much each mall impacted the culture of the region it existed in. To me it reinforces the fond memories that people had in their youth visiting these places with their families and friends.
It's such a waste of perfectly good space. We need to band together to save our local malls. I really enjoy this type of mall design even though I never saw this mall in person.
I worked at that mall about 11 years ago. It was kind of on a downhill even during that time. There were still people around but it wasn't as popular as Montgomery Mall in North Bethesda. There was a small bus stop area just across the parking lot. I came across dumbasses fighting and I remember one guy offered to sell me coke while I waited for the bus after I got off my shift one day. In the entrance area that lead to the food court at the beginning of the video, there was this goose that would walk around in the afternoon, but never the morning or the evening. It would beg for food and then squawk and flap it's wings at people. I remember when I was on break, the goose flocked at one guy and he goes, "I'll beat that bird's ass!". Pretty weird shit lol
@@someperson9999 Sounds like a fun place, lol. No wonder shoppers started staying away.
I like the conversation pits.
Finally had the time to watch this video and with your easy to understand commentary (without an information overload), original music choice and relaxed filming it was a pleasure to do so. But hey, your video's always are worth watching..
Mid 90s this was my mall.
I wish I could’ve got to see it back then!
@@NorthCdogg22 Was super busy....10,000 parking slots were taken on weekends!!!
@@NorthCdogg22 the 2000s and very early 2010s were amazing but I do wish I was around the 90s when it was there
Thanks for making this video. I Used to come here with the family as a kid. I also used to visit nearby white flint mall in rockville pike which was torn down a few years back and redeveloped. Both were absolute time capsules. Some of my earliest childhood memories in both of these locations.
I enjoy your videos very much. I just got back into art and some of my favorite things to draw are screenshots from your videos. Something about the lines and colors in malls like these literally beg me to sketch them! Thanks for posting!
Glad you enjoy them!! I hope you can continue using my vids to sketch these malls, sounds sweet! You should totally message me on instagram the sketches, would love to see!
I used to love this mall. I remember going here all the time. As a little kid and even in high school. It's a shame because it was relatively busy fairly recently in 2018, but there was a lot of crime around that area and also COVID.
Absolutely love you running into other locals and personalities. The love that gentleman had for his childhood mall was just so wonderful to see. Malls mean so much to so many, and he encapsulated that perfectly.
That was a lot of work. Glad you took your time and did such a great job.
Thank you so much for watching KB, glad you enjoyed it!
Your videos are always enjoyable! I love the thought and creativity you put into these videos. A lot of people don’t do it like you.
Thanks Parker!
Very good episode of dead malls! Kinda crazy how malls are going dead so quickly now a days. Online shopping bassically killed alot of stores and malls.
Its also the open plan malls that have come in after, like for example this is Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg. But just up the road in the 1990’s they built an outdoor mall in Germantown Md, with HD and Kohls etc which definitely stole incoming traffic down from surrounding areas.
Amazing video man!!
Thanks man!
Congrats on finishing the episode! The hard work always shows in the end. I'm currently battling a mild cold right now and your videos are part of my past time while doing so! 😄
Love The New Video North! Can't wait to see whats coming soon! Have a great day!
So sad for the last workers that work in a mall like this.
This reminds me of days wandering the mall with my buddies. The scene back then, I was in my late teens / early 20s - malls like this somehow made me feel the world was at my feet. That was 40+ years ago now. I never see those friends anymore.
You hit it out of the park as usual! It is in fact Galtier Plaza in downtown St. Paul!
Yessir!
Hecker
Great video! I enjoyed it. Taubman made some great malls. Hoping for the best.
cool to meet a local for some old mall stories! great video
Thank you! Yeah it was pretty neat!
marketplace mall in rochester is super dead right now
Really nice to see such friendly conversation among strangers. And your soundtracks are continually impressive, love glaciere!
Great video!
Thanks!
King Farm was supposed to turn into an amusement park, then became the housing development. If Lake Forest could do anything smart with this mall is to sell to The Walking dead or movie companies for filming zombie apocs or anything in a safe structure. I love what you did with the camera angles and the old VHS cuts. @NorthCdogg22
Yo this is amazing
Thank you🙏🙏
Love your content! I’ve been waiting for this one!😊
Hope you enjoy!
just started watching ... that mall looks so good ... i mean its like it could be repurposed for other things other than malls and stores selling things ... like have it be a community center (I say this about alot of dying malls that still looks to be in great shape) with say a library and/or gym in the anchors ... have the less fortunate stay inside to have a roof over their head in some of the smaller (redo them) former stores. I mean i know some areas have way too many malls in a small location but ... i dont mind seeing the say moldy and rundown malls to be taken down .. but so many are so nice looking and there is no need to tear them down
Yes, that black was the coloring of a majority of Hecht's locations.
Great video :>
Thank you for the insight!
@@NorthCdogg22 yw
It was a Hecht's can confirm.
Your narrations are top notch! Love how you took some risks filming close ups on the interior features. Very well done sir 👍🏻
Thank you so much!
Love the vids dude!
Thanks man!
@@NorthCdogg22one day should come to visit NC dead malls!
Those random non-national tenants you spoke of on the directory from 2021 would have been something the mall operators refer to as "temporary tenants". They sign short-term leases of maybe 11 months, a year, or month-to-month, and pay very low rent in relation to the national tenants.
Yeah, been seeing that at The Crossroads Mall where I live in Kazoo as I like to call them mom & pop tenants which they come and go. There is even a store that sells bongs for doing weed/pot it is always close when I go to the mall.
What an iconic video, well done! Next mall is definitely the stranger things mall 😂.
Thanks for watching man!!
That’s what I’m thinking!!!!!
Why would you copy me 😡😡😡😡
NORTH!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for another fun episode! Love how you have all the old footage. Neat to see how it was back in the day.
One thing I didn't understand, was was "red mall", "green mall", etc? Were they different sections of the mall?
Thanks for watching! The differently colored sections were to go along with each of the malls different entrances, each one featuring a different season and that seasons color. Back when the mall was still open that’s how each section of the mall was labeled, green mall, blue mall, etc..
That feature was added in the 90s right before they demolished the theater and updated the logo.
@@NorthCdogg22 thank you! 😊
Several factors to Lakeforest Mall closing
Higher crime in the area and the county’s soft on crime approach
Anchor Stores closing on a national level
Change of ownership in a few years and no real goals for future expansion
Sad for this mall, I love the sky lights. I hope this mall doesn't end up like Northridge or Century III.
What a beautiful mall. ☹️☹️
Taubman built Fair Oaks mall in Chantilly / Fairfax virginia as well. The malls have basically the exact same archetexture, though Fair Oaks got a rennovation revently and lost some of its retro charm. If you want to see that mall alive for the most part, head to Fair Oaks. Its dying but still has a fair amount open.
It's weird, the general layout and feel of towns in America are nothing like the UK at all, which is obvious of course. But these videos really hit home how absolutely identical our Malls are (although we don't call them that), and even their general vibe as time has gone on, and how some of them are becoming eerie deserted places in exactly the same way.
Hi North C Dogg! I love these videos and all of your other ones! The camera quality and the accurate history of the malls make you the only person I love to watch for mall videos! I heard on a previous livestream that you wanted to go to Stratford Square Mall! Please contact me because down here we are having a party on the closing day and would love to see you!
Awesome video! What was the first music that played before the Seeburg music?
The first song was a heavily edited version of Eyes without a Face by Billy Idol, thanks for watching!
@@NorthCdogg22 Thank you! It was really mellow and I enjoyed hearing it! I was on one of your live videos and you gave a shout out to me for joining the live video! Thanks for that! I live in Spartanburg, South Carolina in a little town called Inman. At one point, we had three enclosed malls. Now only one remains. My favorite mall and favorite place of all-time has long since been demolished. Hillcrest Mall, which was built in 1982 and then closed in 1998, only to be demolished a few months later. I even created a FB group to pay tribute to it called Hillcrest Mall: Bringing Good Things Together. We have over 2,500 members. I originally created it so that the mall wouldn't be forgotten. Check out the group when you can! Will Hawkins is the one who oversees it. He's a huge fan of Hillcrest Mall too. Here's the link: facebook.com/groups/115265328396
Keep up the awesome work! I always look forward to seeing your videos!
Tommy
8:02 24:12 Hollister
I saw a video a couple years ago with the mom & pop stores at Lakeforest Mall which was dead then. Great to see the locals talking about the mall they grew up with. I like the Sears wing art I would've asked for a piece of the art to say that I have something from the mall. I saw a lot from that final day at Lakeforest taking everything they could get LOL😂
This mall is practically identical to Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights Michigan. It too is undergoing the same fate, and will be permanently closing its doors on July 1st, 2024.
5:48 "I think I've seen this shot before..." 😂
Beautiful video! Next up: Harborplace in Baltimore?
LETS GOOOOOOOOOO
Looks like it was a nice mall
Nothing says classy like a Gussini store.
I used to go here..
not vista ridge i dont think
Circle Center Mall in Indy in two weeks?
Nope, but good guess!
Not has the Internet changed the whole landscape of malls and retail ... it also changed the society as well
@21:53 I know the owner of Rita's Ice cream at this spot, they knew months in advance to close up shop.
My guess about the next mall: Gavidae Commons in Minneapolis?
Not quite but close!
@@NorthCdogg22 Har Mar mall?
Lakeforest should be redeveloped as a mixed use retail and business complex.
I looked it up and it costs about $90 to rent a car in Baltimore for a day, fees included. Uber is highway robbery (literally)
Its too bad they covered up the stage and fountain. Really the only unique thing about this mall.
I think I know what the next mall is. Is it Harbor Place Galleria a mall that is now closed?
Taubman beauty
44:48 - Is Macy's in Bethesda at a mall?
06:35 How can a concrete megamall be "exasperated"?
My script was def supposed to say “exaggerated” and I never changed it😵💫😵💫my bad
That intro to this video was amazing!
Thank you!
you're welcome, all of the old footage used can be found over on my channel.
Where can I get my hands on that version of eyes without a face?
Can you cover WHY these malls are closing? Is it the rise of Amazon etc.?
It’s never one thing, it’s a lot of things overtime that snowball, as told thru the history
I'm a mall rat from 1994 lake forest back when there were fountains in the middle and going to sears ticket master to buy concert tix
Song? 0:02
Keladisscope mall in des moines ia
Nope but good guess!
Kaleidoscope at the Hub in Des Moines, IA? Great video, btw!
Nice guess but not quite! Thanks for watching!
I know the answer… do you want me to say it?
Let’s hear it🫣
@@NorthCdogg22Kaleidoscope at the Hub in Des Moines
WallieB26 did a video at this mall a few months ago
Great video