Public disclaimer: I love malls. I don't mind crowds, I like the exhilaration of so many choices, and I really like the food courts, which are usually pretty varied. But the alarms have been sounding about the demise of American shopping malls for awhile now, and it kind of worries me.There are a lot of things that I am NEVER going to buy online, so for now, I'll take my mall shopping while I can.

MSN Lifestyle has found some things that you just can't find at a mall anymore, and boy did these bring back memories! Enjoy, and reminisce, friends.

  • Playgrounds for kids - a real treat for kids who's parents were shopping
  • Sharper Image stores - they went bankrupt in 2008, but they can still be found online
  • Promotional appearances by pop stars - Tiffany, Brittney Spears and Avril Lavigne all used mall appearances to sell millions of records
  • True Religion stores - as their jeans became less popular, they recently filed for bankruptcy
  • Movies that were set in malls - who could forget 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High', or 'Mean Girls'?
  • Book stores - Waldenbooks and Borders have both gone out of business
  • Fountains - a lot of the money tossed into fountains in malls went to local charities, but cost cutting measures have pretty much shut them down
  • Payless - the discount shoe chain used to rule malls, but they recently closed 900 stores
  • Window shopping - it used to be one of the great pleasures of walking the mall, but social media has replaced the allure
  • Record stores - younger kids might even ask 'What's a record'?
  • Arcades - video games at home and on your phones have certainly replaced the fun of playing games at your local mall arcade
  • First jobs - every teenager wanted to work in the mall as their entry into the working world
  • Sports Authority - can you believe this one time giant of retail has closed every single one of their stores
  • Sports Memorabilia stores - these used to be mall staple, selling autographed merchandise from some of your favorite sports teams. No longer. Although I still go to the ones in Las Vegas malls
  • Spending every cent of your allowance - instead of saving up and heading to your local mall, you can now buy just about anything you want online. Not the same, sorry.
  • Radioshack - they just couldn't compete with the online retailers, and filed for bankruptcy. I used to spend a lot of time in Radioshack, and I miss them!
  • Smokers. Nope.
  • Giant Toy stores like FAO Schwartz - as the years have passed, some of these tried and true staples of malls have closed up shop and set up inside other retail outlets
  • Zainy Brainy - the educational toy retailer's founder now runs the discount store/company Five Below, after shuttering all of their mall locations

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