Exploring the Abandoned Northridge Mall

In today's episode we're

exploring

the

abandoned

Northridge Shopping Center, which first opened in 1972, operated successfully for several years, but soon began to run into problems. The

mall

's location was chosen due to its proximity to a planned highway, but was canceled after locals protested. In the 1990s, concerns about high crime rates in the area began to further erode the

mall

's clientele. The economic recession of 2001 was the final nail in the coffin and many tenants chose not to renew their lease. The mall would close two years later, in 2003, for the next 15 years, the mall remained under tight security and the interior served as a time capsule of late 20th century commercial architecture.

In recent years, however, thieves and vandals have begun to win the battle with security and the state of the building has now rapidly deteriorated. We venture inside to see what's left North Ridge Mall September Updates around issue 94 - 11 60 Second Radio Hello, my name is Joanie Passos, the new Marketing Director at Northridge Mall, where there are a lot of new and exciting things happening and I would like to share some of them with you inside the Northridge Mall has tripled the amount of flowers and is simply beautiful outside our new parking lot, the signs feature Laurel Key to make it easy to identify and remember if you are parked in our easy rose organ or in black look, we also have free transportation service for customers and courtesy telephones at the main entrances of the shopping center so you can request transportation.

Oh, and don't put away your sunglasses just yet because we've installed new lights in the parking lot at night. Our lights are bright like a summer stay for times like these, the movies, yeah, it's probably a good place to start a movie theater inside the mall, it's probably a two-story movie theater, there's an escalator right there here, did you collect all this glass, although yes, this below is? a dark hallway, let's look upstairs first and refreshments that fountain is so 70s here the door to this theater is open and the Peter Six projection room is that projection yes, if there's nothing here there's not much left yes, all the seats are removed, you can see the frame from where the screen is, but nothing more, it is a small screen, although it is not a big room, they may have had larger movie theaters, online movie screens, but there are also columns in that column and she generally doesn't see in a movie theater.

I mean, obviously they wouldn't have seats there, yeah, but I still wonder if this was adapted into a movie theater, my debate or maybe other screens will still be there, probably not, although theater five, movies five, it's the same situation, absolutely nothing. there, this might not even be a movie theater, no, there's only four or five sixes up there, maybe this was the main lobby, yeah, this was the place where they had the movie posters on the wall, right here, another refreshment stand 1 2 3 well it smells a little moldy you might want to take out your respirator, it smells moldy, there's mold on the walls, these will be the big movie theaters, yeah, there's a lot of mold in here, oh, it's flooded, holy shit , that explains the mold, these are hardly bigger.

They are also very different less retro design it's flooded look at the mold on the ceiling tiles let's get out of your shit and like these soundproofing things and the curtains on the wall should absorb the moisture lamps here in a row empty poster boxes wish there were some posters but I moved everything, shit, it's a big cinder block wall. What the heck did they just build a cinder block wall in the lobby? Oh, do you know what that hardware store is? The Menards can't see it on the video, I guess early, I said. hardware store we are giving away a location it is quite popular and they are demolishing it we will decide later it is the Bernards there is an active store behind this wall there used to be a number but they just demolished it and built something else people its how strange that this wall just cut out, ok they're not making noise, it seems that shopping malls are quite popular places with locals as we could hear a lot of other people in the building with us, we tried to avoid them so we could concentrate on our filming.

In the picture, the people sound like an imitation of us. Did you realize what this is here? Part of your Christmas setup. The roof is great. These shop windows I just ripped out. Oh, this was like an office. There are plans for the entire place. includes shelf layouts and everything related to retail planning oh they had the centerpieces here, like the stories that were in the car, oh yeah, whatever they called it, yeah, that's pretty old-fashioned looking, it's the pink and the green that reminds you a little bit of Miami, eh, all the glass is broken except this piece somehow look at the old light bulbs around the entire edge, yeah, there are some really cool ones above the door, in the other hallway , it's like a carnival look, yeah look, I feel like this mall looks very dated, but you wouldn't.

I don't have to do much to modernize it. There is no new apartment. New lights. New colors. New railing. That's most of it. It's probably more people. This looks like one of the areas of the main atrium where they had two water fountains. Ask him, it's a big store, oh yeah. they have benches here, they were probably placed around the mall, yes, if this roof design could hold up, yes, the structure itself would hold up, that's right, a lighting and the color scheme and the railing stand out quite a bit. that seems outdated yes, but they could change it in the whole area, it probably can't support them all anymore, although otherwise it wouldn't have closed in the first place, there's an anchor store back here that's drilling, sounds a bit like that. that's what they're putting plywood over the doors, well we'll find out when we try to put it down, it sounds like a power tool or something, there are airsoft balls everywhere, oh yeah, it would be pretty sick to play airsoft in here, yeah, it we are using. airsoft at one time like officially, yes, like organized teams and negative things from a child or yes, you know what it was, there was a place to take pictures, yes, the image of people, yes, there are no trees left.

Each courtyard of the shopping center has the same features, fountains, an elevator in some hardware. escalators balcony on the second level that surrounds well, this is an anchor store, it is sure to be quite large, those crossed escalators or the classic department stores of a shopping center smell a little strange. It's a pretty plain looking big warehouse, although a lot of the decor is probably removed as if even the ceiling here is nothing special some of these steps some of the steps are loose and it's more open because people broke it those are grenades from airsoft huh so they use the whole mall that sounds pretty fun to be honest subtle shapers jewels well now what should we finish our video if they're still here? maybe it's not right, they came out this way, they went into this building, they did it, they left here to have a good excuse, like we were trying to leave, yeah, I told us to leave.

We tried, we can, yeah, I can't believe they actually locked that door from the inside, yeah, so the strangest thing just happened. everyone is invading, they should let him go to the assembly as if they are rulers here too. I always said it's okay we just need to collect our things and we'll leave so we walked in their direction and then we saw that the door we came in was completely sealed yeah so we couldn't leave so he came back here and no there are security guy signs so I guess you know we said we would leave but we tried and we couldn't so I guess you should end our video now.

Let's not share videos while we try to find another place to go. Yes, you may have completely sealed everything this store has. Although there is another luggage cart that looked like a pharmacy for Walgreens or CVS or something. Yes, it says Walgreens here. Yes, it's not normal. For those who are in a mall like you haven't seen that before, it really collapses malls. I guess it's not popular, but this song seems older, so I got the green card. They have the whole glass side of that escalator that disappeared, you know? What would be the Holy Grail?

A shopping center where all the stores are still fully stocked with merchandise. How could it never happen? Although people would never happen. It's as if Chernobyl or Fukushima happened in a shopping mall or a natural disaster. Yes, he is there. Well for sure, he's the same guy, who doesn't want the right DC shirt, he's probably looking this way. We headed to the back of the mall to stay out of sight of security and maximize the amount of time we could film before they kicked us out. outside it's like a workshop look at all the things here look at this you shouldn't see there's a lot of paint there yeah but look here it does say like the workshop wait look this side this has to be such old shit coming soon there will be a new and exciting one McDonald's Wow that's the alternate mall sign, all the flower pots were found here, yeah we've been looking for that exit and all the ways out we saw from the outside before they were sealed up, this largely doesn't continue. storage area, although look at this whole conveyor belt system, they would have to organize everything, these are all posters of the store mannequins, this is so outdated, holy cow, the walk we are struggling right now to see the cinematics of movies from the upper floors, take everything and avoid. whoever's here is still here, I'm driving screws okay, so we're going to head to the food court area, which is where the workers seem to be, so they'll probably see us and take us right there, so this will probably do the end of the video yeah there's no other way there's no other way obviously still everything so they did a really good job on this place what we did then and no it's not like that oh sure you guess yeah, this is like destroying anyway, I heard you.

That's right, yeah, we can leave right there, yeah, we can ask, we can take some more photos, or maybe I should, I think we've seen enough, I'll just say hello, you guys have a good job, yeah, the way we walked in, you are walled up. look outside hmm, we're not, no, like I said, you guys did a good job, yes, yes, all the doors we came in and saw open or closed now, the back door with the green wood was open, yes, it is Well, now it's sealed. yeah, yeah, no, we were just here, yeah, we, when you told us there was no one else, yeah, when you tell us to leave, we'll just leave the way we came in and then we saw it was sealed, so you say, oh , thanks for not doing it. calling the police, okay, thank you, have a good time, eh, currently the owner of the mall, a Chinese investment group, is in an illegal battle against the local government who wants to demolish the building, although the future is uncertain, shopping malls' days are likely numbered, radio ads.

What you heard in this video were actually found on cassette tapes inside the mall offices by John Rev. We will include a link to his archive of content rescued from the mall in the video description. If you enjoyed this episode, consider checking out our Other Abandoned playlist. shopping centers thanks for looking