u/BaronGalactic

I didn't know there was a sub for this! Recently made a trip to a local mall and posted about it in my local subreddit (you can read my detailed description of the visit there.) Only 3 in-mall stores open, plus two anchor stores still in business.

I remember around 2001 or so, a friend and I were at a store and they had these in one of the quarter-machines. He'd collected some, and introduced me to them. I started buying some from the machine, and I really wanted one that had a keychain on it, so I ended up having to break several dollars for quarters at the cashier, and I kept putting more and more quarters into the machine until I finally got one with a keychain on it.

I still have that little guy on my keychain to this very day, haha. I named him Jesús (after the Spanish name, not Christ lol.) I also have like 20 or so of the little figures that I collected that day and for a little while afterward. I used to have them all lined up on my shelf, but after moving almost 20 years ago, they've all been sitting in a big Ziplock freezer back.

I wonder if I should take them out and display them again.

Did anyone else collect these? How big is your collection? Do you have a favorite figure?

I recently commented on a post about the Oxford Valley Mall fountain being turned back on, saying that I have been going to local malls on a sort of "nostalgia tour" to see how they're doing. You can read my comment in the link to see my thoughts about the Montgomery Mall, the Willow Grove Mall, and the Lehigh Valley Mall, which I've already gone back to so far in the past several months.

Today I swung by the Neshaminy Mall, and this time I decided to take some pictures in case there are some who are curious about the place who might not want or be able to make the trip themselves.

All of the rumors are true: the place is absolutely depressing. I entered through the food court, and only one restaurant was still open. Going through the entire mall, only five stores were open (middle of the afternoon on a Monday.) This includes the Barnes & Noble and the Boscov's - both of which are endcap stores and accessible from the parking lot - and three in-mall stores (a Hallmark, a small luggage store, and a "spa"/massage place directly next to the luggage store.) Every other store was either completely gutted, or shuttered.

The thing I always remembered most about the Neshaminy Mall was the Indian statue and the "colonial" dioramas along the wall (third and fourth pictures respectively.) The Indian looks quite sad, especially since the water feature he sits among is completely turned off and the seemingly living plants around him are mostly half dead. Of the seven windowed dioramas, four of them were boarded up and, I assume, taken apart. Three were still there to enjoy, showing, I assume, Pennsylvania colonial history.

There were maybe a dozen or so pairs of people in the mall at the time I went, though as you can see, I was very easily able to take photos of whole stretches of the mall without capturing a single other person (I only had to wait a few seconds for one of the pics so that some people would pass - I didn't want to photograph anyone without their consent.)

Boscov's was by far the busiest place, though not quite surprisingly, since you can enter it directly from the parking lot. If I had to guess, I'd say it was between 1/3 and 1/2 as busy as you might expect a mall department store to be during the place's heyday, and seemed only slightly run down (I only made a circuit of the first floor however, and didn't go up to the second floor.) It was fully stocked though and seemed to be doing decent enough business.

The hallway in the second-to-last photo, which leads to the AMC theater, was completely partitioned off from the rest of the mall, with only a small open door in the middle allowing access to it, with a sign next to the door stating which hours that particular door is open. I'm not sure why they close that part of the mall off specifically, but apparently they do at times. I only took a photo from inside the doorway and didn't go down the hall, and although it looked like every single store along it was shuttered, there may have been an open one down at the far end next to the theater entrance, though I'd be surprised if that was true.

I took my mom with me. She used to go to that mall a lot as a teenager, and told me lots of stories about her youth and what it was like, including where she and her friends would go to get earrings and such, the "Deb" store that she loved shopping at, and how at one time there was an actual glass blower working in a kiosk there who sold little knickknacks. My last personal memory of the place was from about 30 years ago I think, when I was 12 or 13 maybe. The Montgomery Mall and Oxford Valley Mall were much closer to where I lived and my dad lived, respectively, and so I went to them far more often.

At the moment, I still plan on visiting the Oxford Valley Mall and the Plymouth Meeting Mall. People in the comments of the other thread suggested the Quakerbridge Mall, but according to my mom, the last time I was there was when I was a baby - I have no memory of the place, and this is more of a personal "nostalgia" tour than an "all local malls" tour. However, I am possibly open to visiting other nearby malls that aren't too far from Upper Bucks, where I now live.

I know this was quite a long post, but I thought that maybe some locals would appreciate it - especially the older ones like me who remember when going to the mall was a real experience. I'd be very happy to take some pictures during future mall visits if any of you guys are interested in hearing about it. I'd love to know what you all think.

Edit: Oh, I meant to mention this but forgot. It seems kind of trivial, but it really stuck out to me. For some reason, broad swaths of the mall felt extremely stuffy - like there was no air running through the place. At one point, as I passed a gated store, I was able to feel much cooler air flowing quite strongly out of it, which was a very odd experience. The stuffiness (especially in the large central atrium with the statue) is so pronounced that it almost hits you like a brick. Just a curious detail I thought I'd mention.

Far less generic than the "crime" category.

Ignore the amount of chips. I took the first photo about 20 years ago because I thought it looked kind of funny as a frowny face. Recently bought some, and the amount of shrinkage was glaring. One cookie used to fill almost my entire palm. Now it's a tiny little thing.

Wet and foamy texture. We've been getting a lot of big, meaty mushrooms springing up in the yard from recent rain (and humidity?) but never seen anything like this before.

Apparently these were only around from 1990-1991, which seems odd because I feel like I was much older when I ate these. They were recalled because a few toddlers (and teenagers?) had bitten off the tube's lid and almost choked.

This stuff was like candy. My mom used to give it to me in that little cup, and I'd drink it down then stick my tongue in the cup to try to get some more!