Exploring the Abandoned Northridge Mall

in today's episode were exploring the abandoned Northridge mall which first opened its doors in 1972 it operated successfully for several years but soon began to run into trouble the malls location was chosen due to its proximity to a planned freeway but it was cancelled after locals protested then in the 90s concerns of high crime rates in the area began to further erode the malls clientele the economic recession of 2001 was the final nail in the coffin with many tenants opting not to renew their lease the mall would close to two years later in 2003 for the following 15 years the mall would remain under tight security with the interior serving as a time capsule of late 20th century commercial architecture in recent years however thieves and vandals began to win the battle with security and the condition of the building has quickly deteriorated now we're venturing inside to see what's left [Music] [Music] North Ridge Mall September updates surroundings by number 94 - 11 60-second radio hello my name is Joanie Passos the new marketing director for Northridge mall where we have many new and exciting things happening and I'd like to share some of them with you inside the mall Northridge has tripled the amount of flowers and it's simply beautiful outside our new parking lot signs feature of Laurel key so it's easy to identify and remember whether you're parked in our rose organ easy or to look black plus we have a free customer shuttle and courtesy phones at the main mall entrances so you can call for a ride oh and don't put your sunglasses away just yet because we've installed new parking lot lights in the evening our lights are bright as a summer stay for times like these the movies yeah that's probably a good place to start a movie theater inside the mall it's probably a two-story movie theaters there's an escalator right here did you gather got all this glass though yeah this down is a dark hallway let's check out upstairs first and refreshments that font is so 70s here the door of this theater is open and the projection room Peter six is that projection yeah if there's nothing in here not much left yeah the seats are all removed you can see the frame from where the screen wise but nothing else that's a small screen though it is it's not a big theater they might have had a bigger theatres cinema screens online but there's also columns in it column and she usually don't see in a theater I mean obviously they wouldn't have seats there yeah but still I wonder if this was retrofitted into a movie theater my debate or on maybe other screens will still be there probably not though theater five the movies five right is the same situation absolutely nothing start down there this might not even be a movie theater no there's only four or five six up there maybe it is was this the main lobby yeah this was you'd see where they had the movie posters on the wall right here [Applause] another refreshment booth 1 2 3 right smells kind of moldy might want to bust out the respirator it does smell moldy there is mold on the walls these are gonna be the big cinemas yeah it's very mold in here oh it's flooded holy [ __ ] it is that explains the mold these are hardly bigger also they're very different design less retro it's flooded look at the mold on ceiling tiles let's get out of your [ __ ] and just like this sound deadening stuff and the curtains on the wall should absorb moisture light fixtures here in a row empty poster cases wish there were some posters but I moved everything holy [ __ ] that's a big cinderblock wall what the hell they just built a cinderblock wall through the lobby oh you know what that's the hardware store the Menards can't see it in the video I guess early I said hardware store we're giving a location away it's pretty popular and they're demolishing it we'll decide later that's the Bernards there's an active store behind this wall there used to be a series but they just demolishes that and built something else people it's so weird this wall just cut off okay they're not making noise it seems the malls of pretty popular spot with locals as we could hear many other people in the building with us we try to avoid them in order to focus on our filming doesn't the picture people kind of sound like a knockoff of us did you even notice what this is right here part of their Christmas setup the roof is pretty cool [Music] these storefronts I just ripped out [Music] oh this was like an office there's blueprints for the whole place this includes like shelf layouts and everything retail planning oh they had the centerpieces here like the stories that were on the car oh yeah whatever they called yep that's pretty dated looking it is the pink and green kinda reminds you of Miami huh all the glass is smashed except this one piece somehow look at the old light bulbs around the entire rim yeah there are some really cool ones above the door way down that other hallway it's kind of like a carnival look yeah look I feel like this mall looks really dated but you wouldn't have to do that much to modernize it no new floor new lights new colors new railing that's most of it [Applause] that's probably more people [Applause] this looks like one of the main atrium areas where they had two water fountains and ask this is a big store oh yeah they have benches in here these were probably placed around the mall yeah if like this ceiling design would hold up yes structure itself would hold on it's just like this a lighting and it and the color scheme and the railing pretty much stand out I've got that looks outdated yeah but they could change that all up the area probably can't support them all anymore though otherwise it wouldn't have gone out of business in the first place there is an anchor store back here that's drilling does sound a little like that are they putting plywood over the doors well we'll find out when we try to leave it sounds like a power tool or something there's airsoft BB's everywhere oh yeah that would be pretty sick to play airsoft in here yeah we're using it for airsoft at one point like officially yeah like organized teams and stuff a negative of a kid or yeah you know what it was there was a photo spot yeah the picture people yeah no trees left every mall courtyard has the same features fountains an elevator in some ironwork escalators second-level balcony that wraps around okay this is an anchor store for sure it's pretty huge smells weird a little bit those crossed escalators or the classic department store in a mall it's a pretty plain looking department store though a lot of the decor is probably removed like even the ceiling here is nothing special some of these steps some of the steps are loose and it's more open because people smashed it out those are airsoft grenades huh so they use the whole entire mall for that sounds pretty fun to be honest subtle shapers jewelry well now what should we finish our video if they're still in here maybe not okay went out this way they went in this building they did they came out of here to have a good excuse like we tried to leave yeah I told us leaving we try to we can yeah I can't believe they actually bolted that door shut from the inside yeah so the weirdest [ __ ] thing just happened security walked in the building and said y'all are all trespassing did he say that yes he said you guys are all trespassing you need to let him go it assembly like it was rulers in here too I always said okay we just need to get our stuff and we'll leave so we walk to their direction then we saw the door we walked in was completely sealed yeah so we couldn't leave so he came back out here and there's no sign of the security guy so I guess you know we said we would leave but we tried and we couldn't so I guess you should to finish our video now let's not share video while trying to find another place to leave yeah you might have sealed everything this stores completely go altough there's another luggage cart this looked like it was a pharmacy to Walgreens or CVS or something yeah it says Walgreens right here yeah it's not normal for those to be in a mall like they haven't seen that before really really collapse malls I guess like not not popular but this song looks older so I got the green card display they have the entire glass side of that escalator is gone you know what the Holy Grail would be a mall where all the stores are still fully stocked with merchandise how don't never happen though people never that would happen it's like our Chernobyl or Fukushima happened to a mall or natural disaster of some some yeah he's right there security fine it's the same dude which one don't want the right shirt DC you probably he's looking this way [Applause] we took to the back quarters of the mall to remain out of sight of security and maximize the amount of time we could film before being kicked out it's like a workshop look at all the stuff in here look at this you should not see there's a bunch of paint in there yeah but look in here yeah says like the workshop wait look at this side this has to be so old holy [ __ ] coming soon a new and exciting McDonald's Wow that's alt mall sign here's the found all the planters yeah we've been looking for that exit and all of the ways to exit that we saw from outside before these have been sealed this does not continue up some big storage area though check out this whole conveyor belt system they'd have to organize everything these are all posters from the stores mannequins this is so dated holy cow the walk we're struggling right now to see the upper floors film cinematics carry everything and avoid whoever's in here still here I'm nailing screws end [Music] [Music] okay so we're going to head to the food court area which is where it sounds like the workers are so they're probably gonna see us and take us out right there so this will probably do the end of the video yeah there's no other way no other way obviously still everything so they did a very good job this place what we did then and no it's not yeah oh sure you suppose that yeah this is like destroy anyway I heard you that right yeah we can leave right there yeah we can ask we can take a few more pictures though or maybe I should just I think we saw enough I'll just wave you got a good job yeah the way we came in you guys boarded up check outside [Music] hmm we're not no as I said you guys did a good job yeah yeah all the doors we came in and we saw open or closed now the back door with the green wood on it was open yeah it's good now it's sealed now yeah [Music] yeah no we were just here yeah we when you told us no anyone else yeah when you tell us to leave me we're just gonna leave the way we came in then we saw it was sealed so you're like oh thanks for not calling the cops all right thank you here well have a nice eh currently the malls owner a Chinese investment group is an illegal battle against the local government which wants the building demolished although the future is uncertain it's likely that the malls days are numbered the radio ads you heard in this video were actually found on cassette tapes within the mall offices by John Rev we'll 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 playlist of other abandoned malls thanks for watching

Channel: The Proper People

Views: 3,866,571

Rating: 4.8974204 out of 5

Keywords: abandoned, urban, exploration, urbex, exploring, haunted, proper, people, theproperpeople, abandoned mall, mall, dan bell, dead mall, dead malls, vaporwave, mallsoft, aesthetic, new york, usa, america, travel, documentary, milwaukee, northridge mall, Wisconsin, retail, apocalypse, starcourt mall, starcourt, creepy, decay, security, caught

Id: n67s2r6fVKg

Length: 26min 52sec (1612 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/georgecm12]

As people over on YouTube commented, the maintenance worker they spoke with at the end was very probably Victoriano Diaz, the one that was killed by electrocution in July. Very sad... seemed like a very nice gentleman.

Not that there was ever any chance of anything productive to be made of the remains of Northridge at this point, it's still sad to see how quickly it's devolved. A few years ago, the mall was like a time capsule. Everything was so well preserved that you could even easily tell which former storefronts were which. Now, they're almost all so trashed they're indistinguishable.

[u/Trayf]

So weird to see this. I worked at the Best Buy across the street, which is now a patch of grass.

[u/TowersOfToast]

I've heard ever since Casey Neistat's Christmas video, break-ins have skyrocketed.

[u/4_bit_forever]

Back in the 90's I used to drive up there from Illinois to deliver Beanie Babies and chocolates

[u/theKiev]

Shout out to /u/BryanTPP and /u/michaelbrnd, thanks for letting us take another walk down memory lane!

Sad to see things in such poor condition, very cool nonetheless.

Keep up the great work!

[u/emsage12]

Back when malls had those water fountains! Wow forgot what it looked like inside

[u/ThomasDaykin]

Here's the latest I've reported on this. By the way, much of the decline accelerated because of a big increase in break-ins after the December 2017 video was released on YouTube by Casey Neistat...

https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/real-estate/commercial/2019/09/20/northridge-mall-workers-death-becomes-part-milwaukee-demolition-case/2384338001/

[u/nachomountain]

There are airsoft games there now apparently, sounds pretty sweet

[u/freshnutmeg33]

Worked nearby in the 80s, often went for lunch and shopping.