Berkshire Mall, MA | a dead mall in its final days before abandonment | ExLog 110

I grew up in this mall every weekend. This was really hard to watch. Kind of like watching an aged loved one pass away. This made me cry.

This was our mall! I see lots of other Berkshire people in the comments, we all knew this mall by heart, in all of its iterations. There was nowhere else to shop unless you went to Albany NY or Holyoke MA (both over an hour away) Everyone went to this mall, pretty much every week. I have memories of picking out VHS tapes at Saturday Matinee and I most definitely remember Service Merchandise. I remember every store here, except Steigers evidently? Definitely worked at this mall. I was born & raised in North Adams. I will always love this mall and it breaks my heart that it’s dead Thank you for making this comprehensive history of a place I am extremely fond of ❤

Interesting potential outcome for the Berkshire Mall. You may have to do a follow up vid if the "Weed Mall" comes to fruition.

I was in middle school when The Berkshire Mall opened. I went to Hills with my folks and then spent my high school days shopping, hanging out and watching new movies there at Hoyts (which was also the location of my first kiss). Who knew that 30 years later I'd be watching a documentary on my iPhone about its demise. Really makes you think...

Re-purposing an abandoned mall to a pot farm.....GENIUS. I don't partake myself, but that's some creative thinking.

I can’t tell you how cool it is to watch a place like this which would normally feed into urban decay/rot be given a second chance at life even if it comes in the form of revitalization.

So glad to see the mall be promised a better outcome.

This got me kinda choked up. I bacically grew up in this mall (I'm a 80s baby from Pittsfield.) There wasn't much else to do. I'm glad to hear that it's going to get a second life as a massive grow op. I had plenty of times partaking in sessions there especially on top of the mountain they cut into to make one of the parking lots. My youth went to the weed house... Literally

as a local, i grew up going to this mall. i saw it decay right in front of me, and it made my heart sink. though i’m only 18, this was the place to be back when i was a kid, and back in its hay day. this was a great place to shop, since it was close to me, but it kinda sucks not having a mall close to me anymore. sal, your footage truly captures the shell of what this mall once was💛

An 80s-90s mall, magically maintained and a magically fresh stocked food court with no every around would be a heaven. I think the old Natick mall would be ideal.

I came in with the typical morbid curiosity and it did not disappoint. Your information was abundant and matter of fact. The mall refusing to die prolonged the epic twist at the end. Still can't stop grinning thinking about the forward thinking cultivators that decided to recycle a built space. I think it's a marvelous idea and I hope they succeed. Great video. The ending is perfection.

All these malls closing is slowly deleting my childhood

Sad this was my old mall before I moved to Florida saw many.a movie there and remember the street racers getting arrested

If I remember, this mall didn't have a whole lot of competition from other malls. That may be why the anchors were able to do brisk business at this particular mall(yet failure on the corporate level still sealed their fate.)

I like the Mondrian-esque interior with the large mobiles and skylights! I LOVED the little lady on the speaker, she always makes me laugh!!

This was my mall growing up--so many memories of playing the latest and greatest arcade games at the Cyberstation, birthday parties at the Hoyts, and spending hours poring over the games in the Babbages and Electronics Boutique. I moved away from the area over 15 years ago, but my family still lives nearby and I'd been following the stories of its slow demise from afar for years. But once the Beacon cinema went into downtown Pittsfield I knew this place's days were numbered. Thank you for posting this incredibly well-researched homage to the Berkshire Mall--a place I went to just enough times to miss it when it was gone.

I'm a local resident who used the mall in its better days and now we are left with nothing, but that is increasingly the case countrywide. No question City of Pittsfield got too high and mighty and the mall owners shifted right next door to Lanesboro which killed downtown Pittsfield as a result.

So...they're turning this place into a weed grow op and they got Marna high af. Thoughts? Also...special thanks to @Jowdy for the ending footage!

Imagine lamps and plants everywhere in an old mall

My dad was a Broadcast Engineer for WBZ Radio 1030. The AM station shared the same building as the TV side (local channel 4) and was an NBC affiliate at the time. I am quite familiar with the news anchors (Liz Walker, Jack Williams) and meteorologists (Bruce Schwoegler, Barry Burbank) shown in the clip (not to mention the radio talent they had). This mall's history is well younger than me (too). I went to school in Amherst which is farther east of the Pittsfield/Lanesborough areas. These events of the mall occurred after I graduated.