The Abandoned Burlington Center Mall, an Epitaph | ExLog 40 - Phase III Premiere

but it's the first large sculpture that I ever did it was a challenge it was intimidating autograph as many other things as I could but I came back to pedals because that was you know very strong when I first got in the cage there were three elephants and just like with a dog let us know I want to feel their bones their muscles and I want to draw them and sculpt them so I stood in the middle around the 303 came over to me and they started my shoes like three vacuum cleaners son well I'm very worried about what might happen to it because I don't want to see it destroyed it was made for children I'm very happy that the president owner wants it to be out there he wants people to experience it and especially children I hope you don't have another the life it's life will continue and here I think we should save the elephants and in general hey what's up guys my name is Sal and I'd like to welcome you all to phase three of the expedition log series in this 40th episode we will be revisiting the Burlington Center Mall in Burlington Township New Jersey in January of 2019 I got the opportunity to film this mall with permission from the owners while conducting an interview on behalf of Pete Blackbird Jack Thomas and Brian Florence at debt malls calm for their website the interviews with the Tokyo Broadcasting System on the downfall of the American shopping mall this episode is incredibly special to me not only because I received permission for unrestricted access to the entire mall but also because I was granted some alone time with pedalled the elephant during her last moments alone in this cold lonely shuddered mole so come take a walk with me and my trusty sidekick Anthony from faded Commerce as we tour the burlington center mall one last time but first a word from our sponsor actor Jonathan frid in role as Barnabas Collins from the incredibly campy and often botched live sitcom from the late 1960s dark shadows selling his brand-new board game by Milton Bradley [Music] this is one of his columns he lives in a strange world a world of and and dark shadows now the world of Dark Shadows is yours in a strange new game by Milton Bradley love Barnabas Collins dark shadows game each player spins things and spoons from the company but watching for the dreaded state struggle to complete a skeleton a skeleton that glows in the dark if you win the ghost of the vampire is yours you've ever set a bar of his fangs and Milton Bradley makes the best games of the world and the Barnabas Collins game is the scariest the year is 1982 and Jim rouse is about to open a brand-new mall in New Jersey this mall will be in direct competition from two already established and well-to-do local malls Jim rouse himself opened the Cherry Hill Mall in 1961 which was designed by the famed architect Victor Gruen Burlington would open just minutes away the Moores town mall opened in 1963 and Burlington would open just 15 minutes away both the Cherry Hill and Moorestown underwent several renovations over the years always keeping them current attractive and modern with comfortable amenities catering to the changing once and needs a retail culture if you listen very closely here you'll hear some sort of alarm but to me it sort of sounds like somebody pulled the power cord to a life-support machine and the patient is actually coding it sounds like you're hearing this mall actually dying the first time that it came to this mall I didn't spend much time around the perimeter of it and I really didn't give it much thought but when I came back a few times afterwards I couldn't help but notice all of the birds singing and then when you look at the actual facade of this mall their chosen logo is a bird and I wonder if Jim rouse actually used the singing of the birds in the natural habitat to design what became the burlington bird listen to their music it's gorgeous and how about that Sears label scar we're going to revisit that Sears later because we actually find an active water main break at this mall as I was trying to conduct my interview but that comes a bit later in the episode so stick around for that we're currently looking at the outer facing entrance to the Strawbridge in clothier which was an original anchor here and that later became a Macy's but they did retain a lot of the original visuals that were installed with these draw Burgess like that seal up there that's the original strauber to seal this never got renovated which is a trend for this mall nothing was ever renovated so the way that you see this mall today this is exactly as it was in 1980 this stairwell was so creepy to me and all of the stairs were rotted out so I couldn't go up there I couldn't get up those stairs if you watch very closely you'll see a bee coming in from the right side of the screen it almost killed me and before we get into the mall I just wanted to take a glimpse at this giant transformer or whatever it is out here because you can hear this permeating in the mall and I don't think that this sound got through on the footage so at this point we will get inside them all and again I was here with permission the year was 1982 advanced home computer technology was just starting to capture the hearts of people around the world in 1982 the Time magazine Person of the Year was none other than the computer in 1982 the first CD player was sold in Japan Michael Jackson released his second solo album Thriller at carnegie mellon university computer scientist Scott Fahlman suggested the use of a colon - and left facing parentheses as a way of expressing emotion in an email in theatres we had movie's premiere such as Porky's poltergeists et the extra-terrestrial Rock III and Star Trek - the Wrath of Khan The Weather Channel aired on cable television for the first time in 1982 as well [Music] [Music] the United States was in the midst of an awful awful recession with certain areas of the country hitting nearly 25 percent unemployment the recession peaked in November and December of 1982 with a nationwide average of unemployment hitting ten point eight percent which was the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s in my opinion it might not have been the best time for Jim rouse to open a mall in direct competition with two larger already established walls [Music] all those receipts are from the shady massage parlor it's a lot of receipts [Music] so we're inside this abandoned storefront now and I'm not sure what it used to be but as we get towards the back you're gonna start seeing some Christmas decoration and it's always so sad to me to see abandoned storefronts including Christmas decorations that I know will never be used in that mall again but I am hopeful for them because I learned that all of the Christmas decorations that were used at the Schuylkill mall in fractal Pennsylvania which you can see in Ex logs 10 and 21 the decorations that were used at school have been removed and are now being used at the South mall in Allentown Pennsylvania I'm definitely gonna have to head out there and see the old schuylkill decorations possibly for a special Christmas episode so stay tuned [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] look at the dead plants billowing in the drafty cold mall there was a huge draught that day so it was super cold and I had on like four layers Under Armor shirt light jacket and a pea coat [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so this mall was built in 1982 on a 40 1.7 acre tract of land the original anchors were Strawbridge and clothier and Sears right now however were walking toward the third anchor which rouse added in 1996 and was a JCPenney the JCPenney would shudder in 2014 after a failed redevelopment plan [Music] as it sits it's in pretty rough shape we didn't get inside I wasn't interested in doing it we could have but it was dark and you wouldn't have seen much [Music] look closely do you see any organisms with independent motility in there do you know how many drops of water from the ceiling it took to fill that entire bucket and how much time it took to grow that algae that bucket is not new neither is that water here you can see the famous Moonbeam capital investment LLC banners for fun fashion and dining none of which occur in this mall nor have occurred in quite some time in tandem we'll get to Moonbeam later [Music] just three years after the JCPenney opened to 1996 rouse sold the mall for 10.5 million bucks to Jager management in 1999 even when I was here at the last time when it was still open the mall wasn't vibrant there were stores open and there were people shopping but nothing about this mall ever felt vital it never felt like it was a community hub in all the malls I've been to there are a few that stick out like the Swansea mall I was there right before it closed even until those last few moments you can hear people buzzing desperately trying to show them all owners that they wanted their mall to survive but Burlington it came in with fire and vigor and with a lot of anticipation but the mall just died with a whimper [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] so the reason I was at this mall was I was giving an interview to the Tokyo Broadcasting System for dead malls calm because Jack called me he said that neither he nor Brian could make it so he asked if I would stand in and do the interview it did air somewhere in Japan but I can't find it the question that they were asking me mainly was why are malls failing why are we seeing so many dead malls so what did kill the non super regional suburban rural mall was at amazon.com was it the Internet these are the two places that everybody in my comment section always go to when you guys look at these videos your first thought is Amazon killed them all no that's not true the reason we're losing so many of these malls today is because of an aggressive over expansion of malls during the 80s and 90s when given the choice mainstream shoppers will go to the mall with the most lavish amenities choices and safety why would you ever go to a mall with subpar stores because it's closed it's possible but before the great mall expansion in the late 20th century people had quote their mall their local mall but they didn't think of it like this they think of it like that now but back then they just didn't have any options so they just visited that mall because it was there then they got options they got choices and soon they were presented with the option of the old mall with terrible stores and dated amenities or the new wall which might be a little bit further but may have that thing that they're really looking for wouldn't you travel a bit further if it meant you could find what you were looking for and purchase it today and have it in your hands today recently I had to purchase a new tuxedo and the tuxedo needed to be a tailcoat so I visited all of my local malls down from DC all the way up to Southern Pennsylvania I was only able to find what I was looking for at the Towson town center but even then at the men's wearhouse they were trying to tell me that tales were out of style and that nobody needed them anymore so therefore you couldn't purchase them and this guy was talking down to me trying to tell me that I shouldn't buy them I play concerts a lot and most of the concerts I play I need the telco so I needed to purchase these things I can't rent them each time I play a concert that's ridiculous so I looked around I went everywhere White Marsh Westminster Dundalk Gaithersburg Tysons even down to Fairfax nobody would sell me tales so I jumped onto the internet and I found a wonderful website do Balcom they're from London I purchased tales from them because they were selling tales it was done I got to day shipping and I did it in about 10 minutes and I never left my studio is this the thing that killed malls that convenience of buying something like that no it's not did it contribute to the downfall of malls no but it's the thing that's taking advantage of the downfall of the overabundance of way way way too many malls that are now scaling back because they think people should have a certain thing and these specialty stores are trying to decide what consumers need and because they're limiting the choices that they give people they think people don't need tales anymore so they're not going to sell them it's forcing consumers who need something special to find it somewhere else and it just so happens that that place is the Internet [Music] [Music] in 2006 when I was in college I was driving around this bust at 1994 Dodge shadow I loved that car it actually used to be my grandmother's as she called it Emily when she gave it to me it only had like 5,000 miles on it because she only drove it to and from work and her work was only a couple miles away so the car was in pristine condition but I just beat the hell out of it but at the time I could have gone to Crystal City I could have gone to landmark I could have gone to Tyson's as I was at school in Washington DC but I was also learning about Amazon because as I was going to these malls I couldn't really get what I needed because I was a music major I needed certain outfits I needed books for this I needed a music shop I needed to lose the air to get my instrument repaired which was a specialty and I had that but even at the luthier he couldn't provide to me some of the stuff that the internet was selling I could go online and get anything my heart desired because the competing malls and shops my area they couldn't get it together they weren't willing to get it together they weren't willing to find alternate methods to sell to consumers special order is something that I think they should have done a lot earlier than they do it now price matching is something I think they should have done a heck of a lot earlier than they did in [Applause] you see back in the 1980s people had no choice but to purchase things from mall or some mom-and-pop shop or a downtown boutique if they wanted tons of options mall developers and owners took advantage of this and everyone wanted to reap the rewards of the limited availability of malls the problem was though that everyone was taking advantage and was contributing to the issue one mall made to two malls made for four malls made eight and eventually as we approach the millennium the US was so over mauled too many malls were around giving people too many choices confusing them not knowing what was at each of these malls and it would make a lot of them saying you know what I don't know where I want to go so I'm just gonna do some research online and figure out what I want and then go get it at the mall [Music] this research brought them to the fledgling Amazon and eBay and all of the other sites that are now Titans in the online consumer industry over time Amazon began selling more than just books obviously and Elon Musk brought PayPal into the mainstream and gave people a virtual wallet to both buy and sell now you've got Amazon who have not only stuff they're selling from Amazon warehouses but you can sell stuff from Amazon and you can be a third party seller so these people are taking advantage of the convenience that Amazon brought to them because of the overabundance of malls that were just deteriorating across the states Amazon eBay and everyone in between they didn't kill holes they capitalized on the downfall they saw what we're all just noticing now that malls are dying they noticed this incredibly early on and they made a ton of money off of it and they will continue to do so because this is an epidemic across the country and even throughout the world I'm noticing on the dead moles of discord server and on the subreddit that this isn't just happening in the States this is happening across the entire globe [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] The Voice you heard in the opening sequence of this expedition log was that of famed Philadelphia area artist Zino's frudakis looking back on his time that he spent studying to create his first large sculpture commissioned the piece was commissioned by Stockton Strawbridge to commemorate the 1982 grand opening of the Strawbridge and clothier at the Burlington Center Mall mr. Strawbridge chose to name the piece the water hole this sculpture depicts a young boy joyously riding on the back of an elephant and while in operation the elephant's snout would gently pour water in the air falling down its sides in the years leading up to the malls grand opening mr. frudakis would spend time at the Philadelphia Zoo playing with and studying the behavior and anatomy of three elephants that the zoo keepers allowed him access to one in particular was a beautiful African elephant named petal she was a sweetheart and according to mr. frudakis she would act like a puppy she would suck on his shoes and clothing with her snout and she would play and jump and frolic around him [Music] he studied her skin muscles and structure and spent ample time with her the Museum of Natural History in New York also allowed him access to the skeleton of jumbo the elephant who was the beloved friend and showman of the PT Barnum circus for many years mr. fur daka's named the elephant in the statue petal xenos sculpted an utterly joyous ten year old little boy on petals back only based on his understanding and study of the human anatomy with no model I think he nailed it when xenos was studying pedal for the sculpture she was a mere 24 years young she spent her entire life making children and adults happy at the Philadelphia Zoo and she retired gracefully in 2006 she spent her final years resting comfortably at peace and in wonderful care and in 2008 she died at the age of 52 years old her memory lives on forever with the bronze statue which was up until March of 2019 sitting mostly forgotten within the abandoned desolate ill-managed Burlington central mall however in April it was announced that petal will be receiving a new forever home the frudakis family campaigned to get her out the owners actually donated the sculpture to an Arts Guild however they needed to raise funds to restore petal back to her original state and once the restoration is complete her forever home will be on Burlington waterfront and if you stick around through the end of the video you'll see exactly where her forever home will be and in a later episode I planned to visit her after she's been placed in 2006 the Strawbridge was dissolved into Macy's to which the store was converted and then in 2010 that Macy's shuttered and that entire wing slowly became abandoned and peddle got more and more lonely each day we love pedal pedals awesome pedal got me into dead malls so thanks pedal I owe you one [Music] [Music] [Music] in 2012 Moonbeam capital investments LLC of Las Vegas bought this ailing mall for 3.4 million bucks according to their CEO Steve Maxim this was the beginning of the end for Burlington the minute Moonbeam took over [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] moonbeam actually announced a 230 million dollar renovation project that would turn them all into this really awesome town center but it never came to be we're going into the Sears right now and this was the last thing to remain open I didn't want to spend much time in this Sears because it was incredibly hot it was abnormally hot because the inside of the mall was so cold and I felt like something was wrong I just felt like something weird was happening inside this Sears as we were in here so we looked around we got to see some stuff we went and saw the graffiti in the garage but again the biggest thing was how incredibly hot it was because I felt like they had the heat pumped up so high and I've experienced this before I experienced this at the century 3 mall where parts of the mall were incredibly cold and then other parts of the mall were incredibly hot almost purposefully so to create an imbalance in the temperature so in 2018 it was incredibly cold outside and at the Burlington center mall there was a burst water pipe and because of this they decided to close them all wooden beams shut them all down after a water main break and when I was at this mall something weird happened we were finishing up inside any last couple shots getting our last bit of b-roll and then that we needed to leave to go film the interview we were gonna do it in the parking lot so I got to see petal one last time let me said our good-byes and we left them all six Junior [Music] [Music] you know quite a few of those are probably mine they wanted to film the interview right in front of them all so they set up their gear and we started the interview the minute the camera started falling we started hearing an alarm go off so Anthony junior from faded Commerce he took off running to go find out what was going on the interviewer and I started surveying the perimeter to see if we could find anything of interest so we looked around here looked at this side of the Sears there was nothing going on here then we climbed up this grassy knoll and as we got closer I saw jr. in the distance running towards me and he was screaming something was going on Oh No No [Music] we actually witnessed a live water main break at a moonbeam owned mall wave him down June I had no words I didn't know what to say there's a bad water main break in this place this happened last year - yeah that's why they closed it there's a maintenance guy in there I don't know what he's doing there was a water main break at century 3 that closed there was a water main break here it closed there was a water main break at shopping town mall in Syracuse it's not doing well it's probably gonna close these were all moonbeam owned malls I'm not saying anything except I see a trend and the trend is scary [Music] [Music] [Music] this anchor again was the shrub Ridge and clothier original anchor never renovated they converted into a Macy's in 2006 but they closed just four years later in 2010 so the inside of this place hasn't been seen in detail in nearly 10 years but mall staff led us in after the water main break after the interview they let us back in to see it one last time but again it was getting dark this is the only opportunity we would have to see the inside of the abandoned Strawbridge and clavier turned Macy's [Music] now this mall has never received a renovation ever not one yes there's been maintenance but there's never been a renovation all of the malls around it have all been kept up over the years and brought into modern times Moorestown Cherry Hill Voorhees all of these malls have been modernized [Music] this mall just sat here since 1982 look at this place it's so sad [Music] [Music] as we walk around here you're gonna see a lot of broken glass and in any other mall I might assume that it's vandalism but nothing inside of here has been vandalized it's in pretty pristine condition not withholding what Mother Nature has done to it so far [Music] [Music] [Music] there's more than one way to dress this summer with essences fabulous prices cool dresses for warm weather $49.99 funds corsets ruffles and dresses $59.99 pad sexy dresses from way [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] it's awfully rare to get this kind of unrestricted access and permission into an abandoned wall with the kind of celebrity that burlington center mall has had within the dead mall community when dan bell first visited the small and produced his video it took the community by storm and everybody instantly fell in love with petal including me [Music] [Music] it's such a strange phenomenon to fall in love with a mall based on an inanimate object I was so enamored by this place because of petal and in a few seconds here you're going to get a really rare view of the waterhole from within the old Strawbridge yeah I'd love to party inside this mall take a look inside the all entrance at this view of petal nobody will ever see this because at this point she's gone [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Macy's and Liddy jumped up on Santa's lap only one store that's been apart [Music] the dead moles community has grown leaps and bounds over the years since I first started this series as I explore more places and as the community grows I grow more and more fond of the people in it when I first started exploring with Anthony junior from faded commerce he was like a kid he was like a puppy as he was walking around these places but he's really grown and his production quality and his content have grown too so please go and check out faded commerce Anthony and Paula do a great job over there here's another incredibly rare view of that forest green carpet and the arch for the strawberries with the sandblasted or laser-etched I'm not sure logo at the top there that crest is incredible but this anchor has seen way better days [Music] in February of 2019 after the mall was shuttered Clarion partners who are a real estate developer from Dallas and they bought the mall from Moonbeam for 22 million dollars 22 million bucks for this property Clarion builds warehouses that's what they're known for and they proposed a mixed-use development for this but the Township turned it down and we don't really know what they want to do with this yet but if you want my guess they're definitely gonna open a warehouse here it's just a matter of time this one and I guess I can take this one [Music] come on as we're finishing up the tour inside of this nearly 10 years abandoned anchor I want you to just listen to the floor because it was so unstable as we were walking around [Music] this is us just looking for the exit because everything was dark and one of our torches died at this point we're just looking for the exit yeah yes we eventually found the exit and concluded our tour of the abandoned burlington center mall which is probably the last view we'll get in this depth of the mall before its torn down so we decided to fo because the guy that led us in wasn't there anymore he actually called him to let him know that we were leaving right after I stopped filming and I had jr. closed the door make sure it was locked and that was that support saved a beloved piece of art left behind in a shuttered south of Jersey mall this is the sculpture called the waterhole it spent three decades at the burlington center mall when the mall closed the owner donated it to the Arts Guild of New Jersey and the Burlington Rotary Club and others raised funds to move the sculpture pedal the elephant is now heading to the Burlington City Riverwalk I couldn't end this episode without showing you some hope because that mall is in such dire condition and it's going to be demolished I wanted to show you the peaceful calm beautiful area that petal will spend the rest of her years this place is about to be renovated because the concrete is actually eroding into the river look at this she's got friends now this awesome Eagle and there's other statues around here that she'll be friends with and there's kids running around the park and Families they're people enjoying the waterfront and everything has just come it's like a retirement community for a beloved artifact which pedal is and it warms my heart it makes me so happy to finally bring this arc to a close because when I first met pedal I only got to see her for a minute and security escorted me out and then I was able to communicate with deferred occas family and I grew to love petal more and it just made me so sad to learn that she was just stuck in there abandoned but she found a forever home and this is it I'd like to thank all of you for watching this video thank you to all of my patrons to the demos of discord community and Anthony from faded commerce there's a ton more content coming and I'll have episode 41 out very soon so stay tuned for that and make sure you guys subscribe and like and ring that bell to be notified of future content you guys all Rock thanks again and have a fantastic day to all of my flinters [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Sal

Views: 27,591

Rating: 4.8619585 out of 5

Keywords: century iii, century 3 mall, dead mall, pittsburgh, mall, vaporwave, dan mason, urbex, mallsoft, fiesta mall mesa, schuylkill mall, metrocenter mall, 80s, 90s, exploring a mall, food court, expedition log series, abandoned, sears, pennsylvania, sears holdings, jason heine, mountaineer mall, mountaineer, morgantown, west virginia, sal, chungking mansions, exploration, Baltimore, schuylkill, docu vlog, investigative, film, burlington center mall, burlington, moonbeam, chernobyl, dan bell

Id: HugmsaedJxw

Length: 59min 28sec (3568 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/marsakade]

Was pretty pleased to spend my Sunday night watching this.

Does anyone have any insight why certain spots of the mall were super warm/super cold? Do you think it's at all related to the water main break that happened at the end?

[u/deadwrongallalong]

I loved this video so much

[u/GaspardNuit]

This is amazing! A must see. Thanks for sharing!

[u/beardsmanballs]

Wow!!