Guys, youtube demonetized my last video. I make money by posting exclusives on Patreon. There is literal tons of stuff that non-patrons have never seen. It’ll take you months to get through all of it. Go over and join up. It’s $5 a month and ask any patron...totally worth it. www.Patreon.com/thisisdanbell Hope to see you there! -D

I'm convinced that Dan bell going to the backrooms would make for one hell of a Halloween episode.

It's comforting because it's at peace. The atmosphere is at peace. Much like when a person or animal passes away. It's not weird to want to be in a store like that that's quiet now. Remembering when it was in its heyday, all the customers, screaming kids, bustling shoppers for the holidays, etc. The mall/store lived its best life. Now it's at peace.

I watched back in the '60s & '70s as malls killed off small town shops & mom & pop stores, turning them into ghost towns. 😢 Now...it's the malls that are dying.

I spent the better part of my teens in this mall. I have watched so many abandoned mall videos over the years but somehow seeing this one is like seeing the remains of a loved one. Virtually all of my clothes from elementary through high school came from this mall. I purchased every book in the Harry Potter series and Animorphs at the bookstore here. I saw every movie from the Lion King through Star Wars Ep. 3 at the theater. Hundreds if not thousands of dollars spent at the arcade with other mall rat friends. Living off food court samples and smoking outside the back door all day sometimes. Particularly in small towns that simply do not have any where else for a teenager to just sort of hang out and people live too far apart to just go to a friends house all the time, malls represent such a huge social hub. Seeing them all just sort of die off across the country is really stark evidence that ,for better or worse, the world I grew up in will never fully exist again. I hate what malls did to small towns and local businesses but I can't help loving the way they make me feel such a deep comfort and nostalgia. Thanks for doing this so I can see it one more time before it is gone forever. I love that you also recognize the beauty in these spaces.

The fact you see the beauty… as mentioned… in abandoned mall spaces proves why I’m here. No other abandoned mall channel shows what someone who truly sees the beauty would show. Thanks for that.

I work for a maintenance company contracted by remaining JCPENNEY stores that are still alive. I am also comforted exploring these, even ones that are still thriving. It's like taking a trip back to the 80s and 90s when I was a kid. All of them are shells of their former selves and offer an odd sense nostalgia of living in a simpler time.

Often imitated, but never reproduced. No one does a Dead Mall video like Dan Bell. I think your voice is half of the magic. 👍🏻

I just realised how much Dan's delivery makes this series what it is. If this were presented in the typical high-energy youtube style, it'd never work. It's a perfect pairing.

I genuinely imagine historians a few decades from now reviewing this kind of footage writing term papers about the fall of the mall.

Has anyone confirmed that Bath And Body Works actually vacates the mall, when the mall permanently closes? Do the employees just keep showing up for work like nothing happened, forever stuck in the dead mall purgatory? Constantly running at 60% off sale, rotating the same stock between 'new' items and the clearance bin, just for it to be a new item again in the next quarter. Someone should probably check on them.

These videos are so comforting because it is an echo of time itself. The fear of time moving fast is terrifying, but the acceptance that it’s happening all around you constantly is empowering in a way. That’s how these videos make me feel atleast. Thank you for sharing this with us.

Dan there are a lot of people who do urban exploring videos and dead stores and malls but YOURS are the ones that are the most comforting. You have a magical gift of letting the hotel or mall tell the story. You know when to speak and when to let the space your visiting do the talking. Thank you for all you do.

I knew it was only a matter of time until this mall showed up in a series like this. I grew up in Staunton and spent so much time at the Mall as a kid. Even in the mid 2000s, this mall was a completely different place. I remember going to the Belk, JCPenney, Peebles, KB Toys, the Bath & Body Works, and the good ole Video Zone Arcade. My mom and grandmother would take us to walk around the inside of the building. Everyone in Staunton knew the mall's closure was inevitable. From my knowledge, the mall went through multiple owners throughout it's lifetime, and eventually it ended up in the hands of someone/some company in England that used it to get tax breaks. Supposedly the owners didn't care about it and wouldn't provided the mall's management with anything to revitalize it. The Legacy theater was the best thing to happen to the mall in it's last year's. I hope they find a new location as I always enjoyed taking a trip there while visiting family during the holidays. Thankfully, the mall's slow decline allowed a lot of local shops to build up in other parts of town over the last decade, and most found locations outside the mall. It's sad to see a part of my childhood go, but it's for the best and rally should have happened five or ten years ago.

Everybody used to go to the malls. They were the center of the neighborhoods and cities pre-new age tech/social media. The malls were a place that represented being plugged into the social pipeline. If you missed going to the mall during the weekends as a teenager in school, you missed out and got depressed lol. They were a place of happiness and exploration. New beginnings and fun adventures. Anyone 30 years old or more understands what it represented. Every weekend, friday night mall trips then slumber parties/sleep overs after, at the friends house. The malls were thee place to be.

I managed a restaurant (Country Cookin) in this mall from May 1989 to March 1992. It was located just inside the main entrance (near Kay Jewelers, seen here). Even then, the mall the was struggling for tenants. Directly across from that Kay Jewelers was a big Woolworth's store, complete with a cafeteria. Montgomery Ward was an anchor on the opposite end of the J.C. Penny. Monkey Ward (as the locals called it) also had an auto center where I used to get my '87 Isuzu Pup serviced. Spent a lot of time in that arcade (it was very small) and saw many movies there (I specifically remember seeing "The Doors" and the first Michael Keaton "Batman"). Country Cookin moved out years ago into a free standing building (CC went out of business last year due to COVID after over 40 years of successful business). There was a McDonalds and an ABC store located in the parking lot of this mall, as well.

I always say those of us born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s and early 2000s got to have the last of the really fun good years where we were all just out and about, shopping at the brick and mortar places, no phones to our faces, people were personable. Friends would run into each other in person at the mall, hang out at the arcade and the food court, group shopping trips were a thing, we'd crowd the Sam Goody for the latest NSync or Spice Girls CD, the mannequins were in the JNCO jeans or Abercrombie crop hoodies in the store windows, Game Stop had the Playstation on display, etc. Borders would have the Harry Potter books, just published, in their big windows. Thank you for keeping the memories alive. It's crazy to think that my daughter's generation won't even know what a mall is, and will never have that 'mall' experience. Also your intro music, that 80s/90s mall music, is really fun. I love all this. My daughter is just flabbergasted when I show her these videos and tell her about the mall. She acts like I just beamed in from some distant fantasy planet.

Gorgeous. This mall is legendary.

Dan has such a great eye for these liminal spaces. The perspective shots he captures are perfection.

I adore malls. I'm super nostalgic for them. There are a lot of dead/dying/abandoned malls I'd love to see restored or converted into something else like apartments or botanical gardens. This is not one of them. Dear God. Please bring on the bulldozers, end this place's suffering.

Great video man, this mall is so sad. Everytime I drive by, it looks worse and worse. The last time I was in was sometime in 2020, right before it closed. As of right now, the Belk is still open, but everything else is gone. My favorite game for years was "how many stores are left!?" The parking lot is also atrocious, it will wreck your car haha. Friends of mine who grew up here said the mall was incredible in the 80s and 90s

When the damp gets into those horrible office ceiling tiles, it's almost as good as a full blown goodbye for most modern buildings. I've really been enjoying your live streams recently :D Makes me feel a little bit like I'm not stuck in my flat all day.

Still prayin and wishin for the days to come back around where malls were filled up with all different ages of people that could walk around and greet and meet other other and really enjoy themselves. It’s kinda sad and sucks that kid and future generations will rarely get to experience that life where the mall is the the main attraction in everyone’s town. When friends call you up and say that everyone’s meeting up at the mall to hangout, you could really just go there and run into every one you know and just have fun for hours.

One thing that has always struck me about, oh, life, progress, and the American century: every generation gets to live through the decay and death of its parents' touchstones. For Gen Xers, it was the decline of little roadside attractions. My NJ-born husband remembers going to Turtleback Zoo, Fairy Tale Castle, Bowcraft Amusement Park, Wild West City, and the ilk. All of those places sprouted up in the 1950s for Baby Boomer children, and by the time my husband came along in Generation X, all of them were rundown and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. He and I watched those places die while we hung out at hip, jam-packed malls. Millennials and Gen Z witnessed the death of malls while they hung out in coffee shops. I'm sure you'll soon be able to find plenty of dusty, shuttered Starbucks locations. And so it goes.

Dan Bell was the OG person who found The BACKROOMS

I too am a creature of solitude, I resonate with the recliner statement. It's almost comforting...the thought of sitting there alone with the sounds of water and decay, beautiful.

Not sure why mall management always hate filming in malls when their going out of business anyway.

Excellent Backrooms vibe in the opening shot!

So sad, but not surprising. I took a stroll, out of curiosity, through this mall when visiting Staunton about 10 years ago...even then it was looking a bit run-down and deserted. As a child of the 80s and 90s, who's seen more than one mall in my hometown bite the dust in recent years, I have mixed feelings about the decline of malls. Nostalgia, for days gone by; sadness, for what's been lost; but also hope that something better can replace these large, flashy, concrete symbols of consumerism.

9:27 "Why do I find places like this so comforting?" I didn't actually finish the book but might be interested in checking out "Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity" by French anthropologist Marc Augé. It covers similar ideas.

Sometimes when my toddler takes a nap, I pop in my EarPods and listen to Dan Bell narrate walking through a dead mall. It’s like ASMR to me. So relaxing. Thank you for making these videos, Dan. You’re truly amazing.

7:30 If you listen close you can hear the irate proprietor shouting " I like things this way, I don't want things to change!". "I sell 2 flags a year I'm good. I sell no flags a year I'm even better".

Why even put the catch buckets down when they’re never gonna be dumped out?

I loved malls, ice cream, mc donalds and the cinema all in one place. But that was like 15 years ago, havent been in one since.

Just like this mall, dripping and moldy is the way most of us will go.

I miss the 80s!! Especially the late 80s! What a time it was!!

Dude, your eye is enviable and your talent for capturing unexpected beauty is staggering.

10:00 the one thing you can keep out in the open in america without worrying about anybody stealing them: books

I guess that...... These places are so dethatched from the busy 'normal' world... they are just empty, quiet, lost in time or stuck in transition... You don't have to worry about day to day things, about other people, responsibilities or social roles.... Places like these are so dethatched you can just... relax, alone, with no expectations... You asked why they seem relaxing and I think this is my epiphany on that question. As I get those feelings as well, just wanting to find a quiet, dark, abandoned place to go sit in and be away from everything, relax and just, take it all in... It almost seems zen-like in a way.

Re: 9:44: I find this look back comforting, too, and very bittersweet at the same time. Because I'm no longer young, I can only look upon the past because there's not much future. I had a good childhood and visited malls often. Those were happy times. For me, it's nice to see these places and things now before they are wiped from collective memory. Thank you, Dan. This was a teary but happy trip down memory lane.

It really reminds me of Mall 205 in Portland, it’s really only a Target and the DMV now.

All of those clothes should have been donated. What a waste.

I worked at Peebles in 2011 and even back then it was mostly empty- the Chinese restaurant, Hot Wok (since relocated to over by Martin’s groceries) was the real reason the mall even stayed as busy as it was for the last decade.

Holy *** a new dead mall series. It's like Christmas in February. Hope you're feeling stellar Dan! Love your work, it's so soothing and reminds me of better days.

My dad took a mall planter like the one at 0:24, and we painted it and turned it into a fountain in the backyard.

I miss the 80's!

So those huge bins of books are what are used for those pop-up discount book shops that will occupy abandoned store fronts from time-to-time. They come in those huge bins and then the employees just shelve what they can out of them.

Dan when you upload I think about that older couple running an alterations shop at a mall you or someone else covered, they talked on camera about the mall in its prime I hope they're doing well

Sad to see. Its nice that a few are left and thriving like my mall in Christiana Delaware. It's one of the only malls that have not only stood the test of time so far, but thrives and still expands. Something so melancholic about seeing empty, dilapidated malls.

I really hope that Dan and Sal will make an episode exploring together! It would be great to see two dead mall legends unite !

I hope your team, Jake's team & Sal's team do a mega-collab on a project someday!

I live right down the street they are actually in the process of tearing down the entire mall except for one department store and building town homes and a small section of stores

I'm also comforted by vacant human-designed spaces... I think it's like being in a desert or cave. It's just nice to experience quiet imo. Especially since it's really rare for those of us in cities or forests... When the world is mostly quiet it's easier to appreciate the little things that our senses are still able to pick up

I love the series, keep it up guys!!! Been watching for years ❤️

A Mall awakens to another hopeful day. When on the horizon a plump shadowy figure appears. Oh no sighs the Mall, it's Dan Bell. "Goodbye dear friends, my time here is done."

I was never a big mall rat, but finding this series and binge watching my way through these have given me a heavy dose of nostalgia. Unfortunately the 2 childhood malls I used to loiter some days away at are long gone (Vallco in Cupertino, and Sunnyvale Town Center in Sunnyvale), both replaced with multi-dwelling mixed use properties. Thank you Dan for reminding me of something I likely would have never realized I actually missed.

Thanks for this great video. The Staunton Mall was my mall growing up. It had been on a slow but steady decline from the mid-late 90s on. It changed owners every couple years and I'm surprised it didn't close sooner. But yeah, it was comforting to see one last hurrah for a place I spent lots of time growing up. Thanks to you and Sal for sharing those last shots! PS - the shot with the dying plant with the curvy wire bench around it? That plant and those benches have been there as long as I can remember. I've 100% sat on those at numerous points throughout my life going back to the 80s!

I was in this mall all of once in a similar situation staying at that Hampton Inn with my mother on our way to my grandfather's as a teenager. Still have the Foo Fighters T-Shirt I bought in that JCPenney. It wasn't particularly busy even 10 years ago, so I'm more surprised that it made it to the pandemic in the first place. If anyone ever finds themselves in the area, there's a fantastic place downtown Staunton called Mill St Grill that is an amazing place to eat.

This is wonderful! The music is wonderful and your voice, especially moment inside the one store looking out, is beyond words. Thank you, Dan!

I live in Staunton. thank you for the video... the mall was in its heyday until the early 2000s then the decline.. it is sad it was gone but it was way past time for it to go... had good times there, great memories... of how it adapted and changed over the years.. the closest large mall to me now is in Harrisonburg, i wonder how long it will last.. again thanks for filming this...

Had no clue you came to my area that's so cool! Seeing footage of the mall when it was still somewhat decent brings back so many memories. Also breaks my heart to see how destroyed it is. Had no idea they let the inside get that bad. Thought they were turning it into a shopping center

Thank you for the upload, Mr. Bell

this is my hometown mall. it’s changed so much since i was little, but even then, half of the place was empty, and there were hardly ever any people there. seeing that play area brought back memories. karate and gymnastics classes continued to be held there, but people stopped going, and only went back for a cheap family experience, such as the arcade and movie theater, which was so cheap i’m surprised they didn’t go out of business sooner. i found your video from an article in the local newspaper, and wanted to offer a local’s perspective. to be honest, i won’t miss it

As someone who grew up here, going to the mall on Friday and Saturday night as well as cruising the avenue was the place to be. The arcade and movies were so much fun. Sad to see this. Been hit with the nostalgic feels.

Dead and dying malls, beautiful decay. Thanks Dan and Sal for another gorgeous video.

your voice is so soothing!! i love these videos. great job to you and Sal !

This is my local mall! Its been dying in front of our eyes for about 15 years now. Sad, but so cool that Dan Bell did this.

This makes me very thankful that our local mall is alive and well. During the summer of 2021, we were walking through one of the wings of our mall and all the storefronts were open, but it was nearly empty. It was quiet except for soft, smooth jazz playing over the speakers (something which we never get to hear because it's usually so loud in there). That has become a core memory for me.

girlfriend, this mall is gonna be laid down to rest

It's just crazy, i remember as soon as internet started to roll. Its like everyone knew that malls were going to die and here we are now

Your voice , the mall, the vaporwave, the nostalgic intros are so comforting and relaxing .

Another great video Dan! I’ve been a fan for about almost 3 years and every time I see a new upload I’m delighted. Keep up the good work and take care yourself man. :)

There's got to be SOMETHING they can do with the space of dead malls.

I'm not sure why, but every one of these episodes you put out just depresses me. I feel like society was better when we had one mega shopping location where everyone could interact in their own way. Now we just sit in our homes ordering items to be brought to us.

I find scenes like this comforting for two reasons. Firstly there is a history there, like an old house falling apart in a country field. Seeing the old walls slowly falling in from the passage of time one wonders at the people that lived or passed through here, what experiences they had, their dreams, hopes and ambitions played out in this place. It had a purpose but that purpose has moved on ... why ? It causes the mind to imagine openly. The second reason I find these things comforting is that it shows how only a building made without human hands can stand the test of time. Everything we see is passing away and that can comfort a soul that tends to worry about it so much. These buildings and our lives are a means, a tool ... not an end ... not a destination. I'd like to quote Elvis ... "and now the stage is bare ... and I have no hair ". It's great to see impermanence when you know who has permanence.

You’re the BEST at dead malls! Thank you so much for these! Even the Casio sound affects take me back!!

Absolutely in love! Thank you Sal and Dan!!

Warm weather, easy work assignments, a pay raise, and a new Dead Mall video? This Friday is just getting better and better!

grew up in this mall, one of the best places to visit when I was younger, so many amazing memories of me and my siblings. Really sad to see it like this though, thank you so much for the video dan!

Always look forward to these videos. Thank you so much for the amazing content.

eerie opener.

Great video as always

Great to see you back!! Been enjoying the videos!

One thing I have never thought of but I have learned, it takes a lot of maintenance to keeps those big giant flat roofs from leaking. Great work, Dan!

I saw this upload and just had to watch it. Because I love your series. I think I'm subscribed. Anyway, thanks for the upload. STAY WARM. 🔥 Love and light from Gore, Oklahoma.❤💡💛

love you and the video dan!

The atmosphere of your videos just sends shivers down my spine, In the best way possible. You are incredibly talented Dan!!

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR YEARS!! my mom used to be the marketing director prior to the recession!!

Thanks Dan. Awesome vid again.

The books stacked up in large carton boxes is a familiar sight. This was my last memory of one of my childhood malls before it closed. They reopen it after sometime but it doesn't seem to be doing very well sadly.

Thank you for covering this. It hurts me so much to see the mall I grew up with end up like this, but it was destined to fall apart at some point.

This reminds me of Parmatown Mall's final days - we went there back in November 2014 to pick up tuxedos for a friend's wedding. Only a handful of tenants, jewelry shops, and the American Commodore tuxedo were left. The food court had maybe one or two vendors. It was sad - American shopping malls will never be what they were back in the 80s and 90s.

It's always a great day when Dan uploads a video!!!

I was at the lloyd center yesterday. That mall has slowly been dying over the years. I hadn't been in there since before covid. It's so weird, it feels like a library, like I need to stay quiet. The mall has been here forever, it's just so weird seeing it like this. If you ever find yourself in Oregon, that's a good mall to look at. EDIT: I don't care about your far right bullshit hot takes, I did not ask.

My grandmother and father used to live in a town called Swope Va that was near Staunton. I remember when the mall wall actually "open", as in it had open air skylights.

I eagerly await new dead mall videos from you Dan Bell!!!!! Your simply the best, better than all the rest!!

I would also love to just sit in the silence of a dead mall. Love your work as always 💚

That side-by-side, the new and now the old...this video struck my feels pretty hard

I’ve been watching you for years and think this is honestly your best work. It’s outstanding.

That associates area really got me. People talk about how many lives came thru these stores, how many moments happened. But apply that to employee areas you didn't even see. There was a whole world behind the scenes we never even saw, just as complex as the world outside.