Dead Malls Season 5 Episode 14 - Northridge Mall
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- čas přidán 26. 05. 2023
- Imagine this..
A paradise.. Neon, trees, Christmas lights, 150 colorful stores, 12 restaurants, a movie theater, 4 anchors, flowers, water fountains.. It’s amazing isn’t it? It’s almost like it’s too big to fail. But really, that’s exactly what it was. Northridge Mall was that perfect vision. A shopping center built for a growing city and its roads. But when that city changed, and that perfect vision fell apart, it was left in the dust. And after decades of history, left abandoned. So how 20 years later did it end up as one of the most notorious abandoned malls of all time? An 80s palacade to a different time? Well, take step back into the Time Machine with me. As we explore Northridge Mall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And find out what really happened..
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#northcdogg22 #deadmall #deadmalls #northernfilms
I could go for some Chunko’s right about now.
Alright Karen let's go
THE DEATH OF AMERICA
What was CHUNKO's ?
@@295g295 Keep an eye on all the store fronts.😉😝
Malls in the 70's and 80's were magical. So glad those were the decades of my youth!
They still exist and still popular. Just harder to find and depending on where you live you may have to drive a few hours to another city to see it.
I know … it was the social scene of the time. It is where I got my first job and first boyfriend. Good memories.
when OUR narcissistic ego driven despots political corporates Sent out OUR industries and OUR MFG, the once beautiful malls were taken over by kids and kidults of no upbringing and junk stores moved in, NO one can have anythng nice lol small business can't sustain employees or won't and Can;t sustain a nation, and the arrogance of tech medical and teachers to think they don't need mfg and industries here even for themselves is amazing, still even when decades ago tech was outsourced, of course twitter came along but they found they could do without 80% of them, gee, if we were for OUR Fellow Americans, not being activist for what in ours or someone else's pants and drugs and MY COLOR,...We would PROTEST till they brought them all back for Fellow Americans, a solid tax base, JOBS, even they need techies, and for USA and our Independence=security=voice in the world instead of begging and our politicalcorps getting pocket linings for being FAILURES TO USA and us. and so we don't have to suffer junk.
Agreed. In the 80's we were at Villa Italia or Westminster Mall or Cinderella City or Buckingham Square... All gone. All loved. All remembered.
Same
Showing the mall when it was booming and then showing how it look now is a great addition and you should always do that that's one of my biggest gripes with others that explore dead malls
Glad you enjoy it!
Those who ignore the past are cursed to re-live it.
😊😊😊😊😊
@@HarryHamsterChannelyou just now made that up, didn't you?
@@thebeaz1 Those who eat bean are sure to fart.
this took me back to the good old days, where malls were so extravagant and fun, now I feel like the world I knew is dying, no one seems to notice or to care, back in those days, malls reunite people, friends, family, having fun, enjoying simple little things and treasuring every moment, life was simple, I miss that so much.
I enjoyed this very much, thank you.
Part of the problem is that knowing and caring carries a large price tag.
❤
My favorite were the Christmas decorations, and in the middle of the mall was Santa Claus, all decked out with candy canes/ Xmas trees. Kids dressing up for picture taking.
It always amazes me how pictures of young people in the 80s walking around in malls all have big smiles on their faces. Take a picture of young people today. They're always grimacing like they're about to take a dump. Staring at their phones, of course. Social media has destroyed the minds of America's youth. And it's all by design folks.
The editing tied the footage together so well and made this into a masterpiece, this is soooo well made 🤩
Finished my final exam yesterday, slept 10 hours, wake up & there’s new dead mall video from one of my favorite channels.
Life is good
Hell yeah brother
I can attest as a child, going to Northridge or Mayfair on a Saturday or Sunday was akin to packing up the car to go to Disneyland. Always with a good chance you were going to be able to have McDonalds for lunch. Great editing and early footage...really well done.
Yes! I even remember the location before the food court - this place was a blast back in its day.
Back in the 60s my parents would take me to Mayfair as they had some wonderful Christmas displays. This was before they enclosed it. I liked it so much more when it was a open air mall.
I used to live close to Mayfair on 49th and Lisbon !
Very close to where I grew up on 47th Street off of Lloyd!
It's sad to see this. Malls used to be a place where people went in the weekends to go shopping back in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
They still exist and still busy. Just harder to find and you may have to fly to another city to see one depending on where you live
@@ramencurry6672 The one near me is called Northridge Fashion Center, it's also called Northridge.
This is a Masterpiece. One of the best dead/ abandoned mall YT videos in years. Production, research, current & past images juxtaposition, vibe, backgroud music is top notch. A story from beginning to end (?). Brilliant, well done!
Thank you so much!
true that
The before and after shots are by far what I enjoy watching most because it shows how extreme the change is
The dead Malls look haunted to me.
@@oldiesgeek454 wouldn’t surprise me if they were lol
I lived in Brown Deer, Northridge was our shopping destination. The biggest reason for the downfall of the mall was crime, that area of the city was just full of crime, and still is. Bus routes also brought the criminal element in to the mall area, that didn't help either. Just wasn't safe or comfortable to shop or live there, and that is why it quickly fell apart.
If a retail store has to pay a cashier $15/hour and half the merchandise gets shoplifted, theres no way it can earn a profit.
"Those who got to experience this, consider yourselves lucky. Everything from 1989 on was downhill." This statement sums up the entire American experience over the last 60 years
I hate to sound like an old person (I am one) but you are sadly right.
@@Casinogirl56Same.
That’s so very true, America’s capitalism was at it’s peak in the 80’s and 90’s. But who am I to say since I was born in the early nineties I only got to enjoy the bit of it from that era.
To me, the concourse ceilings steal the show for this mall. Whoever designed those was gifted.
JAMESTOWN MALL CINE 14 ERA MAIS BONITO!
Dude, another winner! It takes a lot of patience to produce a power episode like this. Thanks for carrying the torch for the dead mall community as the original trailblazers start to move on to other things in life…🎉🎉🎉
Thank you so much man! Means a lot
Jo, der is schon aufm Weg zum zweiten Daniel Bimmel. 👍
@@NorthCdogg22 Yes, very well done! I love it!
These videos are so addicting and impossibly sad. We’ve lost so much of our culture. Mall community wasn’t replaced, it was just lost.
This is amazing to see! A lot of that mall looked pretty 90s-ish but that theater was very 70s-80s. Amazing. Also a lot of that graffiti made me laugh lol
This is your best work to date. I love how thorough you’ve been with your research clips and back story. There’s something really eerie about this place when you look at it completely derelict with its feeling of emptiness. Great job!
Happy to be living here in Asia where mall life is alive and doing well.
Wouldn't it be nice to see these malls come back to life in a different way? A developer could create multiple 2-story homes/condos on each mall level, add patios/courtyards out the condo's back doors, create an all season indoor park with running track, basketball/tennis/racket ball courts, and even a couple of "outside" small eateries.
They do exist. They’re nice. Sometimes they have an ice skating rink during Christmas. And high end expensive restaurants (outdoors too all within the grounds) Usually in wealthy areas but not common. My only complaint is that it feels a little fake and not as authentic in feel as areas in Europe and Asia
can't get people off their phones and computers\Xbox, to leave the house other then work.
It is a nice thought, but everything costs, and someone has to pay the bills. It is usually easy to say who would benefit, not so easy to say who should pick up the tab.
It would be. Unfortunately this location is in a very, VERY bad neighborhood. Milwaukees northwest side is one of the worst areas for economic development, part of the segregation mentioned at the outset of the video with the highway expansion.
I've said that too -- why not repurpose those as a gym/library/post office/DMV. Throw in a Target, a geocery store and condos.
I normally don't watch dead mall videos this long but I could not stop watching. This one was riveting and creepy. It's a shame that the time capsule was stolen by vandals. I would have love to see what they put in there as a Generation X'er I'm sad . Great video man
Thanks man, I’m glad you liked it!
I'm from Green Bay, and visited this mall a couple times back around '89/'90... it was absolutely beautiful... and full of life! It breaks my heart to see the juxtaposition in shots between then and now - a whole world gone into the past.
On a side note, I used to buy incense at Wicks 'n' Sticks at Port Plaza Mall (now demolished) - thanks for that old footage of the store-front!
I have seen a lot of video's of Northridge, but this one stands out. So many things others seem to have missed.. And what makes it even better are the superb before and after shots 👍
Thank you so much!
I didn't live in WI and so never went to this mall, but your video brought up so many good memories of growing up in the 70's and 80's and mall culture. I literally teared up looking at the Christmas pictures and sang the lobby song from memory like not a minute had passed. I loved the presentation, with the heavy reverb on the music and transitions between now and then of the same areas. Thank you for reminding me of the best decades of my life.
And you showed there was a Gimbels! That threw me right back to 70's Manhattan and I haven't heard that name in decades!
Wow. That was an elegy. Great balance of old photos and current ruins.
Thank you so much!
I hadn’t even imagined in 1994 that shopping malls would one day go under! Great video.
Most malls are still thriving
@@skywishr1313 I went to a large one in Lincoln, Nebraska that was quite active. It could just be that malls in certain areas are going under.
This is such a great update to the status of Northridge. I’ve been following its journey on CZcams since the early days of the pandemic and to see it still so brightly lit by the naturally light I’m the daytime is both amazing and sad…here’s to hoping that it actually gets demolished once and for all!
Love the introduction you did it justice great to see old footage and then compare it to what it is today. This has to be on top of list for longest standing abandoned malls. Really gave it justice like seeing it in better times sad condition in now. 😢
The guy that stopped you to say that you are cute is super creepy given the circumstances being alone in an abandoned mall. I am glad you are okay man please be careful going into these places alone. I have to say you have bigger balls than I do for sure, I couldn’t go in alone.
as a foreigner who ended up enjoying dead mall videos from over there (dead malls aren't really common where I live) and who only has videos from the genre as my only experiences of said malls, knowing you got to cover this one got me pretty excited, as your coverage is always pretty thorough, and i've always been intrigued for whatever reason by the history behind this one mall in particular.
great job as always!! amazing video editing too!
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed!
I grew up going there, my mom would hate having to park at Sears (now Menards). It breaks my heart that building looks now. Real eyesore. Thanks for the awesome video!
Wild. I’ve seen this mall before, but never been there. But I grew up in central Michigan in the 80’s and 90’s. You mentioned going to that theater and seeing Back to the Future II. In 1989 I went to see that movie with it dad, after a whole lot of anticipation. Maybe the first movie I was that excited to see when I was just 10. Afterward, just after pulling out from the parking lot, my dad tried to have the “birds and the bees” talk with me. 😬 I was from a very conservative family who never talked about that stuff and it was very taboo. I can remember being in sort of shock when he said “So, you know, we’ve never talked about sex. Do you have any questions?” I was so scared that I just said “Nope…I’m good. No questions.” and left it at that. Then 6-8 miles down the freeway, my dad said again “So you’re SURE you don’t have any questions?” Again I said “Nope. I’m good.” I was just so scared and it was so awkward. A few weeks later mg parents gave me a sort of cartoony book for kids about human reproduction, thinking it would be easier not taking to them about if directly. I still love the BTTF trilogy like crazy, but that’s one of my very vivid memories of the second one. I’m sure my dad had planned it all out, trying to find something I really wanted to do, and then making it something just he and I did together. But I was was totally blindsided by it.
Extremely well made doco. Great job on presenting it's history, I thoroughly enjoyed 👏
Growing up in Milwaukee, my mom would taking me to this mall often in the early 80s. I remember her always parking by Gimbles (then Marshal Fields) or Bostons. I’d always run up the stairs that were right next to the escalators as my mother rode up. The information booths were really fun looking and I remember the flower theme coming in later. I moved back to Chicago in 1990 and totally missed the decline of this mall. Instead, I had another mall that died before dead malls were a thing, Randhurst Mall, but all my high school friends worked at the Woodfield Mall - it was SUCH a stark contrast of dead and UBER thriving. So sad to see what has become of Northridge. I saw many Easter Bunnies and Santas here, great memories with my mother. Thank you for covering it. I enjoyed your presentation.
Also, I will never forget the commercials for the two malls. They were a blast!
I've lived in WI for 21 years and am perplexed as to why I never heard of this mall until now. I usually go to Mayfair if I'm in Milwaukee area.
I remember being a teenager in the early 80s and the malls being so full during the weekends. People shopping, teenagers eating and going to the movies...or just hanging out. Where do the kids hang out today? I feel for young people. I really do. Everything is so damned expensive now. We could go to the mall, eat and watch a movie for about $10 back in 83.
Oak View Mall, Omaha NE Great Video! Wisconsin is really an amazing state, for malls and other landmarks.
Thanks man! And you got it! It truly is
Looks like jamestown mall with a second floor
Right??
Great video, the transitions between the busy mall to the empty corridors are similar to what James Cameron accomplished in Titanic that shows the glory to demise, granting a nostalgic feeling for a place you've never been, but are somehow a part of. Well done!
Its the video weve all been waiting for with an hour of mall, history, and treasures to enjoy with great editing!
Super amazing work North, and like others said, thank you for continuing to be here through the years creating content as that can take a lot of work to do. Its an acomplishment 🎉🤩
This was an amazing journey. Thank you for all your effort! 💪💪💪
No problem, glad you enjoyed it!
Duuude the way you edited it showing how full and alive the mall was to present was insanely cool thank for this entoer video omg
New subscriber here, without a doubt the most fascinating abandoned mall video i have ever seen.
Thank you so much!
This is so sad 😢. I grew up in the 80's and 90's. We would have never imagined this outcome. Basically every mall I grew up enjoying is gone now. We are a throw away society.
It is honestly incredible to see how far your channel has improved since season 3. Your videos have gotten better and better each time I have watch them and I can’t wait to see what is in store in the future. Amazing video and I’m ready to go vandalize black spruce HQ so they can understand how the mall feels about how they have treated it.😂
Thank you so much CC! I’m so excited to show you all what is in store. I know the future is bright here!
It's hard to watch when you used to live there, and shop there, and see it end up like that.
I cannot believe that my one of my favorite dead malls is being toured by my favorite youtuber, NorthCdogg22!
Another great video. I like when you put old video clips in the beginning. I noticed the graffiti idiots have a fascination with drawing peters in most of the abandoned structures. Keep up the great work.
Phenomenal Video! It was such a treat watching the whole video! It's my favorite take on Northridge Mall. Amazing Video.
I can't believe this is happening in the US. Now I understand why Americans who go to my country look surprised and happy. In my country, malls are huge, beautiful, crowded and are everywhere. Some would even be located a block from each other. Christmas and other holidays would be hell because of street traffic to the malls, crowds and parking problem.
The music is so eerie. Like it’s still being played in the mall
Qual o nome dessa música?estou querendo saber!
One of the most notorious abandoned malls in the world probably.
Once Dixie Square was demolished it probably is. If it sits there another 10 years like this it will have out done Dixie Square for being the longest sitting abandoned mall there was.
Jau
As a kid of the 80’s and 90’s who loved malls, if I could find the idiots who did all of this vandalism, I would beat the living crap out of them. WHY would people do what’s been done here??
EXACTLY! Hurts me..
Man you should totally do university mall in Pensacola Florida. It's unique because someone eventually changed it into a storefront type mall but somewhere in the back is still the remnant of a tradition mall. The JCPenney is still there but the mall part is completely blocked as if it was never there from 2013
This is your best video yet! I love your music choices, it really helps tell the story!!
My best memories growing up was riding my bike with my brother through the north ridge complex. We go there to the mall or to fudruckers across the street to play the arcades. Used to live in the north Meadows and at one point around 91 my entire family lived up there on one block, north 95th street. Even my dad had a house on fairy chasm Rd that lead you right to the west side of the mall. It wasn't always bad on the north side of Milwaukee. A far cry from what it is now. Man, Just looking at the video I can see the place I got my ears pierced like 25 years ago LOL.. At the piercing pagoda. Damn man, I remember going to see Batman at that movie theater! A Lot of good memories there.
About time my favorite mall of all
Hell yeah man!
@@NorthCdogg22whoops this reply slipped past me….
@@NorthCdogg22pode passar nome da músicas no link do vídeo?
Wow, looks like it was a winner. There is a Northridge Mall in CA as well that was similarly packed and popular (that's what brought me here initially) but I'm enjoying this video too!
Me too. I thought it was LA until they said Wisconsin
@@lauralarrabee7870 same! SF Bay here, we had a Northridge Mall as well. (That’s what made me pause & watch)
This is the most fascinating dead mall exploration I've seen!
Glad you enjoyed!
As always an amazing video!
This was a great upload! Excellent exploration!!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed!
My Mom worked at this mall in the late 1970's untill sometime in the 1980 before I was born. I remember visiting it once when I was little.
Thanks for the hour long video! Great work!
Thank you for watching!
This structure would make an amazing memory care facility! Shops and apartments and restaurants and socializing! You could have a medical facility, quarters for staff, beauty shops, exercise, all in an enclosed area so everyone stays safe!
Great job with the flashback clips. Too many dead mall CZcamsrs neglect to provide what a mall was like in its hey day so thumbs up. This was a beautiful mall. I love the ceiling and design.
I spent most of the day at Southridge today for my work. I'm an old guy, having gone there with my parents when it opened. Phoenix has now given up on Northridge and has walked away from it, unlikely to ever be reborn. The city didn't back their plan for it, probably because they saw it as not much more viable than the Chinese plans that failed previously. Since the time Northridge closed, crime has really spread in the area. A lot of stores and car dealers have closed so there isn't the market for retail. Thanks for the awesome video.
Wow. Stunning film. The music really adds a sad and creepy vibe at the same time.
I haven't even seen your face and I'm mesmerised already haha. Great contents and narrative, subscribe.
Great job on the editing and overall project. Impressed with the archive video and pictures as well as the commentary of the mall over the years. Hard to believe iPhones are capable of the clarity and sharpness of the video. Great writing, narration and I like how you “echoed” the music in the background. It at times seemed remarkably similar to the piped-in music you would hear inside the mall. Keep up the good work, sir.
The 80s were my youth and Malls were golden havens then. Honestly, unless you were alive then you just can't know how wonderful they were back then. How utterly depressing to see the demise and degradation of these great Malls.
Excellent. Perfect.
Great video and great editing! Keep it up!
Pretty sad. I remember when this mall opened in 1971. The people that used to go there are grown up or married and moved away. Most probably have already passed away. That time will never come back. Not for any of us.
You are very talented and have an extraordinary gift in conveying a story through video. I hope good things come your way my friend. Great work.
Thank you so much!
To whom that made this video, I absolutely loved watching this . Especially because I grew up shopping in malls ❤
Realities are malls will be distant memories and sometimes malls thriving just feel the joys on all parts ❤
I was 14 years old when I started going to Northridge Mall, and I miss it so much 😢
53:32 JCPenneys Looks So Scary Inside Bro 😅
This a really great video showing a mall I grew up in. I’m sad seeing the destruction but I really appreciate seeing so much old footage. Personally I preferred the original colors and style. The makeover was awful to me. I have autism and loved staring at that metal fountain even if it got rusty. I also liked the red carpets and sunken conversation pits. I think at some time we played with legos in there while my dad napped. After visiting Radio Shack he was done lol. I remember a guy with one arm worked at Radio Shack and he inspired me bc I wondered how he did everything so well. Also the Childrens Place was super fun! Wish there were pics of that. Thank you!
Actually he had two arms, one hand. Early to mid 80’s. Wonder where he is now.
Buddy Squirrel, candle place, that brick storefront place my mom always liked. The Children’s Place had a tv room and slide that parents couldn’t get in ha was awesome and played with other kids. I agree with some graffiti is funny. What do you expect when u have decay in yr backyard? I don’t blame people-I think they’re expressing their disgust at how society is. We’re all to blame or none of us.
It’s ok if u disagree. So sad about dad who got electrocuted tho 😢
Both designs were great. Remember they left that one conversation pit. Why do you think the 80s one was awful. That word seems a bit too extreme.
Went and explored this building in January was so surreal to see how it was when it was open great video
I still say that dead mall should be turned into studio apartments. Modify a store into a home, walk around in the mall and hang out with the other tenets, turn some of the anchor stores into office areas or a grocery, and relive the food court. It would be like living in a vaporware photo.
It can also help homeless families and people that are willing to work where they live like the food court basically work where they live , it's convenient saves money on buying a car or uber to travel to work etc
@@milesinwyatteandcora That too
Waukesha is pronounced Wok-ka-shaw. I was having a conversation with my grandpa a year ago he ran the Southridge JCPenney and helped out with the opening of the Northridge mall. They knew back then the mall was going to have problems. It's the area it was built around. It wasn't just the one event in 95. People were more often coming in to hangout and cause trouble vs coming in to purchase items. Southridge Mall was built next to Greendale which is a upper middle class area with more expendable income. It's too bad doing things like going to the mall on the weekends isn't a thing anymore. Now we all are glued to our phone ordering of Amazon.
I grew up in Northwest Milwaukee and hung out at Northridge frequently.
Thank you for this.
Waukesha is pronounced like "Walk-eee-shaw" bruh, good lord. I grew up on that mall, we used to drive out there from the nearby Menomonee Falls area where I lived. Milwaukee is extremely racially divided. You can go from the rich white areas to the worst ghetto black areas within a few blocks sometimes...it's jarring. It wasn't just the parking lot murder blamed on a black guy that killed the mall, the mall was already on the way down well before that. A friend of the family had her teeth knocked out by a black guy who robbed her of her purse, punched her in the face and ran away. Lots of black-on-white assaults, break-ins, robberies, etc. It chased away all of the whites (which were the people who actually purchased goods!).
I went there once, naive about all that. Escaped without damage but the signs were clear that I should never return. One of many episodes that cause me to avoid blacks. Wasn't born racist but by gosh events have taught me.
Did not know dead mall vids was a thing, now I do, now my life is complete
Great footage amazing editing.
You need to make a playlist. Amazing video.
Great video content! Your narration, camera work and editing is excellent. If I may suggest, Please consider posting a disclaimer. As Urban exploration can be unsafe, dangerous and hazardous to your health due to poor air quality issues and mold. Please protect yourself, and wear a proper mask when air quality is an issue. Especially at Northridge. In my view, there is a court date scheduled in June 2023. I hope the judge rules that the mall gets demolished as soon as possible. It would be better served to the area to have that building gone. And start fresh. Retail will never ever be a viable option for that property. I hope it would become a distribution center for a major shipping company.
Nice video and history of it
I don't think any investor or realtor would want to waste millions if not billions of dollars to fix this eyesore up. It should have been demolished years ago like that fire chief said.
yeah, that’s the thing with almost all of these old malls. they’re marvelous to look at but they all died for one reason or another and they’re not coming back. it seems dramatic to say that they’re death traps but if bulldozing it could potentially save a life or two then why leave it there? everyone knows that’s the ultimate fate anyways
A Chinese group bought it years ago and still owns it, keeps promising to fix it but never does. City has been trying for years to wrest control but the Chinese owners' reps showing up in the courts (but never on the site lol), has courts standing in the way so far.
Love the mallsoft here! I've heard northridge here or there once or twice, but now it's good to know the history!
My childhood mall. Those video clips from the winter holidays just take me back when I was a kid going to this mall with my parents. It declined throughout the 90s. By the time I was in high school in the late nineties and the turn of the millennium, it was getting pretty bad already with stores leaving, a couple anchor stores already closing and crime rising. I was discouraged from going there then and would go to Brookfield Square, Mayfair, Southridge and Bayshore instead.
The video with the audio intro is absolutely amazing
LOL @ the way you pronounced Waukesha. I grew up in Milwaukee, so Northridge has always haunted the landscape of the northwest county corner. Thanks for the video.
I traveled extensively through the US during the mid 80's and the last two years of the 80's. And malls like this, and I visited this one, were essential to the recreation and shopping of my fellows. We were performers on tour together.
I'm a Los Angeles, CA native. And a few malls have closed here too.
I'm from Boston and love anything facing the water, the Midwest is clearly no exception with that beautiful lake, Michigan. You must be really cute that someone acknowledges it lol.
Love this vid. If you've ever wondered what riding a carousel while overdosed on narcotics in an underground tunnel sounds like, listen closely to the background music.
Awesome 👍
lol the beginning news re northridge. sad b4 and after photos. well done!
The city finally acquired the mall in January this year. They are currently working on demolition. The old Boston Store has already been razed. I remember going to this mall in the early 90s and how neat it was to my second grader-self. But I'm also glad it's finally getting redeveloped. For the same reasons the fire department gave in this video.