A Visit to The Mall at the Source - DOOMIE SPECIAL
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- Опубліковано 9 вер 2024
- No commentary. Some malls don't need narration.
The Source, now known as the Samanea, has been sitting in an odd state of limbo for some time now. A new chapter is set for the mall, but it remains lost in transition.
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Well, as a former Long Islander, I can at least make a decent attempt to answer the question you posed in the parking structure: “What went wrong”.
Well…
Once many moons ago, Old Country Rd. had one large department store named Fortunoff in Westbury. Sitting next to this large store was a much larger horse racing track named Roosevelt Raceway. The two coexisted very well for many years. Eventually, the Raceway began to experience financial issues, mostly due to the competition from Belmont Raceway and the newly constructed Meadowlands Raceway in NJ. Eventually the Raceway sold, and the new buyers operated it briefly, long enough to claim that they “tried” to run it before shutting it down and bulldozing the place. They had the brilliant idea to build a gigantic mall, and attach it to the Fortunoff store. They named it “the source“ after an advertising slogan that Fortunoff used to use: “Fortunoff - The Source“. They built their mall and things were fine for a while. They were able to fill it to a certain extent but it never reached 100% capacity. Finally, Fortunoff themselves experienced financial issues. Eventually that main store closed, leaving only the backyard store behind. Thus, you see it as it is today.
Why did it fail? Only one major anchor, and its proximity to the Roosevelt Field mall. Roosevelt Field is a mall on par with Woodfield Mall in Chicagoland. It is far from dead. I had neighbors who chose to shop at Roosevelt Field rather than go to the Sunrise Mall which was far closer. I really hope while you were there you took the time to go to the Roosevelt Field mall.
Honestly, The Source should never have been built, and harness racing should still be going on on that land.
We live 45 minutes away from Roosevelt Field and prefer it to the much closer Smith Haven Mall. It's a terrific mall and the food court - sorry, the "Dining District" - is the best anywhere.
While The Source may be struggling, most of the former Roosevelt Raceway and surrounding areas are a thriving retail and commercial district today.
You also have to factor in Broadway Mall as a major competitor to the source. That mall opened in 1957 after its first anchor store Gertz opened in the early fall of 1956. The building that Gertz had was a department store for a little more than 63 years before it closed in early March 2020 shortly before the covid-19 pandemic was declared. The store became a Sterns in 1982 and then a Macy’s in 2001. Asbestos abatement work caused the store to close a few years later than its initially intended closure date.
By the way the only reason why Broadway Mall is not dead yet is because of the presence of IKEA as an anchor, which opened in 1991 after being delayed from its originally scheduled 1990 opening. Steve and Barry’s was a junior anchor from 2005 to 2009 when it was liquidated, with RoundOne taking over sometime between 2017 and 2018. The other anchor besides IKEA and the old Gertz was a JCPenney clearance center that opened in the fall of 1999 and closed in 2003 to make room for a Target that opened the following year. Broadway has seen a small increase in vacancies since Macy’s closed and the increase is expected to get somewhat worse by the end of the 2020s.
Wow. I think this might be one of your best videos so far. You really did an outstanding job capturing the surreal vibe of the place.
Beats me how a place like this can remain open without making any profit. What's the catch here? I can't imagine how much loss this brings to the owner.
Absolutely crazy to see a mall in this shape. Nearly completely empty, no benches, chairs, tables, kiosks, and in immaculate condition. It is almost like the mall is under construction and the stores haven't opened yet. This is an awesome video Doomie!
Unreal how vacant that is. I'm surprised they are still running the escalators.
A Rax and a KB Toys label scar…. Unreal!
This place gives Cincinnati Mills a run for deadest mall of all time.
Yeah it really does. Doesn't get more dead than these two by far.
Agree.
That long walk down the corridor with not a single kiosk in sight looks very eerie. Post apocalyptic vibes.
Amazing video! This mall is definitely something else!
Why is the doors are open when the stores are closed?
This place makes me think of the Cincinnati Mills Mall except way more white. Also this mall is far from my favourite but I absolutely love the outdoor and the indoor architecture of that Cheesecake Factory shop. It is beautiful.🍰
If this isn't a sign things are on the edge of crashing, I don't know what is!
Used to hear commercials on the radio about this place when it was the place to be on all the NYC radio stations years ago.
What in the world is keeping this place open?
Best I can tell, the current owners are attempting to shift towards a more community oriented mall. They call it a lifestyle center, but it appears the enclosed portion is here to stay. For now, at least.
Some of your best work.
Great vid as always!!! Excellent idea to not have a voiceover and just let the sounds of the mall be the soundtrack.
Are you planning to release another version with a full voiceover and walkthrough commentary?
I feel like this mall looks like the one used in the movie Day after Tomorrow, i never personally been there but it looks like the mall from the movie.
KB Toys? This has been vacant for a while
So empty! Wild. I can just imagine the life that food court once had - was probably THE place to be on a Friday night with all your friends!
Great video.This place is eerie. Thanks for filming.
My god man. I don't see the first place open. When I see places like this I think was a COLOSSAL waste.
Oh wait, what do I see? A furniture business?
@@WhittyPics Yeah I think so. That's what it looked like to me.
Thing is. There's only a few tenants in the entire mall with interior access only. Everyone else attached to the mall has an exterior entrance, and either relegates their mall access to a backdoor entry, or does away with mall access entirely.
Cheesecake Factory's mall entrance is a backdoor, and it's weird to slip in/out from a dead silent mall to a high energy restaurant. It's like a stable entry point in/out the backrooms.
The mike picks up a high volume ventilation sound. Is that the HVAC units running? Sounds like a wind tunnel. Anyway Doomie, great video as always. The closest mall to me here in upstate NY is loosing its JC Penny and TGIF. I expect more stores like Macy's to announce closing also. Reading Next Door blog, people don't understand why. I guess they haven't been following Doomie Grunt and other mall bloggers on what is happening across the country.
The windows next to the food court need some neon signage. Make it look even more like Landmark Mall's food court.
All this place needs are some tumbleweeds blowing down the empty halls
It’s a time in the world that’s just gone. It was fun but these stores couldn’t survive with the urban customer makeup and the availability of online shopping. What’s next? Public schools probably. They will all be inner city crime centers while others abandon it for home schooling. Great video
wow, the building looks to be in decent shape but totally dead inside...ours is in steady decline, every christmas it seems fewer stores reside in the mall...we're at about 60% capacity , though after covid kinda went away there was a mini resurgence in people returning to shop in person but not in the numbers of the old days... in 5 years or less I can see it shutting down or converted to office spaces
I miss your narration.
Back to watch this one again! Love it!
Did this mall have a large Merry-Go-Round in the food court at any point? If so, I think this might be the mall my family used to stop at on roadtrips back in the day...
I like the ambiance, miss the history commentary. Any way to get a little of both in future videos?
Why does this mall give me vague Charlestowne Mall-like vibes? Except that I don't like how this mall has less color than Charlestowne Mall(RIP, or for that matter any other Wilmorite designed mall), but ah well. Since I do like those big windows(like the one by the food court), and the big skylights. Now I need to research, if Source was designed by Wilmorite or not. Also I weirdly never can remember its new name, Samanea. If only this mall had some color and wasn't overwhelmingly white, plus the floor tiles look more sterile(too much like a remodeled Simon mall) than I prefer.
I don’t know all the shopping options out in that area of long island, but the density of population is crazy, amount of tiny little houses built in the 60s that haven’t been updated in decades listed for 500k plus is ridiculous and property taxes are insane. I just pulled up listings in westbury (where this mall is located) and 1200 sq ft run down homes for $475k and 10k taxes… how can anyone actually afford this anymore? Insanity. Everyone can’t be the senior vp of a large company to afford this!!! Wtf is happening???
I think that all the time too! You can afford a lot more in the South.
And Westbury is NOT a good community by any stretch of the imagination. Crime is high and the schools are dreadful. Those $475K houses would be twice as much in a better town.
@@R32R38 I'll play along... What's the DEMOGRAPHICS look like in this town?
@@jagboy69 LOL 😆
@@joedimaggio3687 until the family unit gets restored, nothing is going to change. Pretty tough to raise good responsible young men when baby daddy took off.🙄
What the heck? So beautiful! Sad! ☹️
Rax in the food court… No kidding, are there any Rax restaurant’s around at all anymore?
There are a handful left, of which are a mixed bag. Some are supposedly great for what they are, and others are propped up purely by nostalgia.
@@DoomieGruntVentures I remember they used to be so good. We had quite a few of them here in the southeast, specifically in WV. They actually haven’t been around here since the 90s; last time I ate there in the early 90s, sadly, the roast beef was true pink.
@@AnErrorOccurredI think only something like 10 or less Rax locations are left, today. Rumor has it the Rax here was a prop sign added, when sone movie or TV show filmed inside Mall at the Source(still forget how to spell its new name, is it Samanea?).
Was this actually supposed to be two malls in one??? When it seemed like you were walking from one to the other, was that just a maintenance/cargo cord or was that actually part of the original mall? Weird…
The weirdest part was having that area with a baby grand piano under an exposed ductwork.
It's the same mall. But that corridor on the lower level definitely feels out of place.
That looks abandoned.
Cute
Definitely better without the vo.