Lifelong Baton Rouge native here. I am so glad you got video footage of the mall. They did, in fact, tear down the old mall starting last year, and the Amazon Distribution Center is almost complete. It’s strange but I can still remember just about every store you walked past. Towards the end of its life, Cortana was just a bunch of hair stores and cheap jewelry stores. Which is sad because I remember when this mall was THE place to be. Edit: 17:30 Those keypads are actually part of an old promotion that Cortana Mall was running where you can get a gift card from the stores and check the balance at the keypads.

So many great memories there... I started going as child in 1980. I remember buying a deluxe Voltron at Toys By Roy down near Sears in 1984. Directly across from the old Toys By Roy was the Record Bar. At the 16:32 mark you show the interior of the old Record Bar location. It was dimly lit with a lot of electric blue neon. It was so awesome ! I bought Metallica’s .... And Justice For All there in 1988. Amazing memories walking that mall with my late parents & in my teen years hanging with my friends playing at the arcade & eating at the Taco Bell. Man... I miss it. Thanks for posting this.

I grew up in That mall in the late 90s early 2000s it was the place to be. Beautiful and thriving this was sad to watch

:( I miss this growing up and the Disney Store was the best

Thanks for sharing this. I went to the mall in May and filmed some stuff. I think many of the plants were largely "killed" in 2018 as well as several other "amenities," such as massage chairs and 80s music blasting over the PA. Great American Cookies died in 2017 along with most tenets when Sears and JC Penney both pulled out. I went to the GameStop right before Mardi Gras 2018, but when I returned a few weeks later, it was gone. Bath and Body Works died about a month ago, so it's even more hopeless. The name of the anchor Goudchaux is pronounced like "God+Shaw's" and predated the mall's opening a few months. Poor management (Moonbeam) has also made the mall comatose. The "Coming Soon--Another Great Cortana Mall Merchant" mostly came from the Mall Properties management, and there was actually a shooting at the Dillard's Clearance Store about a year ago in the parking lot. Again, great to see it filmed.

Some of my earliest memories are of the surreality of the 1991 renovation. Plywood covered everything; they literally tore the floors up. Good job getting this footage while you could, Cortana Mall didn't survive into September '19.

I remember the day this place opened. Baton Rouge was a very, very different place at that point I believe.

Last I heard, Amazon is going to take it over for a distribution center. As someone who lives nearby the mall, I’d much rather see amazon use it than it sit empty and get even more trashy and attract trouble. They did a good job reinventing the old Bon Marche mall (which Cortana put out of business), but that took a really really really long time.

Well, the mall tenets have to vacate in two weeks. RIP Cortana

The GameStop you saw I been to many times, I got the last copy of Persona 3 on PS2 back then in 2008 and last time I went was around 2018 where I picked up a good sale on Hollow Realization CE, dead malls were the best to get those sales because no one goes here haha. Aside that, good times of going with my folks to this place ages be ago...Amazon's building is up and running, only got these videos and memories now.

Sitrep here in May 2021: the place is being torn down to make an Amazon center on the spot. They're about halfway done demolishing Cortana now.

Just went in there today. Very sad to walk around. Such a waste of space and electricity.

That mall looks like one of the malls in Laredo, Texas.

Good video. Thanks.

Goudchaux is pronounced god-shaw

Shoutout to Moonbeam! lol

Good vid

Sam Goodys and Hot Topic!

It’s pronounced GOD-CHOS

Goodshows. Heh heh

What you neglected to mention is the vastly changing demographics. The population of the Metro Baton Rouge area (840,000) has moved South and East. The population is closer to The Mall of Louisiana and Cortana is close to the hood. People simply started shopping closer to their homes where they felt safer. Cortana is dead and will need to be demolished.

It was called HOODTANA!!!!

Goodshows. Heh heh