20 old New Jersey mall stores we wish we could visit just one more time

As the saying goes, you never know what you have until it’s gone.

I spent a good deal of time visiting shopping malls in the Garden State to do my Christmas shopping (mainly because I was going to have a mental breakdown from visiting Target and Walmart over and over and over).

I hit the Cherry Hill and Deptford Malls, which were absolutely packed, I visited the massive mall in King of Prussia, PA, (which was insane on an entirely different level)...

...and I even hit the Moorestown Mall (let's just say I didn't have to worry about crowds there).

• WATCH: Throwback TV commercial for South Jersey's Shore Mall

And while I was walking around those malls, I couldn't help but think of all of the stores that used to dot the landscape.

Remember when a mall would have two or three books stores? And two or three music stores? And at least one toy store?

What about the big anchor stores like Sears, Strawbridge & Clothier, and John Wanamaker?

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Sadly, today, you might have to look pretty hard to find a bookstore in a mall. The same goes for music (although, vinyl records are making a comeback, and I found more stores selling records than CDs — and a word of note: records are selling for $30-60+ these days).

So if you were to rebuild a mall from your childhood, what stores would it contain? KB Toys? Sam Goody? Radio Shack (the good Radio Shack when they sold all kinds of stuff, not the Radio Shack before it closed that was only interested in selling you a new cell phone)?

Perhaps it would include stores like these...