The basement really was something before renovation. Even to get to the village mall, there was an empty curved hallway that seemed to go on forever as a kid. I never got to see the end. Really got my imagination going.

Great video - really well researched! I work for Urban Edge Properties, owner of Bergen Town Center. We have some exciting renovations coming down the pipeline that should be completed over the next two years. Hopefully you'll visit us again when they're done. And reach out! There are a few other interesting tidbits about the mall's history that I think your viewers would find fascinating - all of which have to do with this Asset's journey to staying relevant to consumers. (A quick one - did you know Bergen Town Center was once home to a ice hockey rink in an outparcel building?) Also, a small correction - there is no paid parking at BTC. All spaces, including the garage, are free!

@RockDog101

3 күн бұрын

My high school’s hockey team used to play at that rink.

I was a mallrat at this mall in the late 80's early 90's. It was completely different then. The village mall was really cool little individual shops with a snack bar in the back. There was also a church downstairs. The escalator for it would have been by the Whole Foods entrance. I used to have lunch with my father at the resturaunt at the top of Sterns. It had some good stores like Record Town, Randy's Candies, and World Imports. Newberries was a Woolworth type of store with a lunch counter. Also that orange & yellow fountain I remember dearly. I used to fish for change as a child in there. People would throw coins in there and make wishes. I was sad when they got rid of it. Lots of great memories of this place.

@danielhuppert260

2 күн бұрын

You've got to be kidding me. Lisette? We used to hang out together in this mall, hahaha! Small world, wow!

Bergen County is mall central. Garden State Plaza, The Shops at Riverside, Paramus Park, Bergen Towne Center, and The American Dream. Is there a higher concentration of malls in any other county? (and Willowbrook in Wayne on Sundays due to Bergen County Blue Laws.) If you live in Hackensack, you are within 10 miles of all 5 malls.

@jnfr2424

11 күн бұрын

This was always the joke when I was a teen/early 20’s how we can get to any mall within minutes including Nanuet and Palisades center Mall in Upstate New York

@tynao2029

7 күн бұрын

It's no surprise, the culture of Kevin Smith and "Mallrats" was from Northern Jersey (Red Bank)

If you live in NYC you’ll know what Century 21 is!

I grew up with this mall! I lived in fair Lawn, NJ, which is no more than five minutes or 10 minutes from this mall we moved in to New Jersey in 1971 and my mom and grandmother used to always shop at Orbachs. As a child growing up in the 70s, she would leave me at the Magnavox store in the mall to play with the brand new technology called the Atari 2600 gaming console! Those were the days! Thank you very very much for showing me a picture of that very old fountain that I used to love With the iconic orange and yellow and brick red tiles

Before the mall was enclosed it had a small kiddie amusement park. I remember that very well. In 2009 Bobby Flay opened up a Bobbys Burger Palace. It thrived until Covid then never reopened. It is immensely thriving.

Mall is doing fine!😊

My friends & I used to hang out here all the time before we "graduated" to the Garden State Plaza. The entire downstairs (not just the Village) was creepy and desolate. You used to be able to walk practically the entire length of the mall along an eerie hallway, and not encounter another person the entire way. At one end was some sort of children's dance space (below what's now the Whole Foods), and the other end had a spiral staircase that led up to an exit next to the Burger King (now part of Target). In the middle was the giant escalator that ran parallel to the outer windows. There was a carpeted stage at the bottom underneath it. We all used to burn our initials into the carpet with cigarettes, the delinquents that we were, ha!

I miss the orange and yellow fountain lol. I grew up in those malls!

I worked here from 00-03 at the game stop. The mall increased drasticly in size when they removed the value city and replaced it with more mall and the target at the end. The ceilings were always high but they added a lot more sky lights

@blue-steel7177

27 күн бұрын

Also the basement had a chappel and a small village that had shops. It also had a bowling ally that was closed for decades. It didn't have computer scoring

Village mall entrance was where the whole foods was now. There was steps to go foen to the chappel and village mall and previously the bowling ally. When they redesigned rhey nade that entrence much wider. But it used to me the soze kf the forst entrsnce you came in. It had a dance studio, wendys , painting frame store, and a great pizza place that did $5 pies which was dinner during work most weeks lol

Century 21 started in NYC as a discount store but expanded to a famous department store that sales brand name at a huge markdown. Tourist & locals flock to the store, but closed down after Covid.

@peterwelby

Ай бұрын

It was closed by the government.

@rl8429

Ай бұрын

And then Century 21 reopened one flagship store, in Financial District, Manhattan

I used to work there when it was the Bergen Mall at a sore called Lerners. It was such a strange place with the Village Mall down below and the dandelion pond. I loved it though. ❤

It was beautiful

I grew up in Maywood. The Bergen Mall was my playground. lol

Cool to see a two-level mall - and a thriving one, at that! It's a bit more familiar to me. In my city, you have to go out to the far suburbs to find a mall that's only one level tall and isn't a strip mall. Edit: The description of the mall-within-a-mall was also quite interesting.

Keep up the good work, man!!

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Thanks, will do!

My dentist was at that mall and the mall is doing very well I only miss the Vintage shops back in the 70,s

The original Century 21 department store was in Bay Ridge Brooklyn. Then there was one on Cortlandt street in lower Manhattan. They expanded into several other areas but have now gone out of business.

In 1962 The Playhouse At The Mall opened at the Bergen Mall .The intimate, 635‐seat playhouse was founded in 1962 by Robert Ludlum in an attempt to bring theater to the marketplace, and make it easy and convenient for ordinary citizens to enjoy many stage productions and concerts of popular singers at that time. Also had a Catholic chapel in the lower level near The Village Square.

@MrSloika

Ай бұрын

A lot of famous stage, TV and film actors appeared at the Payhouse on the Mall. In 1970 William Shatner appeared in a production of "The Tender Trap". In the late 60's early 70s many suburban dwellers no longer wanted to travel into NYC to see a show, so Broadway brought the shows to the suburbs.

@jnfr2424

11 күн бұрын

After the playhouse we would have lunch across the way at Wolfies 😊

@Snowboarder16

4 күн бұрын

@@jnfr2424yup great memories

Good-looking from the outside. Impressive entrances, not just a small door next to the loading dock. The entrances open directly to a wide corridor. The high ceiling height makes the space feel open, and it doesn't have the claustrophobic narrow corridors like so many other shopping centers from the 70s and 80s.

Love your videos

Impressive history of this mall. Glad to see it is doing well in this day and age. From the outside, it reminds me of any Westfield Mall, but I don’t believe Westfield had any outlet type properties.

The fountain was the orange and yellow one, it wasn't all that big. From what I remember as a kid, the heads were like the fountain you pictured from Sydney but just a lot smaller.

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Oh ok. The articles I read made the fountain sound more impressive than that

There’s more stores outside the mall. Olive Garden. Lowe’s for example that are part of the shopping center. Plus another part of the mall on the other side of the highway.

@blue-steel7177

27 күн бұрын

You talking about where the chunky cheese was but is now an rein and best buy? That isn't a highway just a road. The mall doesn't cross route 4 at all

Not sure where you got the idea that you have to pay to park in the enclosed parking because it is not true.

Nice vid

Heyy Tom I would love to get to know you better I grew up in Glastonbury but now I live in New Orleans I love your videos I love that your covering the abandoned places and malls I have long been wondering about up there in Connecticut

Iirc it was more than a renovation, they tore down the majority of the building and rebuilt it. I do have fond memories of going to this mall with my mom as a kid. I remember always wondering where the stairs leading down led to, my mom always said it was just for staff because she didn't want to waste time going down there. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out there was the village down there with a really cool games shop.

This mall is jammed packed it’s not dying.

Some other additions for the redevelopment were the out-parcels. Lincoln Tech had a standalone building but then moved to the uppermost level of the mall. The building was then demolished, Olive Garden & Bahama Breeze would take its place. The strip of stores at 17:30 were also built around the 2000s. Interestingly, they’re technically part of a different town (Maywood), not Paramus.

For the longest time the mall had a chapel. I think they were previously in the basement level, then moved to the 2nd floor as part of the renovation in the 2000s. Then it closed around 2017. Burlington has since taken over that space along with what was previously offices.

I love the mall music

Hi Tom, love your channel. Any update on the Enfield Mall? We frequented back in the 90's, 2000's when we lived in Enfield. Now we hardly mall shop anywhere.

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Yes I did an update video on the Enfield Mall last month. No real updates since then, but it appears it will be torn down in the not too distant future.

grew up with this mall wish i coulda seen it in the 70s, 80s

@Snowboarder16

4 күн бұрын

What town were you from

You should do the Viewmont Mall in Dickson City, PA, and the Steamtown Mall in Scranton!

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Some day!

That mall within a mall concept was popular in renovated factory mill malls in the early 70's. Funny how this mall never got a proper food court during the 2000's renovation.

I remember Value City & Macys in that mall.

Just to let you know that the parking lot that you talked about in the end is free parking there's no pay parking

I remember a dept store called Venture back in the 80's.

I worked at that mall in 1999' or 2,000 - can't recall, as a second job, over the Christmas holiday, working at Sterns.

The mall also has two projects in the works. One includes a new Hackensack Meridian Health Center around the area currently fenced off (next to Bahama Breeze). Apartments are also proposed at a site where REI currently sits.

@MrSloika

Ай бұрын

Apartments are also coming to nearby Garden State Plaza.

@MichaelRei99

Ай бұрын

That is horrible.

Rare win

7:19 Century 21 is a store from Manhattan where they had a few other stores until they declared bankruptcy because COVID. But they brought back the original in manhattan. They were unrelated lol.

@MrSloika

Ай бұрын

Century 21 was very popular with Orthodox Jewish women.

It's funny seein' a photobooth (7:50) in each of the malls. In this day of cellphones and selfies, do they even get used, anymore?🤔

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Not sure. I've never seen them being used

17:03 That moment when you aren't sure if the elevator doors will open, and what to do if they don't? Thanks for a great video! Clearly a thriving mall.

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was just slow or what. I think those guys at the bottom were working on it. It might have been turned off for a minute.

Gonna be a bit nit-picky lol, but I did notice vacancies. Although, most of them already have upcoming tenants that have signed on by now.

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Hmm. I missed that somehow

Irony that this is a budget-minded mall, yet has a Whole Foods ("Whole Paycheck"). You missed a glass elevator about halfway in the video, but it was door-only, so maybe not worth it. (Not the fully concealed one 2/3s through.)

SmartBunny has a great video of the Bergen Mall on KZread of the before times…

My local mall went from dying to new life, thankfully!

That mall is doing 100% fine its a mad house during lunch time theres a CAVA on the outside and cvs on the corner entrance off 4 east bestbuy next door it has everything you need in a smaller mall favorite mall to go to .

Did I miss it or did this mall not have a food court?

@rl8429

Ай бұрын

No food court. There are food places scattered around the exterior of the mall and some close together near the Target entrance.

@jeremyud

Ай бұрын

@@rl8429 I've noticed that about pre-1975 malls that they often don't have a food court. Those that do usually added them on during renovations in the 80's, but it doesn't look like they thought it'd be worth it.

@MichaelRei99

Ай бұрын

@@jeremyudParamus Park is Pre1975 and it had a level just for food venders. AKA food court.

There used to be a Chuck E. Cheese here!

NJ has a lot of thriving malls still. Livingston mall isn't looking so good right now

Did you not notice you were following what looked like a mall security person for a while around the 13:00 mark?

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

I sure did. I figured being behind them was the safest spot because they weren't looking at me.

Maybe it is because we don't have anything like this near me but it always seems so weird to me to see a grocery store inside a mall

@rl8429

Ай бұрын

Not one but two if you count Target as well.

@MrSloika

Ай бұрын

It was common at one time. There was a Grand Union supermarket inside the nearby Garden State Plaza back in the 60s.

@jamiewinters1959

24 күн бұрын

There is another mall about a mile away from here called Paramus Park that is co-anchored by a Stew Leonard’s grocery store.

I don’t believe Marshal’s and Burlington Coat Factory are “high end” stores. Same with Kohls. I think your dreaming if you think this is a high end mall.

It looks pretty healthy. Odd to see a healthy mall. It must be in the perfect spot for a mall.

@MrSloika

Ай бұрын

Most of the stores are 'fast fashion' or outlets. The kind of stores that sell cheap fashionable stuff.

How did you like this mall?

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Not bad.

There was a comic store in the village mall

@jnfr2424

11 күн бұрын

As well as a Post Office and and a headquarter for the Girl Scouts

@Snowboarder16

4 күн бұрын

Yes that was in the basement

How is the mall thriving? Hardly anyone there

@jnfr2424

11 күн бұрын

You think so? Not when you see people waiting outside to enter Nike and you can’t get parking near Target

Haven't been there in years, too much traffic, stores around there

@Snowboarder16

4 күн бұрын

Oh come on!!!

looks fine but not a busting mall

@MrSloika

Ай бұрын

On Saturday this place is mobbed. It's closed on Sunday due to Bergen County's 'Blue Laws'.

@MichaelRei99

Ай бұрын

You are wrong most of the time it is hard to find parking there.

My friend is named Bergen

Not Dying

@fleabittenadventures

Ай бұрын

Nope