Great series! I appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into this.

10/10. It all saddens the 90s mall rat in me, but I loved seeing all my old haunts and some new places I hadn't even heard of. Thank you!

This was a very informative and nostalgic trip through a very small section of my memories, but it was an enjoyable none nonetheless. Being 32 and absolutely hating shopping as a kid, it's nice to be able to go back and look at all the things I missed out on through the eyes of an outgoing adult, instead of those of a reserved child/pre-teen. I REALLY appreciate what you've done here, and I look forward to exploring your channel more.

Outstanding job on this mall history! I was the project manager for the 1992 Northgate Mall renovation (along with Valley View Mall in Dallas as well as Sharpstown Mall in Houston). All I can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time).

I'm 66 and lived in Madisonville during the late 1950s and early 1960s, just down the hill from Kenwood, where I had my first mall experiences. Across the street was the first McDonald's I ever saw. To be honest, I preferred Frisch's Big Boy next to Madison Bowl. Most of the first films I ever saw were at the Twin Drive-in Theater also just up the road from Madisonville, and catching the B&O from Oakley Station was the fastest, cheapest, least stressful way to get to Cincinnati without a car. If was I good, my Grandma would stop at Aglamesis Brothers and buy us kids ice cream sodas. Anyway, thanks for the memories and insights. Well done.

Fantastic! You really nailed this one! Well done! Just “binge watched” all 3 episodes. (I had no idea about CUT’s flirtation will being a “mall,” and you’re so right as to that saving it.) You and Sal over at ExLog set the standard for the research and care taken to document not just video, but the entire stories behind the malls. Thanks for doing what you do!

You're the first person that has accurately touched-on, what I stated years ago, to all people I knew: eBay and Amazon are NOT the main villains in this story. We simply had/have a super-saturation of mall space.

Damn, that ending gave me chills. Keep up the good work!

This is one of the greatest things I’ve watched on KZfaq!

I liked this series. I'm a business school graduate and I have worked in contract security for three decades. The business plan for malls dooms those projects, sometimes before groundbreaking. Mall security can drive off the customer base. Retail business is gambling--worse than Las Vegas casino games. Malls require mass quantities of paying customers. Mall owners, mall management, and the retailers leasing mall space all have different goals, sometimes in opposition to each other. It's cheaper and there's less red tape to erect a new mall on old farmland or even wilderness than to demolish old city centers and rebuild--with the added problems of historic buildings or traffic congestion in urban areas. Building on virgin land usually means building away from population centers--and relying on the automobile and the road network to fill the mall with customers. Disneyland is a pedestrian mall that features retail shops and dining plus rides and shows. The fact is that the modern shopping mall is a show, is entertainment--thinking of malls as mere retailers constricts. Clothing sales seems to be the number one merchandise sold in malls, and if social nudity ever takes hold, most malls will go out of business. One of the draws of the old marketplace dating back to at least 3000 years was socialization. People would meet each other at the marketplace. I took a guided tour at Disneyland and the official tour guide asked my tour group, "who is Disney's competition?" My answer was "everybody." Even just taking a nap was competition. Understanding the product, the goods or services put on the market, can be more than a blind guess. Load those dice. As for the security problem, we humans thrive on a degree of chaos, yet we need safety as well. There's a lot to protect. Protection can throttle business. Malls NEED bunches of kids who have money wandering the mall areas, but most malls prohibit more than three teens from forming. The flash mob was an answer to over policing the mall in the name of safety--and peace, and order. No mall can afford to have a force of 500 uniformed security along with the undercover loss prevention personnel--uneconomical. Cell phones and bored kids can mass hundreds on a specific place in a very short time--and then disperse after damaging or looting. Bad things happen at malls and that's bad for business, among other things.

Great series! When I was was younger, I bartended the "Grand Opening Gala staring Marie Osmond" at Forest Fair Mall. During the catered meal for 500+, I was a server. Everyone got a tossed salad, prime rib, a baked potato, broccoli and cheesecake. It was a formal affair.

Not gonna lie Tower Place in the mid 2000's was a staple to my childhood. It was simple but a very cool layout. Always busy with people

The only Cincinnati mall I visited was Tower Place back in 97’. It was a cool mall! I loved that the mall, hotel, and convention center was all connected by sky walk. It’s sad to see it gone...

this is such a thorough and well done series !! i’ve watched every video on this channel multiple times

I apologize, I had to drop out of the livestream for a phone call. I really enjoyed this series, and I would love to see other cities covered in the future. There are so many malls that did not pass the test of time.

Great series! I really enjoyed it and seeing pictures of things from my childhood growing up in the late ‘60s and the 1970’s. The yearly school shopping at Manley & Carew, Shillitos, and Pogues were some of my fondest memories. Thank you.

These videos are excellent! This should be shown on TV. Really appreciate the effort you put in these videos, and really enjoyed all the info and retro photos.

Fantastic series Kristin. You're a natural at this. Really enjoyed learning about all of the malls that the Cincinnati area has had over the years. I have been to three or four of them (can't remember). Sad how they are looking now (well, except Kenwood since as you said, it seems to be doing just fine).

I’ve lived on the Westside my whole life and was still in my teens when Forest Fair mall was announced. Even then, I knew it was the dumbest idea ever. Destined to fail.

Great stuff as always and so much research, thank again.

We watched all three of your overmalled episodes and loved them! You should do one about Chicago and other cities too!

Great video as always. Couldn't ask for any better.

Great video series! I visited many of these places in the early ‘90s as a UC student and it was great to see all the old stomping grounds again. I went on one of my first dates with my future husband to the movies at the Forest Fair Mall. That place seemed so fancy when it first opened. I wondered about Newport on the Levee, and also Liberty Center, although that one may be too new, or may be more of the “outdoor lifestyle” concept, which Cincinnati still seems to have too many of. I also never knew about Union Terminal’s brief mall past. Good thing it kept that building from being demolished, it’s a real treasure! Thanks again for the trip down memory lane!

I really enjoyed this series. Thank you

AWESOME JOB! Great series! Plan on covering other cities? So interesting and informative.

I worked next to Market's International (becoming the GE training school) at one of the 4 GE office locations. We'd walk over for lunch all the time.

I'm sorry I missed this before now. By far the very best documentary on brick & mortar retail I've ever seen. I especially appreciated the low-key, thorough narration without overdone sarcasm. I had no idea Cincinnati was as over-malled as Cleveland, and for that matter Ohio. Up here of course we have DeBartolo to "thank" for the disaster that was Randall Park, but there were plenty of other players. At age 56 I grew up in what I feel was the Peak Mall era of the 70s-80s, and by that I strictly mean enclosed shopping malls with middle class anchors (Sears, Penney's, etc). When they started to die it bothered me way more than I expected. I cannot stand "deathstyle centers" including Columbus(t)'s Easton. Of course who would have thought to preserve one of these old malls as a museum of sorts - even better one that is still actually in business. Anyway - thanks for such a masterfully done production!

I remember when part of Forest Fair opened, main the Biggs hypermarket. Man, I bought everything from clothes to groceries there. The clothes were pretty good, too. It was fairly busy when the full mall opened, but that didn't last long. Now it's a ghost town. Tri-County is nearly as bad, which makes me sad. I have so many good memories of that mall before they ruined it. Even Northgate Mall is struggling. I think you're right; over building killed the malls.

Bravo, really well done series! As a 47 year-old who worked mall retail over three decades though, I don't think that people today have significantly less time to roam a mall. Rather, there's just nowhere in these dying malls people want to visit anymore. The malls that are still thriving either tilt toward the bargain-hunter end with B-tier warehouse stores, or the luxury end with destination stores and high-end brands that you can't access anywhere else. These malls are always found in areas that still have money. Wealthy people still enjoy shopping luxury brands in person. But most local malls are filled with shoe stores and jewelry stores and mobile phone stores and crap that I don't care about. There's also nowhere to eat except that last remaining crappy Chinese joint. Now this isn't totally the mall's fault. I don't need to visit video game stores any more. I certainly don't need to visit music stores any more. I don't go to toy stores any more. I would go to a bookstore but they're all gone from the malls around me. I can't even find clothes that I wear regularly, you would think single-color front pocket men's T-shirts would be pretty basic and easy to find, but holy shit almost no one has them anymore, not even Penney and Kohls most times. Here's a fun mental exercise: think of all the existing store chains, big or small, mall or otherwise. How many of them would have to move into your local mall to lure you back to shop there regularly? I'm sure some people reading this would have at least a small list, but for me, I can't think of any. There isn't a store in the world that would get me perusing leisurely through mall corridors anymore. Anchor store exterior entrance only, thank you. Which brings us back to 'the why' and there's no avoiding looking at changes in technology, especially the internet. It hasn't just affected retail, it's affected every industry, hell, every type of social interaction in existence. Sure, modern internet and cell phones were the final nail in the coffin but there were technology advances even before the internet that killed off tenants. Look at that floor plan of Northgate Mall in your second episode around the 1:10 mark. I counted FOUR banks, haha. Banks in the main part of the mall would be almost completely gone even in 1990 thanks to the introduction of ATMs. Well, I've rambled long enough. Thanks again for all your work - your research and production quality is really quite astounding for a smaller channel. I hope you continue!

Nice series!! I really enjoyed it!

Forest Fair Mall was magical at Christmas time. Always thought it was the dumbest idea though. Someone didn't do their homework putting that in between TriCounty Mall & Northgate Mall. Just stupid.

This series was awesome. I'm hoping to strive for the level of research you did once I get things going for myself.

interesting series... when I return to the area to visit family, I'm amazed at the changes I've seen, and how the landmarks I once navigated by are long gone. I once had an idea of doing a series on Cincinnati-area neighborhoods, but that was way before KZfaq or even digital video. Since I moved away over 25 years ago, it doesn't look like that will ever happen. Thanks for sharing!

I was going to ask about the exclusion of Newport on the Levee but I see it's "not a mall" (wink). Great series!

I watched all three episodes. Good job. But you forgot two malls. In 1973, two Gold Circle Malls were opened, anchored by Gold Circle Discount Department Store. One was on Colerain Ave. It was torn down for Home Depot. The other on Ridge near I-71. I can confirm the Colerain location was and enclosed mall. Not sure about the Ridge location. But I think it was.

I was at the Cincinnati (Forest Fair) Mall a few years ago during the holiday season. The had a fairly elaborate Christmas setup in one of the atriums. There was a Santa chair, but no Santa.

Markets International was SO COOL. My family moved to Cincinnati in 1981 and our old town didn't have any malls at the time. Tri-County was our go to mall, but Markets International was unlike anything I had ever seen before or since then. As an adult, I'd wondered about the exact location where it was. Last year I figured out it used to be located at the current site of the GE training center. The online information about the mail is scarce. I would love to see pictures or videos of it.

My old fascination with dead factories has morphed into dead malls. Thanks for the documentaries.

whole series, bravo...the nostalgia is palpable

Kristin you did a heck of a job with this documentary.it really made me think and wish for a simpler time.back when I was a teenager again.we dealt with some pretty awful economic situations I never really realized this back when.

Obsessed with your videos. My name is Kristen also, and I’m also super interested in mall history, dead malls, and what caused them to fail. Found your channel with the St. Louis mills vid. The St. Louis area is an interesting case study as well. Keep up the good work!!

I just found your channel. I really like your stuff.

Great series. I mean this in the most not weird way, but you have such a soothing voice 😁

I thought that the first 2 episodes were fantastic, but this one is even better ! Loved the archive material and the drone shots.

Very well done!

This was fantastic. I hope whoever made this does more stuff. Even better if Cincinnati.

Forest Fair Mall had a club, a bar, and restaurants doing decent business in the 2000s. The smoking ban was a major blow.

Hey I loved this series!! What songs did you use?

Kirstin that was a good closing statement🧐

Fantastic wrap up to an interesting series. Makes me wish I had been in the area back in the early 80s. I remember the Continent in Columbus but I wish I could’ve seen the counterpart near TriCounty. How do you *not* have 1 million subscribers already? 👍🏻😎

This is so accurate for the Cincinnati area. Even though I grew up there, and the malls I visited frequently make the list of thriving, dying, or dead, the same can be said about malls in other cities around the nation. Now having lived half my life just south of Cincinnati, the malls here have faced the same struggles. A mall’s biggest struggle is that it’s failures are so publicly obvious to patrons. Even if one store closes, people can take their business elsewhere. Malls will linger on, but their importance will diminish culturally.

Never thought I would see my office building on KZfaq, I work in the former mall across from KI.

Never seen Forest Fair, but it's one of my favorites for it's interior decoration. Visually, it's a treat.

Where in the world did you find that video footage of Forest Fair Mall? Shocked and pleasantly surprised to see that.

This was very interesting, thank you! At some point, I have been to each of these malls. Side note, Florence Mall just reverted to the bank, unable to pay the loans back.

Thank you for this amazing series of videos. My 42 year old self also worked in Sears (JR & SR year of high school) at Eastgate Mall! I have have SO MANY fond memories with family and also as being a Mall Rat. I need to step it up and visit it more to help try to keep it alive. I also hope and pray that Kroger's investment in the old Sears Space will help it survive

An amazing wrap up to a great series. You made a great point about Forest Fair that I had never heard before. I would argue that Forest Fair, despite its failure, was the reason for even more mall failure in the Cincinnati area. Forest Fair was the bully who talked big and tough, but was actually the opposite. I think that without Forest Fair then allot of other malls in the area would not have expanded and would not find themselves in the trouble they are today.

great job

Bravo! Excellent series Kristen :) Are there plans to do other Overmalled cities/states? Be well stay safe XO

Use to work at biggs in forest fair back in the late 90's.. 2 of my dearly passed puppers came from the spca adoption center that was right next to biggs. Would of had more if I had the room at home lol. Forest Fairs problem was they geared it to young kids to come and have fun in a not so great area with not nearly enough security. I remember going there opening day and thought it was amazing though. God I was such a mall rat when I was a kid HAHAHHAAA. Now the thought of retail shopping gives me anxiety. Awesome videos though, brought back so many memories growing up in the 80's. It is a shame kids will not experience things like arcades and going to the food court to have so many "exotic" food options HAHAHA

Considering your observation regarding the lack of cheap places to eat downtown... could you imagine the success of carew tower offering an international food court in its abandoned atrium? Sure, convincing real estate owners to lower their prices would be a big ask, but the economic revival and increased traffic that comes with lower rent would be a bigger net profit than targeting high-price investors that end up going bankrupt, right? Cincinnati is a working-class cosmopolitan center- people who own unoccupied retail space could rent it out at low prices and still make a net profit if we found a way to kick out real-estate investors who have huge pricetags and unattainable goals that end up falling through. how cool would it be to have an affordable, walkable urban hub that offered diasporic shops and restaurants aimed at middle- to working- class customers. it wouldn't just make it affordable, the low prices would endusre a huge customer base. not to mention offering aid to immigrant businesses would not just make it an affordable food hall but also but a showcase of Cincinnati's multiethnic heritage.

I'd love to see an Overmalled series about Phoenix malls.

I moved from the Cincinnati suburbs( Williamsburg/Batavia and then Milford before I left), around 2011….I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, so Eastgate was the closest until we moved to Loveland in the late 90’s early 2000’s….I then worked at the Suncoast Video in Tri- County Mall my senior year of high school 97…I stopped going to Eastgate and primarily went to Tri-County and Kenwood….Seeing Tri-County mall close considering its size and aesthetic was very surreal…Forest Fair always felt like a giant mall with hardly any stores from the beginning 😂…What a sad and sobering commentary on the death of suburban malls…I now live close to Asheville in North Carolina and the Asheville Mall seems to still be doing well and their outdoor outlet mall as well…

We're the same age-stands to reason. I imagine a lot of dead mall enthusiasts (though not all) are in their thirties or older. Years ago I thought I was alone in being so interested in dead corporations, retail outlets, and shopping malls, but now there are thousands of us. Thousands! It's still so odd to think that enclosed shopping malls, which were THE places to be right up through the early 2000s and were the site of so many movies (and the theme of toy sets and board games, etc.), are now an afterthought at best with no real place in the popular consciousness.

I feel fortunate to live near to one of the few successful Mills malls, Concord Mills in the Charlotte metro area. Indoor outlet shopping can be done successfully but only if the area is not overmalled!

Awesome series. Never realized we had 17 malls. Would Newport on the Levee be #18 and the Liberty Center #19?

I'd be really interested in a video covering the lifestyle centers and how they're different.

A fantastic series, well done and thank you ! You do wonder why developers kept building... there are only so many retailers about and money to be spent..any new development would automatically cannibalise older centres. Here in the UK our planning regulations would not allow such over building .

Also, if you worked at Eastgate mall you must remember Bigg's Place Mall across the way? I remember when it opened with its huge food court that was later turned into a movie theater which it still is today. That was yet another example of total excess. 2 malls literally across the street from each other!

I grew up in Sharonville. So Tri-County was the place to be in the 1970s and 1980' I miss it and the Jolly Roger Drive in just up the road.

7:32 The large poster, or whatever it's called, oozes late-90s-early-2000s. 7:54 Well, It could be the start of a chain of Bezos-land, with an "anchor" for deal-of-the-day and another for Whole Foods (as long as he own it), and their counterpart of GNC, Bath & Beyond, and other staples of dying malls. 10:54 I love that kind of architecture, from 50s I think.

I've been thinking lately about how sad it is that apparently no one expected the era of malls to die and as a result there is SO little media documenting the existence of these malls. People didn't feel the need to extensively photograph them or do full video tours until it was to late. And alas, I myself was too young to appreciate the full scope of what these places mean to do such a thing myself. I was just a kid that wanted to go _hang_ at the mall and wasn't the least bit concerned about what kinds of shops and how many there were and all that. I've been looking everywhere for photos of Eastgate mall in the 80's and 90's before the food court was built and it was renovated. Nowhere to be found. All I have are a few photos my parents took of me around '84/'85 when I was 5 years old. I figure MANY families must have photos from these malls from all eras so it might be an interesting project to collect photographs from them.

Good series

I remember in the early to mid 90’s a shopping mall was also proposed in Wilder Kentucky at I-275 and AA highway it was going to feature a Kroger along with 3 other anchors that I don’t remember if they were ever announced by the mid 90’s the mall development had fallen through

I loved your videos but im curious, how come you didnt mention liberty center?

Some small omissions: Mid-town and City Centre Mall Middletown Compu center Mall Sharonville was at mosteller Rd. @ 275

I remember when Forest Fair first opened. It was like the best thing ever!!!!

The malls that converted to office space may yet again see a exodus of companies due to COVID and be a new generation of empty hulking spaces. Will they be bulldozed and returned to the land? Or could they use a phased system and redevelop the inside as housing for all income levels with some small shoppes, like a grocery, mailing center, drug store etc.

It seems the people who has the money to build malls would too wise to keep one after another.

If you do a story on the Cleveland Akron area I would like to see it

Great series and quarantine project. I miss malls but I also don't if that makes sense. I feel like this pandemic is going to wipe some of these malls and commercial real estate developments away for good. What will they become? Residential mixed use I've heard as an option. I've seen a dead mall here in Nashville become a community college campus. Rackspace hosting in San Antonio converted a dead mall into their corporate HQ. The mall nearest to me is all but dead. Non enclosed strip malls seem to be doing better. Opry Mills in Nashville seems to work because it's basically an enclosed outlet mall. Only anchor is a Bass Pro Shops and you have the Grand Ole Opry itself, Hotel & Convention Center on site. So it doesn't really draw from locals. It reminds me of what a mall used to be.

I wonder how casinos coming into the area effected the malls.

What about Gold circle mall in Colerain? Its a post office now.

Correction.. Ann Taylor not the Loft

Please give us a Louisville version!

To many malls not enough people with money to shop all of them they need to turn a lit of these places into green spaces or parks or something

Markets International was really cool!

mommy what's a mall? in the next 10 years that might be a valid question to a child. the 60s to the 80s onward and upwards the sky's the limit, more, bigger and better that was what we wanted then! but what goes up well we know the rest. the young are wanting a different direction from what we took, they cant understand what malls meant to us. they meet and communicate on line, we did that at the mall, it's where to be see and be seen. just tell your little ones the mall was good friends good food and all the stuff you want all under one roof! r.i.p Woolworths and harvest house cafeteria!

I initially disagreed with your premise that Cincinnati was exceedingly overmalled by the 1970’s. My initial reaction was that the over-construction of shopping malls occurred much later in the mid-1990’s. However, upon further reflection, I have reached the conclusion that your assessment of the overmalled time demarcation within the 1970’s is precisely dead-on correct. To be sure, the documentation of this time frame is even contained within your video but it is not simply the mall count. The evidence is in the form of the scenes you inserted from the classic 1982 coming-of-age motion picture, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”. Director Amy Heckerling insightfully captured the teenage mall scene of that era. I remember the movie’s contemporaneous release at the theater and being bowled over by how accurately she captured the teen interaction and overall cultural impact of the shopping mall. Hollywood has long track record of accurately identifying cultural phenomenon when they are far beyond their expiration dates. The poolroom billiards boom that occurred in the 1950’s was already dead and buried by the time 1961’s “The Hustler” with Paul Newman was being hailed with critical praise and winning awards. The Citizens Band two-way radio craze of the 1970’s was already passe and on its way to a rapid death by the time “Smokey and Bandit (1977)”, “Convoy (1978)”, and “BJ and the Bear (1979)” were playing to audiences. The movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” conclusively establishes that the ubiquitous shopping mall was last year’s news. By the time of this 1982 film’s release, Cincinnati (and most of the United States) had been overmalled for several years. In fact, the earliest motion picture reference I could find that featured a shopping mall in any significance was the 1980 musical-comedy, “The Blues Brothers”. In one brief sequence, John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd spend a few minutes destroying a shopping mall interior with the Jake and Elwood Bluesmobile, just for laughs. In retrospect, writer and director John Landis, was perhaps more prescient about the future of shopping malls than even he could have ever realized.

Kristin, I just found your channel & will need to check if you've explored Columbus yet. So much history & so much degradation. The Continent/French Market, Northland Mall, Eastland Mall, the massive JC Penney's outlet, City Center, the original Lazarus downtown (where my grandmother was a model in the 40's & 50's) & if you're going to be up this way, you should do a story about Richland Mall in Ontario. It was really something when it opened in 1968 (3 years behind schedule) & thru the years, with each remodel, it became progressively ugly, dank & "cookie cutter". I'd love to see pictures & video of the way it was in the 70's & 80's.

Honestly. Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland should have only built 2-3 malls in the area. Small cities like Dayton, toledo etc… should have built only one. Building too many malls ALWAYS results in this

You forgot to mention Bigg's Place Mall, which opened in Eastgate in 1984. clermont-county-history.org/historical-articles/historical-articles/biggs-place.html

😎

Greed killed the mall.

FN''1ST!!! VERY COOL KRISTEN!!!!

I think that's what happened they built to many Malls and over saturated the market building to many in a short distance away from each other they was competing against each other cincinnati looks worse than the Cleveland Akron area

Very interesting, thank you. But, please talk a little slower, my ears don’t hear so fast!

Forest fair mall looks like a day care center or something resembles chucky cheese lol looks terrible

That's what happens with free enterprise and no city planning