Malls

Originally written in 2010, updated 2023.  As a resident of Northern Virginia, USA, most of the malls referenced herein are from the greater DC area, which includes suburban Maryland as well.

After COVID.   Are malls dead?  Certainly more of them have been closing recently.  Landmark Mall in Annandale, Virginia, has been demolished; White Flint Mall in Rockville, Maryland, is mostly gone; and Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is mostly closed and due to be demolished this year.   The rise of online shopping from Amazon had already cut into mall business, and the COVID shutdowns seem to have accelerated the process.  

I consider myself an introvert:  I'm not really outgoing and eager to make friends, and I'm perfectly fine staying at home alone.  Even so, I still get "stir crazy" and enjoy going outside my apartment and seeing what's out there.  And as fun as it is to get the email from Amazon that my package has been delivered, and the email from my front desk at the condo that it's been processed and is ready be picked up, I still enjoy going out to the store and buying something then and there.  For CDs and vinyl that has been CD Cellar in Falls Church for some time now.  But CD Cellar - in fact, no store - can compete with Amazon and eBay for selection.  So I'll try to start off with CD Cellar and go back to online purchases if it can't be procured locally.  

Malls also have movie theaters and food courts.   I still enjoy watching movies in the theater, though I'm more selective these days than I used to be.  I don't care how big your flat screen TV is (mine is 40"), the IMAX screen is bigger than that.  I suppose I should look into more delivery options - even for pizza, I go to Little Caesar's and pick it up for a fraction of what Domino's charges.  The mall food court is a good place to score fast food.  Healthy food?  I'll have to take care of that at home.

“Mallory, you go to the mall so often, the mannequins wave at you.”  Alex Keaton (Michael J. Fox), Family Ties.

 By now we all know what these are.  They’re for shopping, browsing, or simply hanging out.  They’ve been around as long as most of us can remember.  We usually associate them with the suburbs, but a few are downtown or way out in the boondocks.  I’ll comment on the ones I’m familiar with, mostly in the Washington DC metropolitan area (Maryland & Virginia).

 My usual focus is on record stores, but unfortunately most mall record stores, e.g. Sam Goody or FYE, tend to have poor selections and high prices.  High School Musical?  Sure.  Hawkwind?  Don’t bother looking.  Another great store is those Spencer or Hot Topic stores, where you can get black lights, sex toys, and all sorts of twisted, perverted (but cool) things buried in the dull wholesomeness of the mall. 

 Some say that malls are obsolete now that online shopping is around.  It’s certainly easier to do your Christmas shopping online, assisted by Amazon.com wishlists, than to fight the crowds and hellacious parking at the malls after Black Friday.  But just as people still buy compact discs even if, with some imagination and diligence, they could download most of the music they want for free, people still go out and shop, even if 99% of what they’re looking for can be bought online and delivered to their doorstep.  And you can shop online 24/7, naked in front of your computer at 3 a.m., something you can’t do at the mall.  But part of us yearns to GET OUT and GO SOMEWHERE.  The crowds at the mall are a form of human interaction, even if 99.9% of them are strangers.  The Mall is here to stay, though maybe not as many as before.  As more of them go under, the surviving malls will pick up the residual customers those dead malls had.

 Strip Malls.  These are outdoor malls with no interior.  The Village Mall in Montgomery Village, Maryland, started out with an indoor mall, then was converted into this type, supposedly to prevent the low-life juvenile delinquents from loitering inside.  It’s a shame, because this one had a very groovy “That 70s” vibe to it we really liked: cobblestones, inside fountains, and vertical woodblock lettering for the stores.  From what I understand, the equivalent mall in Columbia, Maryland is still around.

Maryland

 Westfield Montgomery Mall.  (Est 1968). One of the older ones in our neighborhood, off Democracy Blvd. and the 270 Spur.  It’s a big middle class place, vaguely cross-shaped layout.  We used to go there with my parents as kids, but far less often as adults.

 White Flint Mall. (1977-2020). On 355 north of Bethesda, southern end of Rockville.   Another cross-layout place.  We remember the Eatery, and it had a Dave & Busters and movie theater, where we saw “Young Doctors In Love” and “E.T.” in summer of 1982.  By 2023 all but Lord & Taylor were gone, i.e. the other three anchor stores and the cross-mall complex itself.

 Lakeforest Mall. (1978-2023).  This is at the corner of 355 and 124 (Montgomery Village Ave.) very close off 270.  It opened in the late 70s – we remember when it was just a lake and a forest.  In layout it is identical to Fair Oaks Mall (in Fairfax).  This has a Macy’s, a Sears, and other modestly upscale (upper middle class) stores.

** by 2023 this mall had fallen on hard times and is due to be demolished.  We went there when it opened in 1978, and took one last look before it was gone forever.  

 Frederick Towne Mall. (Est. 1972).  This is one we used to go to as kids with our parents.  It had a Long John Silver’s (fast food seafood) and a Time Out (video arcade).  Years later, when my parents moved up to Frederick, I checked it out again, and found it is surprisingly small, with a simple cross layout.  Lots of dollar stores, NASCAR stores, and similar low-demographic places.  No Neiman Marcus here.

As of 2023 it's in flux:  possibly to survive.   Francis Scott Key Mall is still up and running.  

 Mazza Gallerie. (1977-2022). This is an upscale mall in Bethesda, Maryland, right on Wisconsin Ave.  The Disc Shop was a record store in the basement (long gone) which had the best poster selection I’ve seen of any mall, anywhere.  When I was in college at UMCP, determined to decorate my dorm room with posters – covering every square inch possible – the Disc Shop probably contributed to 60% of the coverage.  Here is where you’ll find Neiman Marcus – the anti-Frederick Mall.

Oops!  Closed in 2022.  RIP.

 The Mall in Columbia Mall. (Est 1971) We went here once as kids, but its main attraction to us as adults is a convenient parking lot across 175 from Merriweather Post Pavilion.   It’s about halfway between DC and Baltimore.  For me, Columbia reminds me a lot of Montgomery Village.

 Arundel Mills. (Est 2000).  Much larger, much newer, with a huge movie theather (Muvico Egyptian).  I saw “All the Kings’ Men” and “The Departed” back here in late 2006.  It has a Medieval Times, which I've been to once.  The Maryland Live! Casino is across the street.

Virginia

 Fair Oaks.  (Est. 1980). Moving now to Virginia, this is in Fairfax, and has almost exactly the same layout as Lakeforest Mall.  It’s symmetrical from one end to the other, so sometimes it gets confusing.  One time my friend and I “lost” his car, when in fact it was parked in the garage on the exact opposite side of the mall.  Like Lakeforest Mall, this has a “kiddie court” in the middle.

 Tyson’s Corner.  (Est. 1962). Also in Fairfax County, next to the Beltway.  Now there’s Tysons and Tyson’s II (aka Galleria).  Tyson’s I is fairly old (60s vintage).  I remember it used to be much darker, until they renovated it with skylights.  In fact, it was so dark I had a nightmare about the organ place (Kitt’s).  It has a roughly L shape to it with Hecht’s (now Macy’s) at the corner.  Now it has a sizeable food court and large AMC Theater.

 Ballston Quarter.  (Est. 1951). The Northern Virginia area is terrible for the Metro – its stations are few and far between and nowhere near anything substantial, with a few exceptions, such as this one.  Whenever I need to take the Metro somewhere, I park here.  It also has a Regal Cinema, a Chipotle, and a Macy’s (formerly Hecht’s).  It started out as Parkington Shopping Center, became Ballston Common in 1986, and more recently morphed into Ballston Quarter in 2019.  

 Fashion Center at Pentagon City. (Est. 1989) A modest mall, but it does have a Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, and a few other places, and it sits right on top of the Metro; it's actually the largest mall in Arlington.  There is a little adjunct mall next door with a Borders and Best Buy.  Pentagon City is actually within sight of the Pentagon itself, between it and Crystal City. 

 Potomac Mills.  (Est. 1985). This is a huge outlet mall in Woodbridge, which is due southwest of DC, about 30 minutes south of the Beltway.  All the offprice and outlet stores are here.  Ages ago I worked at a law firm in Woodbridge, which gave us staffers and attorneys $250 gift certificates for Christmas, which I used to buy dress shoes and a watch.

Elsewhere

 Garden State Plaza. (Est. 1954). I got used to this mall in Paramus, New Jersey, at the intersection of Route 4 and Route 17, and very close to the Garden State Parkway.  It has a JC Penney, Macy’s, and some other stuff.  The best jewelry store is gone. 

 Mall of America.  (Est. 1992). The biggest mall in the world, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  I have never been in Minnesota so I can’t claim to know more than what the rumors are.  The place has an indoor rollercoaster and all sorts of other amazing things – hospital, college, city hall, zip code, private security army, etc.  It even has its own football team, the Vikings.

 Arizona malls.  The ones I’ve seen are all one level, with no escalators.  As with so many other things in Phoenix, to offset the ubiquitous air conditioning – hell, even the Cardinals’ stadium is air conditioned! – the property is reduced to one level and spread out horizontally. 

 (Westfields) Les Quatre Temps.  This was a mall at La Defense, just outside Paris, France.  Unlike the usual Parisian arcades, this had the standard US format and design.  This was the closest to the US we could get in Paris, so it was like home to us.  I remember the toy store, two record stores, and a supermarket.  Fortunnately it's still open, and has a FNAC and Chipotle, among other things.

 Plaza Romania and Bucuresti Mall.  The two major modern malls in Bucharest, Romania.  Each of them has movie theaters and food courts.   For some reason, Romanian malls tend to be square with a huge dome on the top, with a circular layout inside.  There is a smaller one, Unirii Square (in Piata Unirii) which is more compact and rectangular.   

Mallrats & Paul Blart: Mall Cop.  Both are supposed to take place in New Jersey malls, but each takes place in malls well outside New Jersey – Minnesota and Massachusetts.  I guess they figured, “if you’ve seen one mall, you’ve seen them all, what’s the big deal?”  I guess so. “Mallrats” is an early Ben Affleck film, and it also features Jason Lee, Shannon Doherty, and Jay & Silent Bob. 

 Arcades.  These are primitive malls, which I’ve seen in various European cities and Rio de Janeiro.  Typically it’s a hallway/passageway which leads from one end of a block to another, usually bisected by another one at 90 degree angle.  It may have one level or two.  The stores have glass fronts and are usually fancy.  I recall one in Paris, the Passage du Havre, which mainly had train stores (my dad’s particular interest) and military models (my own).