Mall Series: 21 Photographs Capture Daily Life of People at Shopping Malls in the 1980s

From fashionable teenagers dressed in their finest clothes to an older woman simply sitting on a bench with her walking stick, this series of photographs capture what people looked like when they ventured out to the mall three decades ago.

The photo series called Mall Series, offers a glimpse of the teenagers, staff, and shoppers who were nicknamed 'Mall Rats,' and enjoyed nothing better than spending hours in the shopping centers in the 1980s.

In 1984, the photographer, who had just begun teaching at Clark University, lived only a short walk away from the bustling mall and was given exclusive access to photograph its inhabitants. Over the course of three years, he became as much fixture of the complex as the stores it housed, known universally by its security personnel, who he explains would often allow him to photograph young rowdy mall-goers before stepping in to control the situation. Limited only by the owners’ mandate that he not capture any obscene moments, DiRado amassed a collection of thousands of images featuring characters of all ages.

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Vintage Photographs of Christmas Shoppers in New York City From the 1910s

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Vintage Photos of Christmas Shoplifters in New York City in 1967

For most people Christmas is the season of good will, sharing and giving. It’s also the time of year for not so goodwill and taking for the majority of shopkeepers, as the seasonal shoplifters hit the high streets during the festive period.

This set of photos were taken inside the Alexander’s Department store in New York and were published in an issue of Life magazine in 1967. The pictures display a variety of techniques used by shoplifters who like to take a five-finger discount on their Christmas presents.

20 Interesting Pictures of Malls Across America in 1989

In 1989, when Michael Galinsky was 20 years old, he and a friend spent six weeks driving across the U.S., taking pictures in malls.

“At the time, the mall was the new public space, the new community center where people would interact,” Galinsky later said. “This was pre-Internet, pre-cellphone, there was smoking in malls, it was before the Gulf War. It was this weird moment in time where things were getting ready to change.”

Over the years, many of these pictures have been reproduced in various publications and on a number of websites. One critic has commented that Galinsky captured, in these pictures, “in a beautifully off-kilter high-flash way, the cool ugliness of suburban style.” Another has written that “What makes these photos so appealing and oddly touching is the nostalgia bound up in them... They are from a not so distant past... The collection is imbued with a sense of the everyday melancholy but also manage to be a pop-anthropological feast.”

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