There used to be a water park in my hometown that had a bunch of slides and a wave pool. I used to go there all the time as a kid, and even went there as a senior on a trip. I went to birthday parties there, sometimes.
It closed in 2020 and never reopened because they had apparently been avoiding paying bills for years. It wasn’t just the pandemic. It was visible from the freeway, so I watched it slowly being demolished over the next couple years any time I passed by.
I haven’t found a water park that really compared to it yet. Most are either too small or part of a larger theme park, which is fine. It just seemed like the fact that it exclusively was a water park allowed it to focus more on the atmosphere and types of slides it had.
The mall. Technically it’s still there, but it’s a shell of its former self.
The mall I used to ride my bike to as a child, where my favorite Arcade (Aladdin’s Castle) & had a toy store (K.B. Toys) was leveled to the ground about 20 years ago, with the exception of like two restaurants at the corner of the building.
It’s now some fake ass ‘downtown’ like outdoor mall, in Michigan, with terrible parking & it’s just gross.
I miss Meadowbrook Mall, man, I miss it a lot.
I was gonna say “The Arcade” but you made me remember the entire mall it resided in got blown up.
Town centers and outdoor outlet centers are just malls, but worse. No AC, fewer small businesses somehow, parking shoved in between the stores, and (in the town centers) half-assed (at best) mixed use.
For all of their many, many flaws, a lot of malls actually fell backwards into accidentally doing some interesting things in terms of being community spaces.
Ten years ago our local mall was thriving, I remember taking 2 hours to deliver my wife dinner during the Christmas season because of the huge line to get in and out. Now, 80% of the stores are gone and the rest are barely hanging on. The mall itself is up for sale.