Middletown, Ohio’s Towne Mall
Do gumballs have an expiration date? Skittles? M&M’s? What’s the policy when candy isn’t sealed in a bag—how long can it last behind dust covered glass when there’s very few customers willing to drop a quarter and snag a handful?
Entrance corridor of the Towne Mall Galleria, gumballs and all.
“Good place to shop and save money,” joked the man walking laps around the numerous empty storefronts.
“Mountain Music” by Alabama came on over the speakers, blaring the kind of tune that “grandma and grandpa used to play.” One of the few businesses that appeared to still be in business was a nail salon (although the staff had cleared out by the time we arrived around noon on a Saturday). Their posted hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (with the caveat that only if traffic “sustains” their “presence”).
Former Great Steak & Potato Company
There didn’t appear to be a food court, rather, usual suspects such as The Great Steak & Potato Company and Subway appeared to have once stood alongside all the regular retail slots. A local place called “Checkers 2” had an intriguing menu, but they were closed on the weekend according to their sign. Sadly, there would be no fried bologna sandwiches to snack on while we toured this withering shopping center.
“Checkers 2.”
The “Towne Mall Galleria” wasn’t the first mall constructed within the civic borders of Middletown, Ohio (that distinction belonged to the ill-fated, urban renewal concept known as “City Center Mart”), but it was the one that truly took hold. With a 1977 grand opening, the complex was built along the Interstate, a few miles outside of the city’s historic downtown in a corridor that rapidly became Middletown’s main business district. Standing only one story tall and substantially smaller than contemporaries in nearby Dayton and Cincinnati, Towne Mall still managed to become a local institution (for a more detailed history, check out UniComm Produtions’ wonderful “Dead Mall Date Night #4”).
Whether you were from Manhattan, Middletown, or Mississippi—there was a time in life when the experience of shopping malls was ubiquitous. These days, the dead or dying mall is the more common experience, so is the nostalgia. Pop onto a Facebook Group or subreddit for any city and you’ll find the same stories being told over and over: the shops that used to be there, tales of when times were “good,” and pearl-clutching rumors of “gangs” roaming about. I grew up at places like Forest-Fair Mall/Cincinnati Mills (a very popular subject on this site over the years), but I never personally knew Middletown’s mall.
Tyler and Jordan did, though.
I met the Elam brothers in the early 2000’s when we all worked at an amusement park together. Before those two were running roller coasters, however, the native Middletonians had found employment within the Towne Mall.
“We both worked at Chick-Fil-A at one point,” says Tyler over the phone as I laugh at the thought. “That’s the truth, that’s not a joke. Say ‘thank-you,’ see what happens.”
The pair had been recruited into the service of the Lord’s favorite chicken restaurant by their youth pastor, a man who was apparently serving up sandwiches when he wasn’t serving up sermons.
Main entrance. A few anchor slots such as Planet Fitness and Gabe’s still exist.
I stumble over my words: “Don’t take this the wrong way…I’m not making fun of Middletown…but…I can’t believe that mall…”
“…had a Chick-Fil-A?” quips Jordan, completing my thought.
I’m surprised, not because I subscribe to any particular stereotypes of the city’s status or the history of its struggling steel industry, but growing up—Chick-Fil-A seemed to be a staple of only the more “higher-end” malls. An era that came before the company’s expansion in both locations and evangelical politics. It’s this fast food restaurant, though, and the associated flashbacks that get the conversation going (squeezing a Chick-Fil-A mayonnaise packet “really aggressively” until it bursts was apparently great for “miming” the kind of physical activity that the company’s founders might believe would invite God’s judgement).
“We once had a huge fountain in the middle of the mall,” says Tyler.
Although replaced with just empty space and carpet by the time I got there, the water feature still exists in their reminiscences.
“It had that old mall fountain smell,” adds Jordan.
Instantly, without having ever seen the thing, I can empathize. I can envision it. I can smell it.
“…clean, chlorine, and you could always hear the bubbling of it in the distance.”
Former fountain location.
The Towne Mall had been their mall even before they took their first jobs. It was within walking distance as they grew up, the place they went for Christmas shopping, the common gathering spot.
“…We had so many friends that worked there and visited regularly…it was almost like a tv-esque place to be,” says Tyler.
“Like ‘The Max’ [of Saved by the Bell fame],” adds Jordan.
The two of them can rattle off names of dearly departed stores with ease, brands both national (FYE) and regional (Moeller Music), but it’s the personal stories I want to hear most.
“I feel like we were always trying to plot some scheme or something,” recounts Jordan.
While Tyler once got “talked to” by rent-a-cops for trying to skateboard inside the mall, there’s another story of his actions that Jordan tells best: “I remember Tyler would run through the mall full speed, just going: ‘it’s coming! IT’S COMING!,’ which we all got a huge kick out of.”
The thought of my friend attempting to prank unwitting bystanders into believing a movie monster or natural disaster was following close behind makes me laugh, but also trudges up personal cringe-worthy feelings of embarrassment. Did you really grow up in the early 2000’s if you didn’t try to pull off your own stunts inspired by Jackass and the “randomness” of internet culture? I certainly had my fill of those moments when I wasn’t working at the Hot Topic of another mall down the highway from where these two were growing up. This was a time in history that took place shortly after Kevin Smith’s Mallrats had explored mall culture, a time just before that same culture would begin rapidly evaporating alongside the shopping centers that birthed it.
“I feel like it was always happening, but we were just kind of turning a blind eye to it,” says Jordan after I ask him to recall when he started to noticed the Towne Mall beginning to wane. According to him, the place just one day started hosting the kinds of stores where “a guy could fix your watch and sell you a Bob Marley beach towel” in the same transaction.
Moments like getting free leftover pretzels and cookies from fellow mall employees eventually transitioned from reality to recollections for these two. All of it alongside memories such as playing “erotic photo hunt” on a cabinet in the back of the arcade and discovering bands like “MXPX” in the Christian store’s music section. The last time they revisited the mall of their youth? A Christmas-time walk a few years back in search of sentimentality rather than shopping.
I truly did love these seats and their fake plants.
“I have no idea [what, if anything, could replace the space known today as Towne Mall Galleria],” says Tyler. “I feel a sense of nostalgia where I’d like to have something like [the traditional indoor shopping mall]. I like the aspect of there being a few convenient places to go when you want to Christmas shop for mom, dad, wife, and kids. That’s just something that seems practical to me.”
And he’s not wrong. Despite the rise of online shopping, a global pandemic, and the spaceship-funding profits of Amazon—there’s still a demand for in-person retail. But even Tyler will concede that such an experience can still be found at the few surviving malls in the region, as well as, at the newer generation of nearby “lifestyle centers” and outlet malls.
This website has previously documented that the new-age, mixed-use mall can offer a cautionary tale of capitalistic cannibalization: Columbus’ Continent is a “lifestyle center” now very much void of life. As for Middletown, local politicians seem smitten with the contemporary version of brick-and-mortar commerce. An April 2021 City Council meeting featured a public official stating: “I’m blown away” after viewing a proposal from a hired redevelopment consultant. Suggested attractions such as apartments, hotels, dining, and entertainment facilities in addition to shopping could make the site a destination once more (and this proposal would certainly incorporate better long-term planning than the malls of the mid-late 20th century), but then again—what American city isn’t striving to convert its aging shopping complexes into something similar? Like the indoor malls that came before them: how long do these “new” things last until the cycle repeats and the latest generation is reminiscing on their own retail center experiences?
Thanks to Tyler and Jordan Elam for taking the time to chat. I’d call you both and say thank-you, but I’m worried you’re still programmed to automatically respond with “my pleasure.”
Note: As I was preparing this story, news dropped that the City of Middletown was considering using “emergency legislation” and $7.5M in American Rescue Plan Act funds to kickstart “Hollywoodland”—a massive development on the other side of town replete with an indoor amusement park and a list of other amenities that sound way too good to be true. The Journal News has the details, but I wouldn’t get too excited.
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