This is what the Steamtown Mall replaced (Scranton, Wyoming: purchases, prices)

[weluvpa]

What a shame it was when they decided to drop all those great buildings to erect that disgusting mall.

Lackawanna ave could have been an awesome walking mall for the residents and a show piece, but no that wasn't going to happen.


Scranton Implosion

[Mr Yuk]

I agree. Sticking a 1970's indoor mall into a downtown was asinine. Its hurt the downtown more than helped it, and now we're stuck with another big white elephant.

[SteelCityRising]

Cool. I posted a comment on that video approximately a year ago. I bet you can't guess which one is mine!

[blip]

That's depressing to watch. What asinine short-sightedness.

[W-B proud]

People may look back on The Steamtown Mall as a mistake now, but it was the building of the mall that sparked the rebirth of downtown Scranton in the first place...wasn't it? That's what I've heard anyway. Malls all over the country are "out of style" right now. It's not unique to Scranton. At the time when it was built, malls were still the shopping experience of choice. I know that the Wyoming Valley Mall has a shadow of the hords of shoppers it used to have in the 1990's. It used to get so packed that you couldn't even walk through without being shoulder to shoulder with other shoppers, now it's like a ghost town in there. To much new competition. People are to busy these days to park at a mall and stroll around for half a day. They want to pull up to a Target or Wal-Mart... get what they need and get out. Plus, lets face it, you'll pay premium prices at a mall compared to a discount department store, people do not have the money or time to blow at the mall anymore. Maybe if the economy improves in the future, the malls will become popular again... maybe not!

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by blip

That's depressing to watch. What asinine short-sightedness.

...and this surprises you why?

[blip]

Originally Posted by ScranBarre

...and this surprises you why?

I thought the consensus on these boards is that Scranton has long been led by far-sighted, prudent visionaries.

While it's not surprising--many cities made similar if not bigger mistakes, esp with interstates-- it's still depressing to see considering the barren landscape that is Lackawanna Ave now.

[Vinny536]

Originally Posted by W-B proud

People may look back on The Steamtown Mall as a mistake now, but it was the building of the mall that sparked the rebirth of downtown Scranton in the first place...wasn't it? That's what I've heard anyway. Malls all over the country are "out of style" right now. It's not unique to Scranton. At the time when it was built, malls were still the shopping experience of choice. I know that the Wyoming Valley Mall has a shadow of the hords of shoppers it used to have in the 1990's. It used to get so packed that you couldn't even walk through without being shoulder to shoulder with other shoppers, now it's like a ghost town in there. To much new competition. People are to busy these days to park at a mall and stroll around for half a day. They want to pull up to a Target or Wal-Mart... get what they need and get out. Plus, lets face it, you'll pay premium prices at a mall compared to a discount department store, people do not have the money or time to blow at the mall anymore. Maybe if the economy improves in the future, the malls will become popular again... maybe not!

I agree with this.

While outdoor malls are popular now I think the indoor malls will become popular again in the near future.

Locally a brand new outdoor mall has been built, and I couldn't dislike it more. I can't imagine there are that many people who want to walk outdoors from store to store lugging their purchases when its 115 degrees outside (or -15 in NEPA). I also agree right now people are watching what they spend, after our economic crisis settles and everyone has a few more coins in their pockets they will be looking to replace their cheap stuff from walmart with nicer stuff typically from a mall galleria.

Outdoor malls are just a repackaged strip mall from the 60's, look how many of the old outside strip malls are sitting empty, like the east end center. I also think the steamtown mall was a great kick start for scranton. When i visit the area I usually stroll through, or at least use the parking garage to check out the stores outside the mall.

[mbs7]

Thanks for posting the link, but ouch (!), it hurts to watch those buildings fall.

Back when these old buildings went up, labor was cheap (too cheap, really, for the laborers' sakes) and some of the materials they used were superior in many ways to the materials used today. (This is especially true of the wooden components of the buildings.) Often, this means that there is absolutely no way you could build something today that is comparable to one of these old beauties. A lot of the "new" shopping complexes that go up are not constructed to last for centuries and they start to look old and shabby after only a couple of decades. Then, they end up being abandoned so some "new" complex can be built elsewhere. It's ridiculous.

People are starting to realize that reconditioning older buildings makes sense from an environmental standpoint, because there is a lot of energy tied up in an existing building (i.e. all of the energy that went into producing the building materials, shipping them to the site, and assembling them). Unfortunately, it's too late for the buildings in the video as well as for a lot of other lovely old buildings around the country. Scranton certainly isn't the only city that has made this mistake. Here's hoping appreciation for our remaining older buildings continues to grow. Personally speaking, I have to say that I have very little interest in shopping at a mall of any sort: in the end, they're all very much alike and I got bored with them a long time ago.

[NYRangers 2008]

Knock the thing down already. I guarantee no one would miss it. I sure wouldn't. I can't even remember the last time I was there. An outdoor walking mall would have been so much better.