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Livingston Mall takes the crown, Woodbridge is close to 2nd or 3rd I've said this in other threads years ago. The mall is totally lacking food court and the layout is terrible. Now they added Dave & Busters it's gotten a lot more traffic again.
Most malls have a food court, Woodbridge has eat-in dining establishments spread throughout. I didn't know they opened a Dave & Buster's there now. Sounds pretty cool.
I don't think Livingston Mall looks that bad. I googled some pics of its interior, it just looks a little bland. Is that a rug on the upstairs floor?
Last edited by NYtoNJtoPA; 03-08-2018 at 08:22 PM..
Most malls have a food court, Woodbridge has eat-in dining establishments spread throughout. I didn't know they opened a Dave & Buster's there now. Sounds pretty cool.
I don't think Livingston Mall looks that bad. I googled some pics of its interior, it just looks a little bland. Is that a rug on the upstairs floor?
Take one section or wing of Woodbridge mall and that's how big Livingston Mall is. It has a food court and that's probably where most people are but otherwise it's more like town square or strip mall.
I know people rank nearby Short Hills mall highly but that mall is also boring and lacking a food court. A lot of snobs there because of the high end stores but there's nothing there that interests me.
Yes, Menlo Park Mall is... decent... albeit very crowded with kids.
However, the type of merchants at Menlo Park is drastically different from what you find at The Mall at Short Hills. Does Menlo Park Mall have smaller stores like Tiffany, Bulgari, Burberry, and Penhaligon's? Does Menlo Park Mall have Bentleys, Porsches, and Rolls Royces on display in the walkways?
Even the Nordstroms store at Menlo Park is very different from the one at Short Hills Mall. In addition to not carrying a lot of the high-end merchandise at their Menlo Park store, they have actually closed the upper level of the store to customers. Management wouldn't shut down an entire level of their department store if the local clientele was buying merchandise in sufficient quantities.
The Mall at Short Hills essentially replicates the shopping experience of Fifth Avenue in NYC, while Menlo Park is just a decent-looking, modernized version of your generic shopping mall that can be found in every state.
All I said was that the Easter bunny at the Menlo Park mall was more convincing and he just jumped the railing and knocked me down
I used to be like you ... a 'city person'. I used to live in the city and or outskirts and hang out in the city to get all my stuff there. I used to make fun of the mall and suburban people and their 'unhip' ways.
But it is literally almost impossible to live in NJ (other than JC or Hoboken) and not go to the mall. There's too many cold and crappy days and if you happen to be sick or your wife/husband gets a disease or something, forget about it. Most of the good movie theatres are now also in malls. And if you have kids, a mall is the place to walk around when its really crappy outside.
It's almost unavoidable to have weekends where you just go to the mall.
If I were wealthy, all things considered, I probably would prefer to live in the city. But the mall is also much more convenient.
What I'm trying to say in a round about way is ... the mall actually serves a very useful purpose.
I dislike the east coast, because of crappy weather, but the thing I like about NJ is that it has a lot of indoorsy things during the crappy days, but it suits an indoorsy lifestyle if you like that (I don't). I am a college student and from high school even up to now, most of my hangout spots is basically the mall. NJ has tons and tons of shopping with lots of malls and strip mall to strip mall everywhere you go in NJ. So many food choices, wholesale stores, retail stores, and grocery stores. Other indoorsy things include: bowling, movie theaters, and places like Chucky Cheese (for kids).
Earliest I remember Woodbridge had no Macy's or Sears. It had Penney's, Steinbach, Stern's, Fortunoff and A&S as its 5 anchors.
IIRC correctly, Steinbach's moved into the space that was originally occupied by Ohrbach's. Then again, due to all of the changing merchants' names over the years, perhaps I have the spaces confused.
Fortunoff moved into their space many years after the opening of Woodbridge Center, following the demise of Hahne's. Hahne's was a really nice store, and that was where I bought most of my clothing back in those days.
IIRC, after the collapse of Fortunoff's, that same space was occupied by Boscov's, and that gives you a clue as to the current nature of Woodbridge Center. After Boscov's opened, I decided to take a look, and I found a true schlock store, with clothing racks so crammed together that it was almost impossible to move through the men's clothing section.
Just to make the trip to Boscov's worthwhile, I wound up buying a bath towel that seemed like a good value. When it fell apart after its third laundering, I realized that this very low-quality item was actually a very poor value.
When a schlock store--selling schlock merchandise--is one of your anchor stores, your mall has fallen to a very low level.
I liked Woodbridge mall much more 20 years ago, but like many of you I mostly shop online. NJ malls largely have held up well given the national trend (major retailers downsizing/closing like crazy).
I used to be like you ... a 'city person'. I used to live in the city and or outskirts and hang out in the city to get all my stuff there. I used to make fun of the mall and suburban people and their 'unhip' ways.
But it is literally almost impossible to live in NJ (other than JC or Hoboken) and not go to the mall. There's too many cold and crappy days and if you happen to be sick or your wife/husband gets a disease or something, forget about it. Most of the good movie theatres are now also in malls. And if you have kids, a mall is the place to walk around when its really crappy outside.
It's almost unavoidable to have weekends where you just go to the mall.
If I were wealthy, all things considered, I probably would prefer to live in the city. But the mall is also much more convenient.
What I'm trying to say in a round about way is ... the mall actually serves a very useful purpose.
Bull. I grew up in NJ, and the mall is never a place where I want to go on cold and crappy days. Or on sunny days. Or on cloudy days.
This may be YOUR choice, but it doesn't apply across the board to everyone who lives in the suburbs.
This wins some kind of honorable mention, at least, for weirdest generalizations.
The last expansion to Garden State Plaza did me in. I'm like, nope, too big now.
I like Paramus Park relatively speaking. But yeah, I remember it was the fancy mall at one time
As I said earlier, I am not a person who gets off on shopping. In the first place, I am a tall woman, and there are no brick-and-mortar stores that sell clothes for me, so for clothing for work or anything where I need sleeves/waists/inseams to be long enough, I can only shop online.
If there is something I need to buy at a mall, I go only at times when there will be the fewest people and I have a good shot at parking near an entrance, running in and getting what I need, and getting out of there again as soon as possible. It's noisy and full of people strolling along pushing baby carriages and carrying bags. I get enough of that commuting to the city.
I do have to give the Garden State Plaza some credit for being such a huge, sprawling mess that made me never want to go there. When my daughter was around 14, like most girls her age, she wanted to go to the mall and walk around. Her friend's mothers and me would take turns driving them there and picking them up later, and it got to be a pain in the ass with all the traffic and people in the way.
I remembered that at her age, my friends and I would take the bus, so I suggested she do that. Oddly (to me,) her friends' mothers all said no except for the one whose mother came from Germany and was used to public transportation. It was a wake-up call to how overprotective some small-town people can be. In my mind, having my kid figure out how to use public transportation was a bonus, but apparently they didn't think the same way. We lived in Midland Park, and the bus in question went through Ridgewood, Glen Rock, and Fair Lawn and then over to the Plaza. Hardly a route through which they were likely to encounter major crime and derelicts on the bus.
Anyway, she and the one friend did learn to take the bus to the mall, so I credit the hell that is Garden State Plaza with that.
I'm not a city person, though. I moved to the suburbs (West Orange) nearly 10 years ago and have never gone to the mall. I do 90% of my shopping online (mostly Amazon prime). If I want to walk around or kill time on the weekends with my kids, I do that outside and in parks. The last place I would bring my kids to is a mall.
We have such great parks in New Jersey. Yes, that is weather-dependent sometimes, but hey--how about a library? Or stay home and play games?
I hate shopping. I buy almost everything online these days. The only thing I go to the mall for is clothes. I dont have much luck buying clothes online. The fit is never the way I want it to be, but it is usually close enough that the lazy part of me does not bother to send it back. Then i never wear it.
I try to time my clothes shopping with when I need something from the Apple Store.
Hahaha, mine is opposite, as I wrote above. I can't get most clothes at the mall anyway because they are never going to fit me. You can weigh 300 pounds and still find stores to shop in, but if you are a tall female, you are SOL except for jeans in a few places.
I have to dress in business clothes for work, so I can't run around with flood pants, blazers where the waist comes up under my boobs and sleeves that are halfway between my elbows and wrists. It used to be catalogs where I would have to call in an order, but now we have this wonderful thing called the Internet!
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We have such great parks in New Jersey. Yes, that is weather-dependent sometimes, but hey--how about a library? Or stay home and play games?
