A chunk of the content I create is of an urbex nature, and nothing has been more nostalgia and melancholy inducing than filming explorations of my former middle school, abandoned 30 years after I went, and the local department store that was my first place of employment abandoned 20 years after I worked there.
My local mall is on its way to becoming a dead mall. It once had TWO toy chains, including Kay Bee. Right across the street, the Toys R Us is now a furniture store. My daughter is too young to remember when we brought her there just before they closed. It's a bummer.
The problem is that these stores exist as corporate entities. When in reality, the reason why you liked a store at one point in time is because of the leadership involved at that time, who made said store great. These companies get bought and sold all the time. And most of the time, the consumer doesn't know, or care, because when an acquisition of a company takes, the name of the store (most of the time) stays the same. So you don't even realize it that it's now run by a completely different entity. All you notice is that slowly this store you once loved, begins to suck. And you're here scratching your head wondering what the hell happened. My most recent real-life example. My favorite thrift shop was recently bought out by savers. But they still kept the old name of the thrift shop. Things that were once a dollar, are now suddenly five dollars. They prices of everything, used items might I add, have gone up dramatically. So I asked one of the employees, what's going on. They basically said, they were bought out by a big greedy conglomerate, and they raised all the prices, and fired 80% the staff, and bought in a bunch of new employees. Now everything in what used to be my favorite thrift store, is 5X the price. I have only been there once in the past 8 months. And that was last week, just to see if they still had absurd prices. They most certainly still did. So I won't be going back there for the remainder of 2025. The thrift store is dead. Now it's just that store in name only. And I won't be surprised if they officially change their signage to say savers soon. They've completely changed the floor design of the store since I was there last.
I was working a seasonal job at Macy's during the Christmas season and it had a Toys R Us section. I was ambivalent. On the one hand it was great to see Geoffrey Giraffe again and they even had a bench with a Geoffrey statue where parents could shoot pictures of their children. On the other hand, the entire toy section is so small compared to the old stand-alone stores where you would have one aisle devoted to dolls, one aisle devoted to board games, etc. Having Toys R Us inside of Macy's isn't quite the same.
You pretty much nailed everything that I have inside me with a lot of these places. Toys R Us and Kay Bees was a special treat and there are great moments from my youth there. My Step-Father being nice to me, getting a toy because my mom paid attention to me. Mom and Pop video stores, K-Mart, the Mall... all I have is fading memories. Toys R Us in Macy's, in the US is a complete joke. Shopping sucks now.
There's one last original Blockbuster existing anywhere (as far as i know) in Bend, Oregon. I'm not too far away, in Portland, and have considered a road trip just for the experience of walking through those doors one more time 😃
Needlessly long comment, sorry. I'm just passionate about this topic lol. I always look forward to setting foot in my old Toys R Us around Halloween, thanks to Spirit. When I get the chance, I take a peek behind the curtains at the parts of the store they aren't using, and still see signage that was left up from back when the store was still open. For the longest time, that big, chunky loss prevention warning sign with Geoffrey on it stayed up after Spirit began moving in every year, but was eventually taken down. But a couple Octobers prior, I went in with a newly-purchased Game Boy Camera to get that period-appropriate shot I was itching to get, since I knew it wouldn't be up there forever. Looking back on it, retail - particularly before 9/11 - was all about experience. Be it child or adult, you wanted to have a store you were looking forward to go to. Going to the same stores, restaurants, businesses, etc. I went to 25 years ago - if they're even still open - feels different. Like, means-to-an-end different. Aesthetics feel corporate and sterile. Everything looks and feels cold. I feel rushed to buy my things and get out instead of taking my time and enjoying a shopping experience that will get me back in the door next time to spend more money. There is no better example of this than McDonalds. But on the other hand, going to stores that are stuck in the past feels like liminal. My local mall, which is still far from a dead mall (thankfully), had 5 anchors when I was a kid - JCPenny, 2 separate Dillards (Men & Women), Sears, and Kaufmanns (which turned into Macy's in the 2000s). Sears was the first to go in 2017, followed by Macy's in 2020. Dillards consolidated into one store, leaving the empty half to be taken up by Round 1 in 2017. The mall added on a brand new expansion to welcome Dick's as an anchor. That leaves JCPenny and Dillards surprisingly still open, representing the last of the mall's 'Old Guard'. Dillards still retains its pink and dark green carpet accented by its shiny silver escalators, with its late-70s storefront outside still standing tall and proud. JCPenny is still as cramped and dim as it was when I was a kid, and still even smells the same too. But going to either seems...weird. Lifeless. The floors are packed with clothes, but not with people or staff. It feels creepy. I do not want to shop at either. But I live in a densely populated area of town, which helps keeps these two on life support until their eventual death. I predict both will be gone by the end of 2026, and by then, the last of the mall as I knew it as a child will be no more.
A chunk of the content I create is of an urbex nature, and nothing has been more nostalgia and melancholy inducing than filming explorations of my former middle school, abandoned 30 years after I went, and the local department store that was my first place of employment abandoned 20 years after I worked there.
My local mall is on its way to becoming a dead mall. It once had TWO toy chains, including Kay Bee. Right across the street, the Toys R Us is now a furniture store. My daughter is too young to remember when we brought her there just before they closed. It's a bummer.
The problem is that these stores exist as corporate entities. When in reality, the reason why you liked a store at one point in time is because of the leadership involved at that time, who made said store great. These companies get bought and sold all the time. And most of the time, the consumer doesn't know, or care, because when an acquisition of a company takes, the name of the store (most of the time) stays the same. So you don't even realize it that it's now run by a completely different entity. All you notice is that slowly this store you once loved, begins to suck. And you're here scratching your head wondering what the hell happened.
My most recent real-life example. My favorite thrift shop was recently bought out by savers. But they still kept the old name of the thrift shop. Things that were once a dollar, are now suddenly five dollars. They prices of everything, used items might I add, have gone up dramatically. So I asked one of the employees, what's going on. They basically said, they were bought out by a big greedy conglomerate, and they raised all the prices, and fired 80% the staff, and bought in a bunch of new employees. Now everything in what used to be my favorite thrift store, is 5X the price. I have only been there once in the past 8 months. And that was last week, just to see if they still had absurd prices. They most certainly still did. So I won't be going back there for the remainder of 2025. The thrift store is dead. Now it's just that store in name only. And I won't be surprised if they officially change their signage to say savers soon. They've completely changed the floor design of the store since I was there last.
I was working a seasonal job at Macy's during the Christmas season and it had a Toys R Us section. I was ambivalent. On the one hand it was great to see Geoffrey Giraffe again and they even had a bench with a Geoffrey statue where parents could shoot pictures of their children. On the other hand, the entire toy section is so small compared to the old stand-alone stores where you would have one aisle devoted to dolls, one aisle devoted to board games, etc. Having Toys R Us inside of Macy's isn't quite the same.
Thank you for pointing out there’s no thing as an “unskilled” job.❤
You pretty much nailed everything that I have inside me with a lot of these places. Toys R Us and Kay Bees was a special treat and there are great moments from my youth there. My Step-Father being nice to me, getting a toy because my mom paid attention to me. Mom and Pop video stores, K-Mart, the Mall... all I have is fading memories. Toys R Us in Macy's, in the US is a complete joke. Shopping sucks now.
The good news is the Retro Decade Revival Project is gonna turn the tables around and make it better.
There's one last original Blockbuster existing anywhere (as far as i know) in Bend, Oregon. I'm not too far away, in Portland, and have considered a road trip just for the experience of walking through those doors one more time 😃
It was totally impossible that Sears could ever go out of business, yet they were already behind K-Mart and Walmart in sales by the mid 80's.
Needlessly long comment, sorry. I'm just passionate about this topic lol.
I always look forward to setting foot in my old Toys R Us around Halloween, thanks to Spirit. When I get the chance, I take a peek behind the curtains at the parts of the store they aren't using, and still see signage that was left up from back when the store was still open. For the longest time, that big, chunky loss prevention warning sign with Geoffrey on it stayed up after Spirit began moving in every year, but was eventually taken down. But a couple Octobers prior, I went in with a newly-purchased Game Boy Camera to get that period-appropriate shot I was itching to get, since I knew it wouldn't be up there forever.
Looking back on it, retail - particularly before 9/11 - was all about experience. Be it child or adult, you wanted to have a store you were looking forward to go to. Going to the same stores, restaurants, businesses, etc. I went to 25 years ago - if they're even still open - feels different. Like, means-to-an-end different. Aesthetics feel corporate and sterile. Everything looks and feels cold. I feel rushed to buy my things and get out instead of taking my time and enjoying a shopping experience that will get me back in the door next time to spend more money. There is no better example of this than McDonalds.
But on the other hand, going to stores that are stuck in the past feels like liminal. My local mall, which is still far from a dead mall (thankfully), had 5 anchors when I was a kid - JCPenny, 2 separate Dillards (Men & Women), Sears, and Kaufmanns (which turned into Macy's in the 2000s). Sears was the first to go in 2017, followed by Macy's in 2020. Dillards consolidated into one store, leaving the empty half to be taken up by Round 1 in 2017. The mall added on a brand new expansion to welcome Dick's as an anchor. That leaves JCPenny and Dillards surprisingly still open, representing the last of the mall's 'Old Guard'. Dillards still retains its pink and dark green carpet accented by its shiny silver escalators, with its late-70s storefront outside still standing tall and proud. JCPenny is still as cramped and dim as it was when I was a kid, and still even smells the same too. But going to either seems...weird. Lifeless. The floors are packed with clothes, but not with people or staff. It feels creepy. I do not want to shop at either. But I live in a densely populated area of town, which helps keeps these two on life support until their eventual death. I predict both will be gone by the end of 2026, and by then, the last of the mall as I knew it as a child will be no more.
It's pretty much like we were in an abusive relationship with these stores 😂