I remember when it opened in the late 1970’s (1980?? Per other comments). It was one of the most elegant malls at the time. Now, everyone orders whatever they want on Amazon from their couches- especially since ‘Covid’ and the ‘lock downs’.
I remember it well.. we'd all go here as a family when it first opened. I remember the chocolate chunk cookies. This was my way station after school for four years of high school before heading home. I played hookey here at the Video Concepts when the first Texas Instrument & Atari computers were sold alongside giant projection tvs and VCRs. At first the anchors were Abraham & Strauss and JC Penney... I must have walked from one end to the other 1000 times if not more. Got my haircut there.. bought lawn mowers when SEARS replaced Penneys.. LIVED in the B. Dalton(?) bookstore.. read all the magazines.. then onto the record store.. they had Sam Goody & Music Land.. back when you had a choice between Laserdiscs & the CED stylus discs. When you got tired of wandering... you'd walk a block over to the old school two story White Plains Mall where they had the GREATEST record store was it called Record Hunter or maybe Record Hunter was across the street but they had a store that was as big as a supermarket that ended up being the DMV.. you could get all the imports and they had plenty of everything stock. That's where McDonald's was from the mid 70s on.. they did open another McDonald's at Galleria but BOTH operated very successfully within a block of each other for decades. Now White Plains has NO McDonald's in downtown!
I remember going back in 2012 to gamestop for a PS2, with it being crowded and bustling with foot traffic. TVs in the food court playing media, kids having fun on the projector screen spot, and the co-op city mall reminds me of how the Galleria mall used to be... dang do I miss it.
I used to go to this mall, and it is sad to see it closed forever. In the near future, malls will probably be just a memory. *Thank you* for video documenting this mall before it is demolished.
The Galleria was the place to be in the 80’s. There were cool fountains to toss coins into. Herman’s World of Sporting Goods downstairs, Sam Goody, , Jean Country, Just Shirts Heroes World for Comic Books etc. The food court was always packed especially after McD’s opened in 1984 or so. It was a great place to be around Christmas Season. All I have left is great memories. I went there today to pay my last respects 🙏
Do you recall if Herman's was out of there by the early nineties? The reason I ask is because I believe another sports apparel store took its place around '91 or '92. I can't remember the damn name.
I felt terrible because when I was just only 11 years old my family went to that galleria mall one weekend in 1997 but right now many of us are devastated over the loss of that mall since it closed last month.
Oh, man this is depressing. I grew up in Westchester in the '80s and the Galleria was a huge part of my childhood. I was there this past Christmas Eve and at the time it was still in the "circling the drain" stage as opposed to "truly dead." I guess everyone must have started clearing out after the holidays.
,I have to stop watching, even though I'm only about 10 minutes into this posting. It's filled me with such a sense of sad nostalgia that I have an old Barbra Streisand song echoing in my head. Yes, my memories may be beautiful, and yet, what's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget... Don't worry, Galleria, I doubt if I'll ever forget the way we were, and the many happy times I had there, but reminders like this can be heart-wrenching.
thank you for sharing. i wasn't around for the big heyday of most malls but it's still sad to think of how they've fallen even since the 2000s, so i can't imagine how much harder it must feel. if only we could see it again how it was
I took my mother to The Galleria the day it opened in 1980. There were so many people just walking around, taking in the stores and the space. It felt like you were rushing through an airport! The only other mall in town was The White Plains Mall over on Hamilton Avenue, a concrete monstrosity with few stores and a Mc’Donald’s. It has been completely torn down and they’re already building
I remember when the mall was being built. I worked at a&s ,causal corner, August max, pants place plus, Kenny shoes, chops .... back then I worked 3 jobs at one. 😂
I moved out of NY and have NOT been to the Galleria for more than a decade. This was a trip down memory lane. I remember.. Mr. Green Jeans, Radio Shack, Hallmark, Sears (I think A & S??) , a packed food court (scrambling for a table), and so many small thriving stores..
yes! you moved about the same time I did. and I do remember those awesome milkshakes at Mr. Green Jeans. And do you remember next to Radio Shack there used to be a Software Etc. And across from RS was a Waldenbooks. That's when I loved the Galleria.
As 10 year old in 1980s my aunt brought me, I loved the glass elevator and watching it in the atrium. From Manhattan, that was the biggest mall I had seen. Never would have guessed that whole scene would see the wrecking ball.
So sad, I grew up going here and I remember all the great stores like Suncoast video and kaybee toys. That place used to be packed. Truly the end of an era.
Grew up 2/3 miles South..Used to go alot as a teenager and it was packed in the 80s but it started struggled when the Westchester opened. Then after the murder it never came back fully. I would be after that incident Mall traffic reduced by 20%0There were lots of restaurants and bars outside of the food court at one time too. Also the Cohens Fasion Optical is and was the only original store that had a full run from 1980 to 2023 a full 43 years in the same location in the mall. I got my 1st set of contacts their in 1983
Yep... a woman killed by a vagrant in the parking garage after she parked there for work. The stairwells into the parking lot I'd always be warned not to walk too close to the stairwells when going by on the street because a number of thefts and robberies occurred where thieves would hide just inside and run out from the parking lot. ... Cohen's Fashion Optical marked up their prices for designer frames so high I'm surprised they didn't buy the whole mall! And there were a couple of optical stores there... and in the area.. I remember Pildes Optical.. they did great business there for years. And for most of the time.. certainly 20 years or so they were doing great. It's just that White Plains grew up all around it and by the time of the late 90s it had become a black hole in the middle of town. At least the Westchester was out of the way.. but the Gall was just IN the way. If they tear it down it's like a whole chunk of the city opens up again. Another plaza and some open air.
I grew up in Yonkers in the 80's so I've been to this mall a lot in its day. My parents would either go shopping to the Galleria Mall or the Cross County Center (which used to have a Gimbels). I distinctly remember that that area in the mall where you can see all the way down to the food court area (with the elevator), there used to be stadium-like seating with only a few rows on the upper levels, where you could sit and just people watch. Sad to know that this mall is closed too.
it looked like the maintenance was still kept up, the floors clean and shiny, ..without the Mall music the only thing you could hear was the clank, clank clank of the escalator, maybe a little oil would help. 😊😊... thanks for the tour...👍👍
I was glad that I didn't have to worry about editing out the background music. They clearly don't care at this point. It's like the last day of senior year in school.
Also the ceilings are in excellent shape, unlike other dead malls that have ceilings full of holes (with their associated water catch bucket) and mold.
I came here because of generation loss. This abandoned mall was repurposed for this amazing project. I love abandoned malls they look so liminal I wish that I could go there.
@@mirzaahmed6589 its an internet horror series being created by a content creator named ranboolive!! the piece of the story that happened at this mall was a series of 3 livestreams called the social experiments :]
This mall was good back in the days before its major renovation . They even had a movie theater at the bottom level . You meet up with some friends there . And they used to have Christmas displays everywhere in that mall. Great memories great video
man i used to go here as a kid. Sad, The glass elevator seemed so cool as a kid. Being able to see out at the whole mall. This place was bumping back in the late 80s early 90s
You said the place smelled like a dentist. @17:35 Well, there you go. With this mall being so close to closing, I was quite surprised to see how many stores were still open and how many people were in the mall. I was expecting a lot more closed stores and a lot less people. What's most surprising to me is that restaurants were still open for business in the food court. At most dead malls I've seen, all the restaurants are gone from the food court.
They probably figure they will try to make as much money as they can before they close. Unlike most mall closures, I think this one happened very quickly, so some stores probably couldn't move right away. Just guessing.
It could be that the restaurants, right up until the Galleria closed, maintained their business to at least some degree from people in the nearby offices (including the county office building and the county court house) and nearby businesses going to them for lunch.
This is a mall that was built in the center of a town which was a sleepy suburb in 1980 when it opened, to a hot property as a developing small city by the time of the 2008 recession. One block to the north are several residential towers built by Capelli that were so notable that Donald Trump agreed to brand them with his name.. across the street from that a 60 story hotel, anticipating increased traffic through Westchester airport and need for hotel space when New York City hotels were often at 90% capacity. The recession dampened that and the hotel has closed but plopped in the center of a developing downtown is the Galleria. It's kind of blocking what will become a white hot downtown when it is gone and the streetscape can open up and allow more restaurants and bars and clubs. Right now the relative quiet in the mall encloses what are several blocks of development that would be like the busier part of a vibrant and successful small city.
Yes, That last store was Forever 21. Before that it was the New York DMV, and before that it was Herman's Sporting Goods and before that it was UA Cinema's, the first movie theater in white plains to have 4 screens.
I'm so glad you mentioned the movie theater. And you remember the history better than I do. I remember seeing a Roger Moore James Bond flick in that theatre! I heard the theatres closed due to a lot of trouble with youth - but I was never sure about that.
@@kevinr8431 Yeah. I'm not sure why the theatre closed. It had some competition with the UA Cinema on North Broadway, which I think had a larger capacity.
That elevator was out for YEARS before it closed. Probably at least 3-5 years. I would frequent here with my family just to hang out in the mall and eat in the eateria all winter long. We’re all still so sad it closed
I worked over 25 years in white plains and every Saturday after work I would walk to the galleria and shop then get something to eat at the food court,I wanted to go back before it closed just for the memories but didn’t,going to miss the galleria
OMG! It's quite amazing as White Plains was known for its upscale shopping, upscale department stores. I guess the music is off as they have to pay royalties/fees to play music. I like when you show before photos. Hope you will do that format in future videos.
I was amazed as a small child of 7 or 8 years old in 1981/2 and seeing the glass elevator. I miss Waldenbooks, Sam Goody and going to Penney's frequently with my mom. Penney's was her jam! When I was 14 in '88 I needed braces, my mom took me to the dental place in the mall! I can hardly believe it, but I think it's the same place you're seeing! The dentist looked like Jeffrey Dahmer and he did not talk unless he was telling you what to do. Creepy guy, but did a great job on my teeth. When I was 16, my boyfriend and I would go to a store that sold comics and unique stuff and then go to a hidden spot and relish our McDonald's Cheeseburgers while chatting. I would go to the mall when I didn't have anything to do to look at music and books and I often ran into friends of mine while there. That never happens now and that is why I have nostalgia for those times. I used to talk about malls as a place of conspicuous consumption, but I didn't realize that the benefit was the experiences with people there. Now I see it as a separate world that enabled me to escape bad things happening in my life. Its artificial water features, muzak, yummy fast food and climate controlled temperature seemed unnatural at the time, but in today's out of control world, they almost seem too good to be true. I didn't realize it, but the mall was an integral part of my life. I think most of us didn't realize that. It was just expected that malls were too huge to go away. I thought malls would always be there, b/c in my lifetime they always were. Of course a newer, modern, "better" mall, the Westchester Mall opened up nearby, and this caused much of the Galleria's clientele to go to the more upscale mall instead. They opened in the late '90's/early '00's I think. Now instead of a few quarters for hours at the Galleria, it cost $3 even if you needed to pop in for a few minutes to half hour at The Westchester. Ever since the Westchester opened it has been a long, slow slide down to the Galleria's demise. Thanks for the video. It looks almost nothing like it did in the 80's to mid '90's, so it's like it was already gone for a long time. Now, if I visit a mall, I trek an hour away to the Danbury Mall. It's nice, they don't charge to park, and have an enormous amount of upscale stores, including Penney's, and restaurants, including a McDonald's.😊
This is just sad. I remember going to the galleria when I was a kid in the 80s and it always packed. The fountain was, as I remember, a full fledged waterworks with a waterfall and a path you can walk across. What a shame.
@@fleabittenadventures The last day it will be open for business is 3/23; it will be closed permanently on 3/31. You should have witnessed the crowds in the 1980s - the parking lot was filled to capacity during the month of December.
The White Plains Galleria use to be the premier mall of the Hudson Valley, anybody with money shopped there over any of the malls north of it. This definitely shows the death of retail and the impact of Woodbury Common.
I'm assuming postal services are not as developed, or most people do not have credit cards? There is no other rationale in this day and age for not switching to online shopping.
I miss this mall. I last visited around the time you did, probably March 15th was the last time. Had been visiting when I would go to dentist visits back in 2012.
I tried to do a tour of this mall before it closed just like you did. However, I got yelled at by a nasty security guard and he followed me all over the mall. I just left at that point as I suspected he was going to try to illegally detain me. He was a horrible dude!
Sadly its just been sitting empty since it closed a year ago. One developer has put forward a plan to demolish it, build 7 residential skyscrapers, and have a mixed use pedestrian plaza with restaurants at street level, and a pedestrian bridge over MLK Blvd. I'd like to see that become a reality.
I went to Sunrise Mall here in LI NY about two months ago, 2x, it's a total Ghost Mall now, minus four stores left open, and not even a food court any longer. And this mall is much nicer and larger than Sunrise, it's a shame Galleria is dead. I went to do some shopping at Macys Backstage at Sunrise, the only good store left open there, and the reg. Macys. Very sad to see.
@@fleabittenadventures The only one that's gone Ghost is Sunrise Mall, the rest are still doing ok, minus The Source Mall, which has been Ghost for six years now almost. But that's not a real mall. Roosevelt Field is the largest as ever, but, it's been having issues: crime, shootings, gang fights, and other things. I went there about a month ago, and it was ok, I didn't have any issues.
Back in 2005 a woman was stalked and killed in the parking lot by a homeless man. I recall it made national news. Word on the street was to avoid going to the mall because it was dangerous, and for years I knew a lot of people who stopped going to the Galleria, and went to the Westchester Mall instead. That I feel was the beginning of the end for the Galleria. In the 80's and 90's White Plains expanded tremendously, well so did its homeless problems.
@@fleabittenadventures Thank you for doing so.. last time I was there was 4 years ago. Sorry to see it and White Plains mall go all in one fell swoop. Does White Plains have a McDonald's in downtown yet or is Hartsdale the only outlet right now?
Yep.. Jefferson Valley Mall is going to go the same way... but there's not as much pressure.. White Plains is a sleeping city that now has the opportunity to become not just the official seat of westchester.. but now to build a town center that announces its pre-eminence over New Rochelle & Yonkers. The spread out shopping centers and malls up in Yorktown and Cortlandt Manor are fading but no one is clamoring for that space except to build more housing which those malls might be able to accommodate.
Yeah, I would say we are moving to pretty much all online shopping over the next few decades or so. Mall, in general, just aren't profitable anymore. Thanks for watching!
The only problem with Ma and Pa stores is that they tend to be more expensive than online stores and have less of a selection. Most of the stuff I buy I literally cannot find in brick and mortar stores. Thanks for watching!
I just looked up shopping in White Plains it appears too many store and not enough people. Something had to go. Anyone know how the freestanding Bloomingdales is doing?
This place was great during the 80’s . They had. A great food court good stores and a movie theater. And every Christmas they would have a display better than the last one . But after the renovation it wasn’t the same anymore .now the DMV should have moved in to the Galleria immediately instead of that white plains mall that move would have bought more customers into the galleria .
when I was a kid, I remember I called/pronounced White Plains when I saw it on a sign, White Plans haha 😂😅, i'm not lying, then I remember calling Yonkers, Yokarns, lmao
I live in Romania and in my hometown you cannot toss a coin in a mall because of the people.I really dont get what goes on in US especially to a mall so close to New York.If it was somewhere in Midwest ,maybe
I went to westchester hobbies on march 30th that place was empty security guards wouldn’t even let anyone make videos during it closing .how stupid was that ? Anyway 😮Ilove this channel .😅
Sears are all but out of business here in the US. There is only one Sears in all of New England, where I live. Macy's and JC Penney's are pretty much everywhere, especially Macy's.
@@fleabittenadventures The Sears at the Cross County Shopping Mall in Yonkers, which was the first outdoor mall opened in the United States around 1955, also closed its doors a couple of years back. In its place? Target.
Years ago a lot of the malls here on LI had decent indie hobby shops, not just chains, and they stocked everything from trains, RC cars, science toys, etc., to really good gaming depts., including RPG games, Avalon Hill, wargaming, etc. Barnes and Noble still stocks a good variety of games, I notice, but the prices now are sky high for the very deluxe board games or RPG games and books. They wanted $300 for the set of basic D&D hardback books for AD&D, recently. That's outrageously high. Dice are like $40. !!! I got my first Basic Dungeons and Dragons box set at a hobby shop like this at Mid Island Plaza LI around 1979, it was a really big deal, too. Now you can't even find a bookstore at most of these malls.
@@fleabittenadventures Mostly ,modeling and railroading shops on LI if anything. Not many gaming shops, but some comics stores here still stock some decent games and RPGs. Miniatures are big, and Battletech, and Warhammer.
NOPE.. shopping malls bring traffic in so people have a destination to spend dollars. White Plains is 40 years PAST the time when a downtown can be covered over. Mayor Idoni's fine work in maintaining this town stands out amongst all the wealth of westchester. If could could fly this mall out of downtown and land it in the northern woods of westchester or somewhere in Sullivan County maybe you could bring new useful life to it.. but not in the middle of White Plains.. time to develop that DREAM DOWNTOWN that all the developers have been trying to create for 50 years!
The Galleria should be re opened and just turn it into office space put the DMV in there reopen the food court .because when demolition starts taking place it’s just going to be an awful polluted mess traffic re-zoning and lots of complaints . What a big beautiful investment now going to waste .
@@melamineflorentine8134 ahh yes thank you! I had a feeling that I remembered a movie theater there but just wasnt super sure. Sad that my childhood mall is now gone 😭
Online shopping really knocked out Mall shop and I hate to see that happen I think that's sad you think people still want to go to the malls malls have a nice atmosphere it's fun to won't go there
Galleria used to be packed. Everything has changed in such a short period of time.
This was my first time there, but the photos I saw online made it look like a great mall, and very busy.
I remember when it opened in the late 1970’s (1980?? Per other comments). It was one of the most elegant malls at the time. Now, everyone orders whatever they want on Amazon from their couches- especially since ‘Covid’ and the ‘lock downs’.
I remember it well.. we'd all go here as a family when it first opened. I remember the chocolate chunk cookies. This was my way station after school for four years of high school before heading home. I played hookey here at the Video Concepts when the first Texas Instrument & Atari computers were sold alongside giant projection tvs and VCRs. At first the anchors were Abraham & Strauss and JC Penney... I must have walked from one end to the other 1000 times if not more. Got my haircut there.. bought lawn mowers when SEARS replaced Penneys.. LIVED in the B. Dalton(?) bookstore.. read all the magazines.. then onto the record store.. they had Sam Goody & Music Land.. back when you had a choice between Laserdiscs & the CED stylus discs. When you got tired of wandering... you'd walk a block over to the old school two story White Plains Mall where they had the GREATEST record store was it called Record Hunter or maybe Record Hunter was across the street but they had a store that was as big as a supermarket that ended up being the DMV.. you could get all the imports and they had plenty of everything stock. That's where McDonald's was from the mid 70s on.. they did open another McDonald's at Galleria but BOTH operated very successfully within a block of each other for decades. Now White Plains has NO McDonald's in downtown!
I remember going back in 2012 to gamestop for a PS2, with it being crowded and bustling with foot traffic. TVs in the food court playing media, kids having fun on the projector screen spot, and the co-op city mall reminds me of how the Galleria mall used to be... dang do I miss it.
I used to go to this mall, and it is sad to see it closed forever. In the near future, malls will probably be just a memory. *Thank you* for video documenting this mall before it is demolished.
The Galleria was the place to be in the 80’s. There were cool fountains to toss coins into. Herman’s World of Sporting Goods downstairs, Sam Goody, , Jean Country, Just Shirts Heroes World for Comic Books etc.
The food court was always packed especially after McD’s opened in 1984 or so.
It was a great place to be around Christmas Season. All I have left is great memories. I went there today to pay my last respects 🙏
Good times! Thanks for watching!
Do you recall if Herman's was out of there by the early nineties? The reason I ask is because I believe another sports apparel store took its place around '91 or '92. I can't remember the damn name.
@@10.11.9 hmm. I think Herman’s was gone by early 90’s. Was that space taken over by Modells or Sports Authority 🤔🤔
I felt terrible because when I was just only 11 years old my family went to that galleria mall one weekend in 1997 but right now many of us are devastated over the loss of that mall since it closed last month.
Oh, man this is depressing. I grew up in Westchester in the '80s and the Galleria was a huge part of my childhood.
I was there this past Christmas Eve and at the time it was still in the "circling the drain" stage as opposed to "truly dead." I guess everyone must have started clearing out after the holidays.
Yup. I don't think they got much advance notice.
,I have to stop watching, even though I'm only about 10 minutes into this posting. It's filled me with such a sense of sad nostalgia that I have an old Barbra Streisand song echoing in my head. Yes, my memories may be beautiful, and yet, what's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget... Don't worry, Galleria, I doubt if I'll ever forget the way we were, and the many happy times I had there, but reminders like this can be heart-wrenching.
thank you for sharing. i wasn't around for the big heyday of most malls but it's still sad to think of how they've fallen even since the 2000s, so i can't imagine how much harder it must feel. if only we could see it again how it was
I understand you .❤
I took my mother to The Galleria the day it opened in 1980. There were so many people just walking around, taking in the stores and the space. It felt like you were rushing through an airport! The only other mall in town was The White Plains Mall over on Hamilton Avenue, a concrete monstrosity with few stores and a Mc’Donald’s. It has been completely torn down and they’re already building
I remember when the mall was being built. I worked at a&s ,causal corner, August max, pants place plus, Kenny shoes, chops .... back then I worked 3 jobs at one. 😂
I moved out of NY and have NOT been to the Galleria for more than a decade. This was a trip down memory lane. I remember.. Mr. Green Jeans, Radio Shack, Hallmark, Sears (I think A & S??) , a packed food court (scrambling for a table), and so many small thriving stores..
Such memories. My very first job was in Wild Pair Shoe store in 1989ish. Boyfriend worked in A&S. Time passes so quickly. Beautiful memories 😢❤
Sears was their but gone I think 2019, I can’t remember anymore
yes! you moved about the same time I did. and I do remember those awesome milkshakes at Mr. Green Jeans. And do you remember next to Radio Shack there used to be a Software Etc. And across from RS was a Waldenbooks. That's when I loved the Galleria.
As 10 year old in 1980s my aunt brought me, I loved the glass elevator and watching it in the atrium. From Manhattan, that was the biggest mall I had seen. Never would have guessed that whole scene would see the wrecking ball.
This was my first time there, but I can see how this would have been a great mall at one point. Thanks for watching.
It is very sad to see this. Thanks for sharing and God bless you!
There used to be an Arthur Treachers in the food court my Dad loved. Wow 🥺
So sad, I grew up going here and I remember all the great stores like Suncoast video and kaybee toys. That place used to be packed. Truly the end of an era.
Grew up 2/3 miles South..Used to go alot as a teenager and it was packed in the 80s but it started struggled when the Westchester opened. Then after the murder it never came back fully. I would be after that incident Mall traffic reduced by 20%0There were lots of restaurants and bars outside of the food court at one time too. Also the Cohens Fasion Optical is and was the only original store that had a full run from 1980 to 2023 a full 43 years in the same location in the mall. I got my 1st set of contacts their in 1983
Yep... a woman killed by a vagrant in the parking garage after she parked there for work. The stairwells into the parking lot I'd always be warned not to walk too close to the stairwells when going by on the street because a number of thefts and robberies occurred where thieves would hide just inside and run out from the parking lot. ... Cohen's Fashion Optical marked up their prices for designer frames so high I'm surprised they didn't buy the whole mall! And there were a couple of optical stores there... and in the area.. I remember Pildes Optical.. they did great business there for years. And for most of the time.. certainly 20 years or so they were doing great. It's just that White Plains grew up all around it and by the time of the late 90s it had become a black hole in the middle of town. At least the Westchester was out of the way.. but the Gall was just IN the way. If they tear it down it's like a whole chunk of the city opens up again. Another plaza and some open air.
I found it I found it the Genloss mall yesss
Hi! this mall was used in a horror comedy in May 2023 called "generation loss" by ranboo! its an amazing idea for a new use for a dead mall.
Omg a fellow genlosser :0
Hey dude thank you so much for filming this video at the galleria mall, I really appreciate it because I also do enjoy going to that mall.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
Thanks, I really appreciate you so I hope you would record again at the Galleria Mall one day before it closes.
I grew up in Yonkers in the 80's so I've been to this mall a lot in its day. My parents would either go shopping to the Galleria Mall or the Cross County Center (which used to have a Gimbels). I distinctly remember that that area in the mall where you can see all the way down to the food court area (with the elevator), there used to be stadium-like seating with only a few rows on the upper levels, where you could sit and just people watch. Sad to know that this mall is closed too.
it looked like the maintenance was still kept up, the floors clean and shiny, ..without the Mall music the only thing you could hear was the clank, clank clank of the escalator, maybe a little oil would help. 😊😊... thanks for the tour...👍👍
I was glad that I didn't have to worry about editing out the background music. They clearly don't care at this point. It's like the last day of senior year in school.
Also the ceilings are in excellent shape, unlike other dead malls that have ceilings full of holes (with their associated water catch bucket) and mold.
Prob because it’s in a very wealthy area
Omg the design. Instantly transported.
You narrated it very well! Bravo!
Glad you liked it!
I came here because of generation loss. This abandoned mall was repurposed for this amazing project. I love abandoned malls they look so liminal I wish that I could go there.
What is generation loss?
@@mirzaahmed6589 its an internet horror series being created by a content creator named ranboolive!! the piece of the story that happened at this mall was a series of 3 livestreams called the social experiments :]
A horror-comedy-project of a contact creator called Ranboo
@@jojess69 *content*
This mall was good back in the days before its major renovation . They even had a movie theater at the bottom level . You meet up with some friends there . And they used to have Christmas displays everywhere in that mall. Great memories great video
man i used to go here as a kid. Sad, The glass elevator seemed so cool as a kid. Being able to see out at the whole mall. This place was bumping back in the late 80s early 90s
You said the place smelled like a dentist. @17:35 Well, there you go.
With this mall being so close to closing, I was quite surprised to see how many stores were still open and how many people were in the mall. I was expecting a lot more closed stores and a lot less people. What's most surprising to me is that restaurants were still open for business in the food court. At most dead malls I've seen, all the restaurants are gone from the food court.
They probably figure they will try to make as much money as they can before they close. Unlike most mall closures, I think this one happened very quickly, so some stores probably couldn't move right away. Just guessing.
It could be that the restaurants, right up until the Galleria closed, maintained their business to at least some degree from people in the nearby offices (including the county office building and the county court house) and nearby businesses going to them for lunch.
This is a mall that was built in the center of a town which was a sleepy suburb in 1980 when it opened, to a hot property as a developing small city by the time of the 2008 recession. One block to the north are several residential towers built by Capelli that were so notable that Donald Trump agreed to brand them with his name.. across the street from that a 60 story hotel, anticipating increased traffic through Westchester airport and need for hotel space when New York City hotels were often at 90% capacity. The recession dampened that and the hotel has closed but plopped in the center of a developing downtown is the Galleria. It's kind of blocking what will become a white hot downtown when it is gone and the streetscape can open up and allow more restaurants and bars and clubs. Right now the relative quiet in the mall encloses what are several blocks of development that would be like the busier part of a vibrant and successful small city.
well! the mall was used for a film project recently called generation loss. great way that they repurposed it.
Yesss I came her for genloss too lol
@@imatiredpotato slay
I came here to see if there are any genlossers lol
Thank you for sharing your video. Spent a lot of time working and hanging out there in the late 80s and early 90s
Yes, That last store was Forever 21. Before that it was the New York DMV, and before that it was Herman's Sporting Goods and before that it was UA Cinema's, the first movie theater in white plains to have 4 screens.
I'm so glad you mentioned the movie theater. And you remember the history better than I do. I remember seeing a Roger Moore James Bond flick in that theatre! I heard the theatres closed due to a lot of trouble with youth - but I was never sure about that.
@@kevinr8431 Yeah. I'm not sure why the theatre closed.
It had some competition with the UA Cinema on North Broadway, which I think had a larger capacity.
That elevator was out for YEARS before it closed. Probably at least 3-5 years.
I would frequent here with my family just to hang out in the mall and eat in the eateria all winter long. We’re all still so sad it closed
I worked over 25 years in white plains and every Saturday after work I would walk to the galleria and shop then get something to eat at the food court,I wanted to go back before it closed just for the memories but didn’t,going to miss the galleria
spent my HS/College years with my friends in this mall, had a small theater, loads of fun times. --gonna miss it all...
OMG! It's quite amazing as White Plains was known for its upscale shopping, upscale department stores. I guess the music is off as they have to pay royalties/fees to play music. I like when you show before photos. Hope you will do that format in future videos.
I was amazed as a small child of 7 or 8 years old in 1981/2 and seeing the glass elevator.
I miss Waldenbooks, Sam Goody and going to Penney's frequently with my mom. Penney's was her jam! When I was 14 in '88 I needed braces, my mom took me to the dental place in the mall! I can hardly believe it, but I think it's the same place you're seeing! The dentist looked like Jeffrey Dahmer and he did not talk unless he was telling you what to do. Creepy guy, but did a great job on my teeth. When I was 16, my boyfriend and I would go to a store that sold comics and unique stuff and then go to a hidden spot and relish our McDonald's Cheeseburgers while chatting. I would go to the mall when I didn't have anything to do to look at music and books and I often ran into friends of mine while there. That never happens now and that is why I have nostalgia for those times. I used to talk about malls as a place of conspicuous consumption, but I didn't realize that the benefit was the experiences with people there. Now I see it as a separate world that enabled me to escape bad things happening in my life. Its artificial water features, muzak, yummy fast food and climate controlled temperature seemed unnatural at the time, but in today's out of control world, they almost seem too good to be true. I didn't realize it, but the mall was an integral part of my life. I think most of us didn't realize that. It was just expected that malls were too huge to go away. I thought malls would always be there, b/c in my lifetime they always were.
Of course a newer, modern, "better" mall, the Westchester Mall opened up nearby, and this caused much of the Galleria's clientele to go to the more upscale mall instead. They opened in the late '90's/early '00's I think. Now instead of a few quarters for hours at the Galleria, it cost $3 even if you needed to pop in for a few minutes to half hour at The Westchester. Ever since the Westchester opened it has been a long, slow slide down to the Galleria's demise.
Thanks for the video. It looks almost nothing like it did in the 80's to mid '90's, so it's like it was already gone for a long time. Now, if I visit a mall, I trek an hour away to the Danbury Mall. It's nice, they don't charge to park, and have an enormous amount of upscale stores, including Penney's, and restaurants, including a McDonald's.😊
same the glass elevator blew my mind as a kid.
This is such a cool looking mall.
This is just sad. I remember going to the galleria when I was a kid in the 80s and it always packed. The fountain was, as I remember, a full fledged waterworks with a waterfall and a path you can walk across. What a shame.
Dang this was our hangout spot as kids and teens. Sad to see it go 😢
I have to go to this place... Great video!
You should. You probably don't have much time though. It's closing in March. Not sure if that's the beginning or end of March though.
@@fleabittenadventures guess I know what I am doing on my next day off then if that is the case thanks for the info!
@@fleabittenadventures The last day it will be open for business is 3/23; it will be closed permanently on 3/31. You should have witnessed the crowds in the 1980s - the parking lot was filled to capacity during the month of December.
The White Plains Galleria use to be the premier mall of the Hudson Valley, anybody with money shopped there over any of the malls north of it. This definitely shows the death of retail and the impact of Woodbury Common.
Here in the Philippines malls are very much alive. They were only closed during the surge of the pandemic.
Do the malls look the same as they do here in the Philippines?
Thailand, also.
I'm assuming postal services are not as developed, or most people do not have credit cards? There is no other rationale in this day and age for not switching to online shopping.
That home spa lash spot used to be Waldenbooks. My mom bought me most of my Berenstein bear books from there
does anyone remember A&S Abraham and Stauss. I bought my first suit there. it was gold corduroy. I thought I was so dapper.
I remember it from the 80s. It was a beautiful, high-end store.
I miss this mall. I last visited around the time you did, probably March 15th was the last time. Had been visiting when I would go to dentist visits back in 2012.
It was an awesome place to shop
Wow. This makes me sad. I used to go to that mall to hang out as a teenager. Wow
Lots of fond memories there of when times were better before Amazon and cell phones.
I tried to do a tour of this mall before it closed just like you did. However, I got yelled at by a nasty security guard and he followed me all over the mall. I just left at that point as I suspected he was going to try to illegally detain me. He was a horrible dude!
I remember when the food court had non-smoking and smoking sections that was back in the 80's, I was a kid then with my folks!
I spent a good part of my younger years shopping here, even worked there too in a few places over summers. Shame to see it die
Sadly its just been sitting empty since it closed a year ago. One developer has put forward a plan to demolish it, build 7 residential skyscrapers, and have a mixed use pedestrian plaza with restaurants at street level, and a pedestrian bridge over MLK Blvd. I'd like to see that become a reality.
Fun fact it wasn't actually empty for a year! Back in May of 2023 it was used for a horror comedy show called "generation loss" ! :D
You should look at Woodbury Common and Simon on its impact on Malls. Plus look at a very dying mall Stroud Mall in East Stroudsburg PA
Sad! Memories!
I don't have any memories of this mall, but it's always sad to see one of them close.
Went here in its final days, it was so eerie but nostalgic
ShoutOut to the Sam Goody, Herman’s Sporting Goods in the basement, and the Movie Theater!
If you have at time? Come do visit our malls here in the Philippines. For you to experience how the Filipinos love mall shopping.
If I'm ever in the area I will take a look. Thanks for watching.
Wow it’s gone. This mall was packed back in the day.
I think you meant "Bath & Bodyworks" as the last stores to close in a dead mall
Them too. It seems to be Bath and Body Works and GNC.
I remember when they built this. Did away with a whole block of mom & pop shops and movie theater
I went to Sunrise Mall here in LI NY about two months ago, 2x, it's a total Ghost Mall now, minus four stores left open, and not even a food court any longer. And this mall is much
nicer and larger than Sunrise, it's a shame Galleria is dead. I went to do some shopping at Macys Backstage at Sunrise, the only good store left open there, and the reg. Macys. Very sad to see.
I'll have to check out the malls on Long Island some day!
@@fleabittenadventures The only one that's gone Ghost is Sunrise Mall, the rest are still doing ok, minus The Source Mall, which has been Ghost for six years now almost. But that's not a real mall. Roosevelt Field is the largest as ever, but, it's been having issues: crime, shootings, gang fights, and other things. I went there about a month ago, and it was ok, I didn't have any issues.
I enjoyed it so sorry 😢it left
It was never the same after Taco Don's closed shop.
Back in 2005 a woman was stalked and killed in the parking lot by a homeless man. I recall it made national news. Word on the street was to avoid going to the mall because it was dangerous, and for years I knew a lot of people who stopped going to the Galleria, and went to the Westchester Mall instead. That I feel was the beginning of the end for the Galleria. In the 80's and 90's White Plains expanded tremendously, well so did its homeless problems.
Dental and Footcare? Same store front.
I noticed that too. ODD to see dental and Footcare in the same place
Maybe for people with hoof in mouth disease. But yeah, I thought it was a weird combo.
Went there today! 4 stores left…
It's still open? Do you know the exact date it's going to close? I had just heard "March". Thanks for watching!
The last time I went there was 1997 and it was in its decline. The bad crowd loitered around so people stopped going.
GNC has closed all their stores in malls around here and one was in a busy mall. They are starting to disappear
Makes sense.
I bet the units in this mall could be transformed into luxury apartments.
It's been gone For Years, but have you ever heard of The White Plains Mall?
that was a dead mall almost 20 years ago.
The Galleria closed its doors forever March 31, 2023. Plans are to mow it down and replace it with Apartments.
I'm glad I was able to get out there before it closed. Thanks for watching!
@@fleabittenadventures Thank you for doing so.. last time I was there was 4 years ago. Sorry to see it and White Plains mall go all in one fell swoop. Does White Plains have a McDonald's in downtown yet or is Hartsdale the only outlet right now?
Wow at one time this was "the place" in White Plains - what took it's place, something always does.
Damn first the Pavillion and now this. White Plains has changed
What was the Pavillion? Was that a mall? Thanks for watching!
@@fleabittenadventures Yes, it was a mall not far from the Galleria, less than half its size.
@@10.11.9 Where was the Pavillion, and in what years was it open?
@everforward8651 from 1994 to 2015ish it got demolished around 2016-17 its now just a land of dirt, it isn't too far off the Westchester
@@fleabittenadventures also yes it was a mall, I remember going there as a kid
I wonder if the Jefferson Valley Mall is next on the chopping block. Many people shop online these days.
I wouldn't be surprised. It didn't appear to be doing super well when I was there. Thanks for watching!
That’s where westchester hobbies and trains is moving to. One of the store clerks told me .
@@jonathangoode546 Yes, I was there yesterday, and Westchester Trains and Hobbies was already open.
Yep.. Jefferson Valley Mall is going to go the same way... but there's not as much pressure.. White Plains is a sleeping city that now has the opportunity to become not just the official seat of westchester.. but now to build a town center that announces its pre-eminence over New Rochelle & Yonkers. The spread out shopping centers and malls up in Yorktown and Cortlandt Manor are fading but no one is clamoring for that space except to build more housing which those malls might be able to accommodate.
Seeing this happening just has knots in my stomach. What comes after Amazon? We may never know.
Hopefully a return to Main Street Ma & Pas, which were mostly phased out after the indoor shopping mall revolution of the 70s and 80s.
Yeah, I would say we are moving to pretty much all online shopping over the next few decades or so. Mall, in general, just aren't profitable anymore. Thanks for watching!
The only problem with Ma and Pa stores is that they tend to be more expensive than online stores and have less of a selection. Most of the stuff I buy I literally cannot find in brick and mortar stores. Thanks for watching!
I just looked up shopping in White Plains it appears too many store and not enough people. Something had to go. Anyone know how the freestanding Bloomingdales is doing?
This place was great during the 80’s . They had. A great food court good stores and a movie theater. And every Christmas they would have a display better than the last one . But after the renovation it wasn’t the same anymore .now the DMV should have moved in to the Galleria immediately instead of that white plains mall that move would have bought more customers into the galleria .
Just curious. Was the movie theater on the bottom floor???
when I was a kid, I remember I called/pronounced White Plains when I saw it on a sign, White Plans haha 😂😅, i'm not lying, then I remember calling Yonkers, Yokarns, lmao
Ha ha. I'm sure I mispronounced a ton of words when I was a kid too. Thanks for watching!
A cool thing about this place is it was used for a youtubers project after it closed down
Since then, who knows
What are they gonna make or do with it now. 😢😢😢❤
They have implied it will be mixed use, including apartments, offices and some stores. I think the actual building though is getting torn down.
This was the main reason to go to white plains ny what is the purpose of going to white plains now
Not sure. There are other malls there, but that's really the only reason I went....
@@fleabittenadventures true and I saw on TH-cam that the Westchester mall might be next hope not
What are they gonna do with the mall once it is closed?
redevolping it into apartments
I read that they are turning into a mixed use property. I think that means apartments and shops.
Good video. Thanks.
I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for watching!
Still baffles me this is where generation loss is filmed
Is this the same shopping mall set they used in Wonder Woman 1984?
No. That was Landmark Mall in Virginia. They do look similar though.
Very similar indeed! Thanks for the reply.
I live in Romania and in my hometown you cannot toss a coin in a mall because of the people.I really dont get what goes on in US especially to a mall so close to New York.If it was somewhere in Midwest ,maybe
I wonder what chain was in the most malls?
In New England at least, probably Sears and JC Penney. That would be my guess.
With Amazon and internet based commerce, maybe small shops will make a comeback to Main Streets to satisfy a smaller scale in person shopping needs.
Could be, you never know. Thanks for watching!
Does anyone remember the P.F. Chang's on the first floor here?
I spent my 20s going there
atleast it got put to great use :O
THEO?!?!?!?
THEO WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE
HELLO :3 @@binglething
What are the anchor stores?
I'll have a video on it in a couple of weeks.
Macy's. JCPenny (I worked there the last Christmas season) closed in January 2021/
I went to westchester hobbies on march 30th that place was empty security guards wouldn’t even let anyone make videos during it closing .how stupid was that ? Anyway 😮Ilove this channel .😅
Do they have a JCPenney, Sears and Macy's?
Sears are all but out of business here in the US. There is only one Sears in all of New England, where I live. Macy's and JC Penney's are pretty much everywhere, especially Macy's.
@@fleabittenadventures The Sears at the Cross County Shopping Mall in Yonkers, which was the first outdoor mall opened in the United States around 1955, also closed its doors a couple of years back. In its place? Target.
This video will explain everything .also is correct ✅.
It’s sad how things are today . No more living in the land of make believe
True. Thanks for watching!
Years ago a lot of the malls here on LI had decent indie hobby shops, not just chains, and they stocked everything from trains, RC cars, science toys, etc., to really good gaming depts., including RPG games, Avalon Hill, wargaming, etc. Barnes and Noble still stocks a good variety of games, I notice, but the prices now are sky high for the very deluxe board games
or RPG games and books. They wanted $300 for the set of basic D&D hardback books for AD&D, recently. That's outrageously high. Dice are like $40. !!! I got my first Basic
Dungeons and Dragons box set at a hobby shop like this at Mid Island Plaza LI around 1979, it was a really big deal, too. Now you can't even find a bookstore at most of these malls.
I think there are maybe 1 or 2 independent hobby shops within an hour of me. Back in the 80's, there used to be two in my hometown.
@@fleabittenadventures Mostly ,modeling and railroading shops on LI if anything. Not many gaming shops, but some comics stores here still stock some decent games and RPGs. Miniatures are big, and Battletech, and Warhammer.
Can the Galleria be restored to its former glory?
Not anymore. I think they are tearing it down. I doubt whatever they put in its place will be anything like it was.
NOPE.. shopping malls bring traffic in so people have a destination to spend dollars. White Plains is 40 years PAST the time when a downtown can be covered over. Mayor Idoni's fine work in maintaining this town stands out amongst all the wealth of westchester. If could could fly this mall out of downtown and land it in the northern woods of westchester or somewhere in Sullivan County maybe you could bring new useful life to it.. but not in the middle of White Plains.. time to develop that DREAM DOWNTOWN that all the developers have been trying to create for 50 years!
The Galleria should be re opened and just turn it into office space put the DMV in there reopen the food court .because when demolition starts taking place it’s just going to be an awful polluted mess traffic re-zoning and lots of complaints . What a big beautiful investment now going to waste .
22:43 anybody know what used to be on the left there back in the day? Was it a MOVIE THEATRE? 🤔
Yes.. the movie theater had two cinemas? I saw Sixteen Candles there. I SHOULD have been in school but they had a showing at 10 AM on a Tuesday!
@@melamineflorentine8134 ahh yes thank you! I had a feeling that I remembered a movie theater there but just wasnt super sure. Sad that my childhood mall is now gone 😭
Military circle in Norfolk va is dead and closed now
I think there will be a lot more mall closures over the next few years.
@@fleabittenadventures History will show that the insane "lockdowns" of 2020 and 2021 were the final nails in the coffin for mall culture in America.
I bought a lot of CDs at this mall back in the early 90s. Easier times...
spent many hours with. my family there
Online shopping really knocked out Mall shop and I hate to see that happen I think that's sad you think people still want to go to the malls malls have a nice atmosphere it's fun to won't go there