(Full documentary) History of malls in Metro Detroit

We don't have any anymore!

Ce la vie clothing store was forbidden by my parents. 😂
I grew up with Northland and later Fairlane.
It was an all-day adventure ❤.
We ate at Hudson on Sunday...yummy....this is so nostalgic

i remember in 1983 summer riding my 10- speed bike whit two of my boys that live across the street on rutherford and puritan' we just was hanging ' and then when i got too Redford high school ' got a job in the 12"grade', at hudson and then it change to marshalls field,s now out of school got a better job ' look up then it was change to macy,s''

top tens I think was $100 when they first came out!

I always felt like I was breaking the law visiting Spencer's Gifts as a kid. I think I visited Spencer's everytime for fun and never bought a thing.

Miss the long gone malls and the stores that were there . I was a Christmas help at Hudson , Eastland Mall in 1969 .

Livonia Mall?

"What are malls?" - Teens in 2023

Can you get any more dumb. Following main stream media?

I miss summit mall

Thank you for this! Generations of wonderful memories. It made me smile, so bitter sweet 🥹

Thank you for organizing this fun trip down memory lane, WDIV!

Speaking as a former Harmony House employee, you didn't have the luxury of browsing ticket sections the day of an onsale. We gave you the best available and got you out of the line before the person behind you went for your throat for holding up the line!

I grew up in Philly, GenXer, it's amazing how much similarity there was between Detroit area mall culture and where I came from. I enjoyed the nostalgia and remembered a few things I had forgotten about!

I was a shoe Maven ( STILL am) n Baker's, Winkelman's n the Wild Pair were the ultimate!!!! If you wanted the REALLY glittery shoes you would go to The Wild Pair in Northland Mall in Detroit, cuz they had the most ostentatios shoes available. I had my over the knee stilletto heeled REAL leather black boots that were $175 in the 1980's for YEARS they were made so well!!! And I was a dancer in the 1980's and would buy at LEAST 2 pair of each of my favourite shoes so they wouldnt wear out!!!

As a millennial who has lived through the gloriously blissful times when the malls stood still and were poppin' back in the 90s and 2000s, I gotta say those were the best and happiest times of my life. And not a day goes by that I don't think of the days when the malls where not only they were THE place where I could go hang out, shop and eat, but sometimes back when I was going to high school they were my skip-school sanctuary to get away from all the drama and bull***t I had to deal with at school day in and day out(while keeping a low profile). But now those days as well As the nostalgia are as good as long gone cause now these malls are dying thanks to the new developing ways of the commerce (Inc. The internet).
And I'm just as sad as yall are to see these malls go. 😢

But with these malls becoming city centers (or pseudo-downtowns as they call em) they just might bring back the thrill and the bliss that the malls of yester-decades once presented. For old generations and new alike.

And with northland about to be finished with the redevelopment project in later years, ima' be there to relive those glory days ALL OVER AGAIN!!!❤❤❤😂😂😂🎉

December, 1972. Oakland mall. I met Santa!!!!!😊😊😊

I'm only 4 minutes in and I already ❤ this. I grew up in Detroit and I LOOOOVE malls. Northland was my first love mall. For some reason there's something SO exciting about the mall in the 80s. It just seems like it was the popular place to be. My mom and I spent many Saturdays at Northland in the 80s and 90s. I will always love it and miss it. We also shopped at Fairlane, Wonderland, Westland, 12 Oaks, Livonia, Tel 12, Oakland, Somerset. I go to Southland also. Malls are some of my favorite places.

A great idea would be to reclaim Lincoln park and the area where the Kmart use to be. Potential Gold mind….

Lakeside Mall had a Coffee Beanry in the mid 90’s - my sister worked there..!

Good stuff!!! Always a great time at the mall. Brings back the memories. Anyone one of them. Movies, arcade, bookstores, and clothes.

First ones to open were also about first to close. Northland, Eastland, summit place. All gone.

Lakeside and twelve oaks were built at about the same time and used to be very comparable. Why is lakeside dying/closing while twelve oaks is thriving? Besides partridge creek, who has some theories??

I relate to Christy McDonald and Kim Adams. My mall was Oakland in the 80s, with the occasional trip to lakeside. I used to get some clothes from Merry Go Round, very trendy in that day. Surprised Kim couldn’t shop there but she could at contempo casuals. Their clothes were more risqué than MGR. Loved those clothes on the girls back then! 😝 I dated a girl that worked there too…very nice. Kim Adams must have looked great in those clothes too!

I worked at JCPENNEY, Summit Place Mall in Waterford

I came over the border from Kitchener to shop at the Merry Go Round at Oakland Mall. The malls & clothes were so much cooler in the Detroit suburbs. I even went to a certain clerk Norman at the Merry Go Round. He got transferred to. Northland & my parents took me there to see him. Our friends in Sterling Heights told us not to go there. It wasn’t safe. We went anyways. I was the best dressed kid at my Mennonite high school. 😅

Well done! Thanks for taking me back to my childhood. Seemed I lived at Lakeside from 1976 to the late 80". Shopping was just a part of it. Worked at Hudson's Restaurant making Maurice Salads/dressing and all the great desserts. Worked at Meyer Jewelers, too.
Ice skating, movie nights, Christmas decorations and Santa. So many great memories from the best mall in Macomb County. What a great trip down memory lane.

You sound like the woo 😅😅😂 I

The woo twins 😂are 😂high 😂

Woo twins are so 😂😂😂high

Very high 😅😅😅

😅😅😅😅😅😅

Pickin wild flowers 💐

I hated the overbearing sales people at Silverman’s & Merry Go Round. They attacked you like vultures when you walked through the door.

Great Stuff was a great spot to get sports apparel for the local teams with The Pistons owning it.

I saw ET at Livonia Mall!

Great walk down memory lane!!!!

I was really hoping to see Tel-Twelve Mall in Southfield. My friends and I loved going to Silver’s in the early 80s to buy Mrs. Grossman’s stickers and Paper by the Pound, and Harmony House was where we got our 45’s. 😊

Love this video! We use to walk to Eastland Mall and get dropped off at Lakeside it was the place to be when you were a pre-teen to teenager I remember all of this! Ty sooo much!❤️❤️❤️

I worked at Hudsons, Marshall Fields and Macy at Twelve Oaks. I was the specialist for Tommy Hilfiger. I folded so many sweaters, shirts and pants 👖. But, I made so many friends. That I’m still friends with to this very day.

Loved this video. As a mall historian from the Detroit area (Fairlane was my childhood mall) this was well made. I recently wrote a book that is on Amazon about my experiences in malls specifically around the Detroit area. And it is nice to see a mall video that stayed positive and had different people tell experiences and stories. Loved this!

I was a mall rat. Macomb, Lakeside, Oakland and then Universal when they got the movie theaters. $1.50 shows were awesome. Saw The Crow 13 times there. Miss the store Oaktree. Sad to hear about Lakeside

How is Mara already retired if she went to college in the 90’s? Did she retire at 50?

Lakeside didn’t have a food court in the 70’s, 80’s and most of the 90’s. Not until 1999! So about 24 years without a food court.

I remember when the mall I used to go to had a pool like fountain that our school choir with sing Christmas carols on the steps that surrounded the fountain we use the steps that were outside the fountain facing towards the fountain as risers for us to be on to sing on the last day of school before we got out for the Christmas holidays also the mall would have the water drained out and lined with red fabric and cotton for snow and Christmas trees and the candy canes from Santa was to die for even though growing up as a African American child my mother taught against the existence of Santa maybe it was Jim Crow back in her day that made black children feel inferior to talking to Santa, after Christmas came Valentine's Day which they would color the beautiful lights in the fountain of pink color which would make the fountain look like it had pink lemonade juice in it and that's how you knew it was getting close to spring now the pink that they used in the fountain for Valentine's Day was a darker pink close to a rose red color but in the springtime the pink day would use would be a paler pink which again they would drain the water out the fountain and set up the Easter display and after that the fountain was back to normal for the summer months of the year l.o.l.

I remember bringing subway sandwiches and chips in the movie theater all I would buy is popcorn and a drink and the smell of popcorn butter was so prominent that people didn't even smell when me and my family ate tuna fish sandwiches in the movie theater and I remember the record stores that had the videos of the concert as a child that grew up in a African-American Baptist Church certain choirs that I like would release albums and I would always want to wonder how the song ended and I got to see it on the video VHS that the manager will pop into her television screen at the CD store Baptist and when it comes to The fountains the most fascinating malls have more than one they had a large fountain in the center and smaller fountains amongst the other wings of the mall

Ok. I really enjoy this. Oh the memories.😊

You can kinda tell Mara MacDonald was a bit bougie by where she grew up and what she was into.

The Magic Pan at 12 Oaks was for special occasions. Chicken Divan crepe with mandarin orange & almond salad. Extra special Chocolate mousse for dessert. Special mom & daughter dates.

Northland mall = Hot Sam pretzels & the Puppy Palace.

Tel-Twelve = the clock in the mall floor outside of Meyer Jewelers. Christmas train?

Livonia - SEARS nut stand & sweating while waiting to see santa.

Lakeside = JC Penney photo studio.

This is soooo cool i love it im always researching old mall and boom 💥 here is a documentary on them