(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randhurst_Mall). It was called "admit it, you still think randhurst is the shit." However, it was pretty much a joke because randhurst sucks big time. Or at least, it did. They recently knocked it down.
But when it still was around, it was a huuuuge hangout for middle-schoolers (when I was a kid), and I remember my mom dropping me off there with friends to kill a few hours, then she'd pick us up. Looking back, though, it was super lame. I mean, Carson Pirie Scott was the main anchor department store. Yikes, talk about a recipe for disaster. The stores in there never seemed to survive very long, and half of the storefronts were empty because they just weren't in business.
The place was so old it had A BOMB SHELTER. My dad said he remembered it as like, the only mall around when he was a kid. Think about how disappointing that would have been. Actually, it probably had its glory days in the 60s and 70s.
But in the 90s, half of the mall was composed of abandoned store fronts. It even had a food court...then it completely closed and it was as pathetic looking as those used-to-be-pay-phone-areas at hotels and public buildings. You know, where it's all not lit up and there are exposed wires poking out of the wall, longing to be needed for something.
Just read this excerpt from the aforementioned wikipedia article about the decade of the 90's at randhurst:
In 1990, Bergner's - which had acquired Carson Pirie Scott in 1989 - closed their Randhurst store, allowing the Carson Pirie Scott anchor to move into the grander ex-Wieboldt's building while JCPenney took over the former Carson Pirie Scott anchor. Wickes Furniture briefly occupied the Spiess anchor, until Circuit City and Old Navy took over the space in 1995; meanwhile, a new Filene's Basement minor anchor occupied the majority of the "bazaar" level. This brought Randhurst to its greatest level of occupancy ever - three major anchors and four minor anchors - and an all-time peak of 1,400,000 square feet (130,000 m2) of retail space.
The next ten years, however, would be much more difficult for Randhurst. The construction and expansion of multiple shopping malls in the area, especially the improvements to Woodfield Mall in nearby Schaumburg, devastated Randhurst's shopping base, as did the local population's general change in shopping tastes. The mall's management tried to compensate by updating the mall's decor and adding new Jewel-Osco and Home Depot stores at the perimeter of the mall (the Home Depot replacing the old Randhurst Ice Arena, Wards Auto Center and a Child World Store); despite this, foot traffic fell, and stores began disappearing from the mall at a rapid rate. This included the Filene's Basement minor anchor, which closed in 1999 (along with three other Chicago-area Filene's Basement stores).
Yes, that's right, there was actually a basement floor COMPELTELY UNUSED. And for those of you who don't know, Woodfield Mall is like, HUGE. I thought it was weird how there seemed to be so many out-of-towners at that mall all the time, even from other countries. Then I realized that they were visiting Chicago, then came all the way out to Schaumburg to go to Woodfield. People from OTHER COUNTRIES were coming to Woodfield during their vacation to Chicago: it was that special.
I was looking at the group the other day, and I saw a wall post I put on there that made me laugh out loud. God, I'm so clever.
"I like how after Katie just made this a few weeks ago that we have two FEWER members today. People joined it for like twelve days and quit. Those quitters will prolly end up being franchise owners at Randhurst someday."
