God, watching this made my heart break. This was my childhood mall. The one I took my friends too. The one my family drove an hour out to, since we lived in the middle of nowhere. It’s where my brother got all of his games growing up. It’s where I discovered Hot Topic and spent many Black Fridays with my Mom. It’s where the family crashed after seeing an afternoon movie, only to hit up the Red Lobster or Olive Garden (before it burnt down) right after. Got my prom dress there, and my dress for college graduation. I remember “The Garden” once being a neon lit food court that wasn’t as spacious. Going through Macy’s with my Mom. Popping into Radio Shack with my brother. The vinegar store right across from Aunt Annie’s. The pet store that used to be next to Sears with the little koi pond. My brother getting a samurai sword from the Karate place. Getting a pedicure with my Mom on Christmas. Trimming my hair right before picture day. The Bubble Tea shop that was there for a short amount of time and that hurricane simulator. It just hurts seeing something that had so many memories decay and burn out. It just really, really hurts.

Being stuck within 10 feet of your family for months on end really isn't great, but that road trip allowed me to visit this relic. It was truly an amazing, surreal experience, the best part of the trip!

This mall was literally my childhood. We would go every week almost, from the late nineties when I was a toddler until I was in high school in the early 2010s. So many hours spent just wandering, and sitting in the food court. A lot of my friend's first jobs were there. Seeing it in this state breaks my heart. Thank you so much for this video, excellent work.

LOL!! “She’s about 70 at this point.”

The safety video is like a horror short and hillarious all at the same time! The mall still seems in nice condition. Shame it went to a mall killer.

I can't wait for the exlog were Sal stands in fron of anther dying mall screaming "KOOOHAAAAAAAAAAAAN"

This concludes Phase IV of the ExLog! Episode 100 and the Richland Mall coming soon! For now...Call 1-800-Dead-Mall-Mike to hire Kohansieh TODAY! He'll destroy any mall you want. But seriously...thanks for watching! Subscribe, or I'll cry.

This mall died a long time ago. The initial idea to “revitalize” it meant they gave new “anchors” like Bed Bath and Beyond, Best Buy, Barnes and Nobel, Ulta and Old Navy all road facing entrances. This effectively turned it into a strip plaza. It was faster to drive between the front facing stores which all had plenty of parking. The Best Buy and Bed Bath and Beyond sealed about half the entire Sears wing off. This kind of negated the need to walk the mall. It pretty much killed off the interior and Macy’s. This coupled with the expansion of the old Service Merchandise building (the Joann Fabrics etc. across the street) and the McKinley plaza (directly across the street) gave everyone room to move off the mall and have better visibility. The movie theater is not directly accessible from the mall and is behind it. When Musicland went bust and FYE had purchased them earlier in the decade it closed up all the mall record stores (towards the end one was a large Sam Goody) then relocated them all of it to an off parcel FYE Superstore in the now Hobby Lobby (which ran until like 2010) again this made sense, better visibility. Even when Sears was still a draw back around 2010 most of the higher volume businesses had clustered around the primary entrance ways. Mostly everyone else was abandoned when Quaker Crossing up the road by target started to add out parcel plazas. The murder at Sears was likely the final nail for it but it was largely the best in the area.

I used to work at a store in the McKinley Mall. The food court originally was different and had a section that was lowered with stairs and places to sit and eat. There was a Greek place, Burger King, Sbarro's, Dairy Queen, Chinese Food, and a miss fields.

A fortune teller in a dead mall: that's a metaphor for our current era if there ever was one.🔮

I grew up in the buffalo southtowns. I have so many memories at this mall...cuz in the early 2000s hanging out at the mall was the cool thing to do. This was definitely a trip down memory lane. Thanks for making this video!

21:00 “What in the Mike Kohan is this?” Lol I’m totally going to start using that 😂

That Easter Egg with McKinley Mall's letters on it was so pretty.🍭😻

That was my mall, growing up! That place was exploding through the 80s and 90s! A really fun Friday night, as a kid! I'm so happy to see that Spencers is still there!

Mike Kohan bought a mall that I worked at about 8 yrs ago. I met him and he appeared to be a total sleazeball. Within 24 months the mall was absolutely filthy, hardly any lights were working in the parking lot, and the majority of the stores in the mall had closed. It wasn’t doing well when he bought it but he created a totally unsafe environment for all the people still working there.

Dude got impaled by a forklift..THROUGH A WALL!!!

That safety video at the beginning was EVERYTHING 😂😂😂😂😂

Man how I miss those old 80s & 90s mall commercials on TV.

The Grim Reaper strikes again, and another mall owned by Kohan bites the proverbial dust. Sal, your videos with its historical background is quite informative and is a textbook example of what a dead mall is and how it happens. TY.

Nice as usual!! can you make a documentary about the ART, architecture and interiorism on the malls, and graphic design on your dead malls?

Another college hangout of mine. Wow, can't believe in 11 years since I've left Buffalo, this mall's downturn. Crazy

I feel like my own mall, the one I grew up in, is dying. It's called Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove, NY. There honestly isn't much information available about it and it's various attributes (like there is no record of the carousel that the mall installed and took down in the early 2000's), but if you are ever in the area, it might be worth checking out

Nicely done. I lived in a neighborhood that adjoined the McKinley Mall property. As kids we played at the park behind the Mall which was heavily wooded undeveloped property. What a number of property owners in that area banked on in the 1970’s was that New York State would open Casino Gambling where that location in Hamburg, NY would be considered along with Niagara Falls, NY. Of course that never happened. I live in Northern Virginia and what is happening across the country with Malls demise is happening here.

Getting impaled by a forklift fork while sitting in the breakroom through the wall still is my #1 concern while at work. Mind you it is 100% impossible for any of our forklifts to do that and there's a myriad of things that could get me easily killed in a heavy industrial manufacturing plant but this one thing is on my mind every day while on break.

The November update felt like a gut check. Not even a food court anymore..

I loved this mall! So glad your doing this video , I didn't know much about this group until I recently started watching your videos. Its so sad to see beautiful malls & places gets bought by companies who don't care and in return hurts the local economy.

McKinley mall is up for auction due to back taxes announced today.

Just came here to say that it's up for auction now!

Oh my goshh that saftey video- golden nugget!

I live in Orchard Park, NY and I get my hair cut close to the mall… you should see the mall now.. pretty much everything is gone expect for Best Buy and couple of other shops. ALL of the department stores have closed. It’s very sad.

Malls are obsolete places to shop with highly overpriced stores and no variety of stores. You’ve been in one mall, you’ve been in them all. People want the ability to shop online and not deal with rowdy teens and rude salespeople or lack of products . Malls have done everything to bring about their own demise.

I visited this mall in December 2021, and those planters at 8:45 were in almost exactly that position. Amazing.

I remember when this place opened. I do miss those days.

This is my home town mall. I've lived here all my life and have watched it slowly become the shell it is. It's sad. It's hard to explain just how cool this place was for a kid at one time. Two arcades, two toy stores, that multi-level food court, and that middle court area with the bridge over the fountains. With Toys R Us right across the street, you could spend a whole day in that area.

“She’s probably around 70 now….” Omg I’m deceased lol.

As always another excellent video with good history of the mall. Thank You!

Sal is one of the best out there and always produces epic content. Loved the Art Deco vibes in parts of this mall. Also the succession score at the end was top notch.

I always find it Amazing how someone would spend 63 million dollars on a failing Mall it's baffling

That doesn’t at all look like a “dead mall”. That’s just what an average mall looks like these days. Still rocking a Foot Locker and Best Buy. Even had an open food court. Decent foot traffic as well. Better than any mall in my area

I grew up going to this mall regularly. Its been some time since i've been back there though. One mall you should definitely check out is the Eastern Hills Mall in Williamsville.

online shopping took away most mall customers. Urban violence will scare off the rest over time. The aesthetics will always be bone chilling nostalgia. Where did the past 30 years go?

Hahahathat that work safety video escalated so fast LOL

what the hell was that workplace safety video!!? lol hilarious

Just can't believe the universal pinnacle hub that was the mall in every city no matter where u lived has turned into this lifeless relic of the past. Its messed up how there's really no other social forum where u could run into possibly anyone you know in person

Another banger of an episode. Keep up the good work.

Love the video Sal , thank you very much for sharing it with us.

I live in the Buffalo area, this mall has gone from almost full about 8 years ago to even emptier than shown here. Beautiful Frank Llyod Wright style center plaza. Honestly, the Sears incident has little to do with it, Sears was doomed by then anyway and it did not keep anyone away since it was a domestic incident not random violence. Also, the mall is down the road from the Bills NFL stadium, so Hamburg was not too concerned about traffic and such.

Thanks for the new content!

so sad to see that mall going down ty for showing this video sal i hope you had a good thanksgiving also everyone else on here

loved the "Succession" theme 😉

OMG! 1-800-DEAD-MALL-MIKE! Hilarious! Thanks so much Sal for all of your efforts and time. Looking forward to 100!

That mall kiosk psychic should have seen that Sears incident coming.

Here we are…almost 2 weeks late. But hey, glad I’m here.

I am so excited about Sal's 💯th episode! And I guess we expect to see around the best time of the year! CHRISTMAS/NEW YEAR

Mike Kohan doesn’t get the money to buy these malls because he’s expecting to save every one of them. He gets it because he’s not. His role is essentially to try to save it if it can be saved, and if the mall is too far gone, to essentially get whatever rent he can out of the mall and then dismantle it for the scrap value.

My dad used to sell gift certificates in front of Bon-Ton way back in the day. Lotssss of time spent in this mall with relatives; Sears, JCPenney, Payless, Hallmark, Kay-Bee, etc. Unfortunately, I grew up when this mall was at the end of its run and have since watched it slowly and slowly decay into emptiness. Thanks for such a great video and giving the mall its due!

Well done!

I’m sorry I haven’t been to this channel in a while What a gem

This is the only dead mall in the Buffalo metro area still open to the public.

Love it!

Awesome documentation and sound mixing!

The workplace safety videos literally had me dying! Hysterical!

Thanks Sal love your Mall videos and how you really do your Research, these Malls maybe gone and forgotten but are Remembered through your videos ,seeing an Abandoned or failing Mall is.quite Haunting but really interesting at the same time thinking of how busy they used to be,I'm from the UK and would one day Love to visit the USE and visit an Abandoned Mall

Could we turn the old malls into senior living complexes where they don't have to go outside

I've watched all exlogs and just recently discovered that this is liminal space. Tyvm.

Another fantastic video! I just found you recently and had to subscribe. Thanks for your amazing channel! 👻🍍

Greatness as always !

The mall in my home town the Birchwood Mall fell into the hands of Mike Kohan with him promising revitalization but that never happened. But there have been some small buisness that have moved into the Birchwood Mall

The point of the dead mall series was to revel in our past, not chastise it.

The re-enactments were truly scarier than most horror movies, no joke.

Abandoned or dead mall series. The two malls in Clarksville, Indiana. River Falls Mall and Greentree Mall. River Falls was bought out by Bass Pro Shop and Greentree is struggling. Thank you.

That intro is fantastic

My brother and I used to spend hours (and tons of quarters) in the arcade that used to be there in the mid 90's. Boardwalk Boulevard; it was the best arcade I've ever been to. It took up 2-3 regular retail spaces, and had all of the best games. Played a lot of Terminator 2 and Revolution X there.

my local mall! there used to be a pretty cool arcade there in the 90's. Surprising to see it go down the tubes like this because the area immediately surrounding this mall is really busy (Wegmans, BJ's etc.). Hamburg's population is roughly 50k, and while Galleria is close, its still about a 25 minute drive. There's no reason that a mall of some sort shouldn't be thriving here and must come down to bad management.

I love the "safety" video with the paper brick wall.

Odd that the malls that killed Downtown are dying themselves.

The "Corridor 7" door at 5:00 reminded me of the cheesy video game of the same name from the '90s. Also, the music at that moment is perfection.

O lived in this area during this time. Graduating East Aurora High School in 1985, and finishing my first semester at SUNYAB in November of 1985 - I don't remember anything about this mall. Thanks for showing this - I miss Buffalo, and it's cool finding out about an area I grew up in.

That was a pretty cool interior. Had a real Arts & Crafts Movement style and colors.

Please come to Wichita, ks & do a video on the towne west mall. He’s doing the same thing here. The mall just went 5 days without electricity, leaving its (very few) tenants, screwed with no answers from Kohan. It’s kinda become a joke in the city about the mall not even having electricity but it’s seriously sad. 15 years ago this mall was absolutely packed with not a single empty storefront. Now there’s maybe 12 stores with only a JCPenney anchor.

There was another mall in West Seneca that didn’t last very long either. I can’t remember the name of it but the McKinley mall was famous when I was in high school or I should say college and it was in West Seneca.

I'm curious if you have ever thought about coming out here to Oregon. Portland has a few dying malls and one of them, Llyod Center, is scheduled to be closed and torn down. Eugene has a dead mall, Gateway Town Center. There's a few more in other cities.

I grew up only 5 or so minutes from the Walden Galleria so I never needed to go here. Was last here probably a decade ago and it's depressing to see how far it's fallen since even then just from looking at the directory on their website.

This mall used to be packed, i still live by here still, makes me sad

I'm 25 and this is the mall I grew up with. It was never really the first choice I'd want to go to with my parents, as it's only 1 story and lacked the "fun" stores the Walden Galleria had. But it would definitely be a place they would drag me to and I would venture around, whether it was in KB Toys or Gymboree. That was a long time ago. This mall has been in a decline since Macy's left. Unfortunately, I don't know if it can be replaced with a "lifestyle center" like the malls to the north because the population just isn't there, and the retail climate is always changing, especially with COVID.

This is so sad to see. I hung out with friends there, worked there, heck I even lived on McKinley! Nothing like your old mall dying to show how old you really are 😂

The Sears attack wasn't significant in the demise of the mall. Most ppl forgot about it within a couple months. I took many photos in the mall a little less than a year ago, until security came and made me stop. I think you can count the number of open stores on 1 hand now.

I loved episode 98!!!!

Having lived in the Buffalo Area all my life. I have very fond memories of the McKinley Mall WAY more than the Galleria. It was honestly my favorite and still is. That's why for me it's so hard for me to see it this way. My brother and I used to spend hours in the old Boardwalk Arcade that used to be near the main entrance. It used to be where the Buffalo Store is now in that entire area. Love this video! Keep up the awesome work!

I used to sometimes go here. It’s not terrible but they don’t have much there. The sears is huge though ! I loved this mall!

Wanna come back to our dumb little city sometime? Boulevard Mall just went dead and the Galleria probably won’t be far behind.

You need to go to the Ridgmar mall in Fort Worth, Texas! I went a couple years ago and it was empty! Only a couple stores left 😭 I heard it was closing soon but going in there feels nostalgic and gives an eerie feeling.

I remember a ton of Sabres players back in the day going there for meet and greets. Another reason why the Galleria has always done better? Canadians. The strategic location by the thruways meant you could spend the day there and go back with ease due to how close the mall is to the border.

Have you visited the Galleria Mall with its mixed-use expansion yet? Would be curious to see what that is all about 😊👍

I just scribed mate, I'm a Londoner, love malls have been to Chicago, new York and Tennessee great stuff yeah take care

this was my childhood mall, one of the places that living in the southern tier we would go every weekend. I can still remember all the stores that used to be in there when I was a kid. I guess it died a long time ago and it's kept a live by machines body is still there

Buffalo was a popular shopping city for Canadians crossing the border for US priced bargains. After 911 Homeland security required us to have passports to enter which many Canadians did not hold, along with a much more unpleasant border experience. I’m sure that made a major economic impact on the stores there.

That short was voiced by Claude Akins.

Those safety videos never get old. These days they tend to use real cctv footage of fatal accidents, which has a more profound impact.

Such a shame its a great building in lovely condition unlike some of the ones you've visited. Didnt get notified about 98 off to watch it now