this is wonderful. you have a great voice for this kind of format. good job!!

Loving this so far. Growing up, my mother was a retail clerk; in my extreme youth, she worked at a small upscale clothing store (they had their own on-site tailor, from whom I learned an interest in the craft) in the Tri-County Mall; she left that job after one of my sisters was born, but I remember hanging out in the store often, in what would have been the late '80s. After a few years, she then took work at Bigg's in what was then Forest Fair Mall; again, I was often brought along, and got to hang out in this mall in my tween years. After a bit, she left there and started working at Linens 'n' Things in the then recently-remodeled Sycamore Plaza; I'd always go to Barnes and Noble during this era, as it was generally during my high school days. So, it's neat to see a presented history of these places where I literally grew up.

This has cost you a lot of research. Excellent !

This video was amazing. I'm looking forward to the next one!

Great video. Overmalling played a huge role in what so many malls failed. Did we ever really need 5 malls within a 10 mile radius? No we didn't. I can't imagine what these developers were thinking back then, what a waste of land, money and resources. :/

Subbed! Can't wait to see the rest of the series. I spent a lot of my youth working and hanging at various malls around Cincinnati.

At 11:50 you can see the old skylights over the long-gone interior hallways (at a slight angle to the rest of the building) that have since been covered with brown shingles.

This was AWESOME Unicomm! You should do an overmalled series for Kansas City and Columbia, South Carolina.

Awesome vid! You’ve hit this one out of the park. I haven’t seen any other dead mall post that’s gone this route. Having the background and the wider perspective really sets this apart. Thanks!

With every video, I'm continually impressed by the great production of these videos. Excellent editing, narration, and flow of content. It's the kind of video you don't realize you've spent 15+ minutes watching until it ends.

LOVE this! I read an article after the 2008 financial crisis analyzing a study done by Credit Suisse that concluded....wait for it...We were overmalled. Mall deaths and the loss of the mall culture is a deeply unfortunate side effect of the inevitable correction that follows a bubble. Online retail hasn’t played as much of a role as everyone loves to think. Thank you for this, Kristin!

I recently got a piece of the Western Woods Mall for my personal collection (one of the street light fixtures seen at 8:30) it's fascinating how much our society has changed in only the last few decades and a great example are the once-grand shopping centers becoming nothing in only a short matter of time.

I lived in the greater Cincinnati area for four years of undergrad and have visited many of the malls! Very entertaining video and clearly an impressive amount of research.

This was my first look at your work, and I absolutely love it! Looking forward to more...thanks!

I have just discovered this channel and it is absolutely fantastic!!! Binge watching will be mine! Such thorough and well researched videos. Wow. Thank you so much for these.

Loved the video. Thorough research of the history. Subbed :)

The St Louis metro area, had the same issue - too many malls and a declining population due to the loss of high paying aerospace and auto manufacturing jobs.

Awesome video, cant wait for the next episode!

amazing video kristin ! cant wait for the next one ! the research is excelent !

Thanks for the information! I've lived around Cincinnati all my life. I've visited all these locations over the years but did not know all the history!

Amazing production value. I love this series. Thank you.

I love seeing all the old malls! The suburbs of Chicago where we live is also overmalled too! You should do some malls over here sometime! Great video!

I remember the days when they had good food courts and if I remember correctly Northgate Mall used to have P.O. Boxes

Awesome production!!

I saw every bit of that as a child growing up in the 50s and 60s there was supposed to be a mall built in Lebanon Ohio on State Route 48 that was going to be more expensive than Kenwood Mall then the financial crisis hit and that was the end of the project

Watched this a second time today (since I was distracted reading the premere chat the first time). Great overview of the area and love the pics and videos from their respective heydays.

This video was so good! So random, but I really enjoyed the sped up dash-cam shots when you were driving. You can tell you put so much research into this video and I’m already looking forward to the next :)

COOL VIDEO AS ALWAYS KRISTEN!!!!!

LOVE THIS

A three part series. You've got my attention. This is going to be great. Ohio seemed to be one of the most over malled states in the country ~Justin

I really love this series, can't wait for the next one.

LATE BREAKING CORRECTION: While as of 2019, The Village of Indian Hill was listed by Bloomberg.com as the 11th richest neighborhood in the United States, and the highest ranking city in Ohio, Kentucky, or Indiana it is not the richest neighborhood in the Midwest. It is exceeded by a couple of neighborhoods in the Chicago suburbs.

Good video.Thanks for filming.

first time I"ve ever caught a vid of yours....this was great!

content gets better and better great job!!!

Awesome video - it looks like you put a lot of work into this. I've lived in Cincinnati for the better part of 20 years, and have been to quite a few of these malls. Looking forward to the next installment!

This was a nice look at the early years of the retail shopping center and mall history, in Cincinnati. Can't wait for the next chapters, of this. When I looked up a satellite image of Swifton Commons, it made me sad that the only thing that has been built where that used to stand, was a church. Hopefully other things are eventually built there, on that former site. I guess there have been a few proposals to redevelop that site besides the construction of that church, and nothing has been agreed on yet?

Very interesting!

Very interesting video, love it

Amazing!!

Great video, Kenwood mall is one of my favorites in Cincinnati

Great video, is western woods mall complex still standing? I’ve never even heard of that mall. You keep finding all these malls that I’ve never heard of and last time I made an entire day out of going up to Middletown mall to check that out. Took us 30 mins to figure out how to get inside😂 keep up the good work.

Never went to any of the east side malls, but my mom took us to Tri-County at least once a week when it was an open air mall. Back then the anchor stores were Shillitos & Pogues. Sears came later. It was more blue collar then, with a Krogers next door to a Kresges. Not very many boutique stores; more like a Wilson Paints craft store and Fanny Farmer bakery. And the Little Pleasures head shop. 😏 Once Sears opened my mom took us there for clothes & lunch. I remember watching them tear down the pine trees on the south side of Kemper road from the Sears diner, for lack of a better word. That later gave rise to Cassinelli Square. Hardly went to Northgate Mall, except to catch a movie.

I love seeing this stuff, but I could just cry at the same time. I love that these malls went from open air malls, to enclosed malls, and now back to open air or "town center" concepts, and still poop out. Milwaukee has one of those in the suburb of GLENDALE, WI (BAYSHORE TOWN CENTER) that is going through its 3rd re-incarnation. I'd rather drive 10 minutes north to newer, better stores, with better parking and less traffic congestion.

I grew up going to Millet Mall/Canton Center and Belden Village in the 1990s. I couldn't be paid to enter a mall in 2021.

Wow! There is so much I enjoyed with this that I don’t know where to begin. It brought back a flood of memories. Those print and TV advertisements contemporary to the time were a hoot as I was there the first time. And I loved that you enveloped the “Amazon e-Retail Apocalypse” lead-in inside that Sony Trinitron television. That TV set was the cat’s meow of technical innovation back in its day. Where-on-earth did you find that Tri County Sidewalk Sale advertisement? It is fabulous documentation of the goofy-looking, add-on gable roof structure they built in 1968 to enclose the original, open-air Tri County Mall. Frankly, I had almost forgotten about the long-gone Swifton Center. It was a nice little mall without any pretentiousness. But unless you lived in or around Cincinnati you’d never know it was there, even though it was located barely one mile from I-75. Swifton stayed active for some time but, as you mentioned, the closing of the Norwood GM Assembly Plant in the late 1980’s followed by the massive layoffs at GE Aviation in the early 1990’s ultimately dealt it a double-tap death blow. I think your selection of 1956 as the starting year for this series is significant in another manner. I believe the Interstate Highway System, that President Eisenhower signed into law in 1956, is inexorably intertwined with both the success and failure of these Cincinnati malls, too. Even prior to 1956, the Kenwood Plaza developers would have had significant insight to the location of the, as yet, unplanned and unbuilt I-71. There had been active discussion for years, before and after WWII, for a “Northeast Expressway” to connect Cincinnati to Columbus. It would not have taken much knowledge to estimate the path of this new expressway. Basically, the new highway simply had to parallel Montgomery Rd. (U.S. 22) and completely avoid the wealthy community of Indian Hills. The concept for this expressway gained additional momentum as the northern Ohio Turnpike was completed in 1955. The first section of I-71 to open was between I-270 in Columbus and a point within Hamilton County near the Warren County line. This stretch was dedicated in October 1964 before any construction began in Cincinnati within the nonexistent I-275 loop. The first stretch OF I-71 to open closer to Cincinnati was (surprise, surprise…) from I-275 to Kenwood Rd. in December of 1969. I believe the small saving grace Swifton Center had going in its favor was that it was built closer to (but not visible from) I-75. Its proximity to I-75 probably kept Swifton going a bit longer than its modest open-air design would have permitted at any other location around the city. As you mentioned, the developers built Swifton Center on nearby U.S. 42 because at that time it was still the main thoroughfare in and out of northern Cincinnati in 1956. At that location it maintained close proximity between the established northern suburbs and the newly constructed post-WWII suburbs. The Swifton developers likely could not find property closer to I-75 because most all of that land had already been developed for industrial use along the old Mill Creek Expressway. Starting in 1956, the Mill Creek Expressway and surrounding properties would be appropriated by the Feds to build I-75 for the new Interstate Highway System. That segment of I-75 through northern Cincinnati, that the Swifton Center was close to, has its own convoluted history. In particular, the section of I-75 from Glendale-Milford Road south to Hartwell is a recycled relic left over from WWII. This portion of I-75 was hastily constructed in 1941 to provide access to the Wright Aeronautical Plant (now GE Aviation) that built radial piston engines for B29 bombers used in WWII. Keep in mind that back in 1941 the Evendale/Sharonville area was nothing but open farm fields. The large bomber engine plant was constructed there due to concerns that Nazi Germany would successfully develop a long-range bomber during the war. It was hoped that placing the plant in that isolated location might at least deter the Luftwaffe from bombing downtown Cincinnati. The Mill Creek Expressway, as the wartime highway eventually became known, is now the southbound lane of I-75. That is the reason for the infamous “Lockland Split” when it was integrated into the Interstate Highway System. Most of I-75 through northern Cincinnati was built along the path of the old Miami-Erie canal, which fell into disuse by the late 1800's. The canal path encouraged industrial business development next to its right-of-way. This is why there was little property available for commercial retail establishments along I-75 in the 20thcentury. That is also why driving I-75 north of downtown Cincinnati is often a harrowing, white-knuckle experience. You’re driving modern vehicles at high speed essentially along a canal path where the average speed of a Miami-Erie canal boat was about 4 miles-per-hour. Western Woods Mall and Beechmont Mall were built along major state roads east and west of the city. However, they had the additional problem when they were constructed in that no one really knew exactly where I-275 would be eventually be sited. Construction began on I-275 in 1958 but its completion still lay more than two decades into the future. The highway path was planned, delayed and re-planned several times through the 1960’s due to the exorbitant costs necessary to build the eventual 86 miles of Interstate Highway circling Cincinnati. All of the initial work on I-275 was completed on the northern Ohio side, but even that progress was painfully slow going. The first portion of I-275 opened to traffic in 1962 from Route 4 only to US 42. By 1973, travel on I-275 was still confined to between Colerain Ave. and Montgomery Rd. The Feds didn’t began acquiring the southern land for the I-275 roads and bridge approaches from Ohio into Kentucky until 1968. The I-275 highway wasn’t fully completed and open to traffic until late 1979. The slow progress on the southern side was due to the considerable feats of civil and mechanical engineering required to both construct two Ohio River bridge crossings and plow through the undulating terrain in northern Kentucky. The locations where Western Woods Mall and Beechmont Mall were sighted made sense in their day. Unfortunately, they completely missed the mark for any future Interstate access. Intertwined with the Cincinnati region being over-malled, their complete lack of Interstate highway access ultimately sealed the fate of these small malls. Conversely, the developers of Tri County Mall and Kenwood Mall had the luxury of knowing EXACTLY where I-275 and I-71 would be constructed which enabled their increased lifespans. This is a great series that you have created. I am typically not of an anti-development mindset but the issue you’re addressing here is not a new problem. I’ve thought for years that there should have been some sort of moratorium with public hearings and debate in Ohio on all new mall development and construction ever since the 1980’s. Especially after the notorious Cincinnati Mall/Cincinnati Mills fiasco that you have previously documented so well. The newer, so-called “lifestyle centers” cause me to chafe over these exact concerns, too. If for no other reason than that all-year, open-air mall shopping really only functions well in a very few specific market regions in the United States. To offer an example, one would likely have a delightful time open-air shopping in Santa Barbara, California during the month of February. However, open-air shopping in Cincinnati, Ohio during the same month will assuredly not be the same pleasant experience. There was a reason that goofy-looking gable roof was slapped on top of the original open-air Tri County Mall and that Kenwood Plaza was completely enclosed when it metamorphized into Kenwood Towne Center. But alas, we seemingly must relive history, again and again, rather than learning from it. My apologies for the lengthy diatribe but I am excited about this and the coming episodes you have planned. A brilliant and fabulous effort!

Thank you for mentioning Swifton Village. The were apts with there own schools. Built for families when the men came home from the war. Also I laughed to see Anderson Towne Center. I just retired from that Kroger after 15 years. Love your videos. Thank you so much. Be safe and take care.

I grew up by Kenwood Plaza. It's a now a mall that is doing extremely well

Tri County is even more dead now that Macy’s is gone, but I loved this video, excellent job guys!

Wow and I thought Columbus had to many malls ..great vid

I even remember when JC penny in Northgate used to have a restaurant above the entrance on the 2nd floor.

Great History! Looking at it now you can see how developers just had no CLUE of what the future was going to be. Same mistakes in most rust belt cities.

I'm not sure how big Cincinnati is but I live in the Phoenix AZ area which is way bigger and doesn't seem to have nearly as many malls (although we do have a lot of big box shopping centers and a few malls that were closed or demolished 20-30 years ago). Also the sunset footage halfway through the video is absolutely beautiful. Great job!

My husband grew up in Kenwood and I have visited many times.

Malls in the Cincinnati area began to decline after a local radio station conducted the infamous "Turkey bombing incident" at a local Cincinnati mall back in the 1979 holiday shopping season.

Yeah my grandparents lived in Indian hill for years. not to mention blue ash and and kenwood are all upscaled.

Great video. You put a lot of research in to it. Looking forward to your next one. The Orange Park Mall in Florida near Jacksonville has been closed for almost 2 months. The Sears just closed for good and JC Penny just filed for bankruptcy. Two empty anchors store spaces is not going to be good for the immediate future. There is a movie theater that normally fills the huge parking lot.

I love all your vids..i love all the history of the malls,etc. i worked in kenwood towne center with verizon, same with tri county mall and eastgate mall during the 2000's/ same with toys r us in springdale during late 90s. love your content..drop me a line, love to talk.

This overmalled series reminds of the mall’s In Birmingham Alabama, you have a boom in building. Then at some point it’s like Megladon sharks chasing prey that disappears from the menu then they start dying off. I guess it’s a dark observation but your overmalled is accurate 🧐

What day does episode 2 come out?

Perhaps you could do a video about Cincinnati's famous Plummet Mall?

When I was a kid at Kenwood I remembered the movie theater used to be right next to the food court and there was another one and I remember it used to be where Texas Roadhouse and whole food store is located.

DOES ANYONE HAVE FILM, VIDEO, PICTURES, NEWS REPORTS, GRAND OPENING VIDEO REPORTS OF SWIFTON SHOPPING CENTER, CINCINNATI GARDENS FROM THEIR BEGINNINGS THROUGH THE 1970s? IF SO, PLEASE POST. ALSO, VIDEO OF DOWNTOWN CINCINNATI OHIO VALLEY KOOL JAZZ FESTIVAL GOERS FROM LATE 60s TO LATE 70s? PLEASE POST.

I have to wonder how well mall owners and management maintained their malls' physical structures while closed for a period of time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Were tenants typically required to continue paying rent during that time?

Actually. I live not even 5 minutes away from Anderson Township. I remember when that Kmart was taken down. Sad. And my Mom remembers the old Beachmont Mall. Although I don't. I was born in 06'. Even now. My dad always goes to that Krogers for groceries. Anderson Township is indeed a different plaza. But it's my stomping ground.

Is that a new Jeep? I only remember seeing the inside shots in your earlier videos. By the way I still miss those driving shots.

Family was from Cincinnati I miss a lot of the old malls in the layout but I can see why they kind of collapsed as business moved around the city.

Great video! To all interested in this topic I pose this question; Do you really enjoy the "open-air" shopping experience better, and why?

They largest mall in Philly was opened in 1987 and for first few years was the most visited site in Philly. Often would have 10 to 12 tour busses parked out back but have not seen a tour bus there in over 10 years. 3 of the anchor or stores are closed. They spent a lot of money on a remodel 5 years ago and now lucky if they have 25% of the foot traffic.Had two food courts now down to halve of one. After the remodel they shot themselves in the foot and due to huge jump in rent they chased out a busy bed Bath & Beyond and a McDonalds. Can remember going to the mall on a Friday or Saturday night and food court & stores were loaded with teenagers but no longer.

I’m just now seeing this and with how many are struggling (except maybe people who are swimming in money these days) to make ends meet much less some of us who struggle daily and weekly,… it wouldn’t suprise me if these places only got busy or them making their sea etc during Christmas, valentines, sweetest day etc. Unfortunately people are still struggling big time from epidemic and for some really off best reason prices everywhere including gas prices continue to go up. The most common question for all these things is how do they expect us(a lot of us that do struggle) to go anywhere with gas prices go up, and how do they expect us who struggle to buy things with all prices in stores nearly if not everywhere continue to rise? And a question for the stores and gas stations themselves how do they expect to get that money they need to make? I’m just very very confused by how things are now days. Not many of us can go anywhere do anything these days unless it’s the rich people/families. It’s pretty unfair. I love the background of this video love that turquoise/teal flower background. Awesome job on this and how you did the video ☺️

Hey, update on Tri-county mall! Garbage collection has been suspended by Rumpke. The outbuildings are now using Republic because of unpaid bills. The lot is presently full of garbage in the exterior parking lots. It is heartbreaking. I can’t even get the city to call me back. Please help if you can at all. An update on your end would be greatly appreciated. God bless and Merry Christmas!🎁

KTC was awful getting in and out of when I was still living in Cincy 15 years ago. Especially christmas.

This should be titled Overmalled Ohio, not just Cincinnati.

Worked at Anderson Kroger for 15 years. After Kmart closed the mall is a hodge podge of specialty and junk. Not a big deal. Kroger and Macy's keep it going. Myself I have no use for anything else there. Sad we are going backwards in my way of thinking.

What killed the mall? Sears predated the mall and malls thrived while Sears thrived. In my opinion, malls were just another market bubble. Bubbles burst. The more the bubble inflates, the more rapid the burst.

Oh no only 1 apple store in Cincy?

Swifton was one of Donald Trump's first real estate projects outside the NYC area.

Malls of the 60s & 70s were a downgrade from walkable urban mixed-use commercial strips. "Open air lifestyle complex"s are a step (or many steps) below that. Let's demand more as humans, to not be treated as consumer bots. As someone who grew up in Anderson, that place is everything I hate about car culture development.

gasoline

I don't know if you've been yet but you didn't talk about cincinnati mills!

You missed a few.

skating rink, anyone?

More like dead malls. Boring malls. Over priced malls. Over priced junk foods in the mall. Yes at one time Kenwood mall was the place to shop ( late 70's & early 80's). Eastgate mall, was the same. Not anymore. Too many other places to shop to get the same items, at a cheaper price. Not being over crowded with people, spills, & crying children.