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Toys R Us

Hard part about being an immigrant. I am permanently detached from all the places from my childhood

You can't step in the same river twice. ~ Heraclitus.

I'm just glad I realized this early as I did. I made sure to cherish each place, knowing full well it would eventually disappear.

The Texas from my childhood, most Texans dont give a shit about identity politics, you would think there are a bunch of brown hating cowboys - that was not the case Texas was incredibly tolerant.

There was a forest we use to play in behind my friends house . It had a few giant trees. They must have been hundreds of years old. One was 3-4 meters in diameter. We used to climb them using the coarse bark up to the branches and see how high we could go. You could see the whole neighborhood. Wonderful memories.

That whole area is filled with Mcmansions now.

Two big ones for me:
1- a local arcade. Spent so many summer days there with friends. TMNT, Street fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc etc etc.
2- laser quest! Lots of birthday parties there.

The farm I grew up on. They flattened this HUGE hill to do it as well. They removed a creek, natural lake, and tons of forest. For a flat, treeless, subdivision.

being able to go out alone in the woods at the age of 8-12 or just go down to your friends house. or have any unsupervised time alone time.

The mall. Technically it's still there, but it's a shell of its former self.

USSR
East Germany
Yugoslavia
Czechoslovakia
Amiga (oh, I hate Commodore eternally...)
Rotary phones
Incandescent light bulbs

I could do this all day ;)

edit: yeah, these are not things that were just "around the corner", but it is amazing how much world changes actually and we are so used to it

This goofy ass restaurant that served the food to your table on model trains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKoCam8WqC4

RIP, their food was probably just OK but I was a little kid so it was all totally amazing.

As a bonus, the very end of this video has one of the old Seattle trolleys, which also aren't around anymore.

Every block Buster video i went to lol

Obligatory Grosse Point Blank

The World Of Sid And Marty Krofft in Atlanta. It was a mindfuck of an indoor amusement park located in what's now CNN Center. Granted, it was only open for six months in 1976, but I was able to go, and as a six year-old kid, it was amazing.

There used to be an ice cream place near where I grew up. Old style bar with stools to sit at while you ate ice cream and a huge ball pit with a slide. I loved that place growing up and it's sad that kids now can't experience it. I'm sure there are places like that out there somewhere, but not anywhere close to that area.

Gosh, so many places.

It just so happened that the house I currently live in is literally down the street from the hospital where I was born . . . or at least, where it used to be. They closed down and demolished that hospital and built a new one across the city. All that's left in that lot is piles of rubble. The new hospital is legitimately a better one with a lot of great improvements and upgrades, but I still miss being able to walk up the street and look up at the old building and go "I was born in there :)"

Two of the schools I went to as a kid have also long since been bulldozed. Recently, though, a new school went up on the lot where the oldest one used to be (after at least a decade of just being an empty field), and it looks really nice.

Showbiz Pizza and their crazy looking animatronics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShowBiz_Pizza_Place

Swensen's Ice Cream shop.

My Secondary (High) School - levelled to build houses a few years ago.

If this had happened when I was still a pupil I would have been overjoyed to turn up for School one day and find a pile of rubble instead, but now I feel a bit sad at the destruction of a bit of my personal history.

Leaps And Bounds, and Discovery Zone. Not sure if they were local only (St. Louis, MO) but they were sort of combination arcades/jungle gyms for kids to go to.

@weremacaque it sounds flippant but seriously: The USA. I find this current view of my home country to be unrecognizably insane...we played outside, we drank and smoked early and generally got along. I grew up in an integrated neighborhood, integrated public school...

@weremacaque. Circuit City, which was secretly the best place to buy CDs.

I used to go on holiday every year in a cottage on the cliffs near East Yorkshire, UK. In about 1998 it was condemned so we moved to holiday park just up the coast.nin about 2014 or some big storms round about the we came back and all the homes on the whole seaward side of the road were gone and the old inlandside were now clifftop with a new road behind

If this water park is “across the street” (freeway) from an amusement park I think I know what you’re talking about. If not, then my answer is the same. Water park that my family went to and it closed in 2020. I miss not having worries and playing in the water. And also how Dippin dots was the ice cream of the future (for decades now)

Bunch of my childhood town is now just more buildings. Used to be more forest and now there's nothing but slabs of concrete. This small mall that used to be there? Buildings now, just tons of buildings.

We had an amusement park called Geauga Lake close to where I grew up in Ohio. Not quite as big as the famous Cedar Point park which was a couple of hours away by car, but it had quite a history, and was a really popular one for school trips, company picnics, etc. It went through some ownership changes, and was eventually closed and left to rot with many of the original structures still sitting there after the coaster parts were sold off. Haven't looked into it for a number of years, but it was weird seeing that same entrance building we walked through so many times just decaying.

Sega World Sydney. It was a whole theme park based around Sega properties in Sydney, Australia. Rides themed around classic Sega arcade games, Sonic paraphernalia everywhere, a huge arcade and overpriced Sega merch shop. One ride entirely took place in virtual reality, with headsets for everybody. I wasn't even a Sega kid, but it was amazing.

The Computer Museum in Boston; one of my favorite places to visit as a computer-obsessed kid.

Pup ‘N’ Taco

There used to be a very janky waterslides on a hilltop that closed down. The place was notorious for giving kids scrapes and bruises and other injuries for years, my parents were surprised it hadn't closed earlier.

I'm in San Diego, and grew up here. Open space. Yeah, we are really good about keeping some open spaces (typically national/state parks) but just random open space is all filled with urban sprawl now.

When I was a kid, there was an area of San Diego county that was a GIANT piece of private property. There was one dirt road that ran through it (likely an easement/eminent domain thing), connecting the east and west part of the county.

Decades ago, when I was in high school, we used to party, and do all kinds of dumb shit out there. It had been the same for so long that my parents also partied back there too many, many decades before. I know there were at least 2 cars buried out there. I had gotten a car stuck in the mud once myself (had to dig it out in the dark. that was super fun) It's all but gone now.

K Mart, It is now a Walmart.
And the forest reclaims the land.

I have a similar waterpark story except mine closed around 2005. It was my first job and I would ride my bike to and from there and goofed off with my highschool friends, all while getting paid for most of the summer. It was closed the next year and later demolished and a huge mansion erected in it's wake.

Six Flags AstroWorld. I still can't believe it's gone, and still can't believe it's a freakin' parking lot now.