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Before I could drive: the mall. Ya know "Starcourt Mall" in *Stranger Things*? That was my actual mall in Duluth, GA. We'd hang out at the food court, smoking cigarettes and being loud and scaring off the suburban parents with our green hair and Suicidal Tendencies shirts.
After I could drive: the "local" record store ("local" being 10 miles away), or somewhere in Midtown Atlanta.
See, I grew up in the suburbs in the 80s. Because I liked bands like Duran Duran and Depeche Mode the guys at school constantly called me every homophobic slur in the book - "faggit", "dick sucker", "future AIDS patient hur-hur-hur!!", you name it. Every single day.. from 8th grade to 10th grade. Funny thing is, I'm not gay (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Anyway, being able to drive to Atlanta, I could hang out at St. Charles Deli or Fellini's Pizza or Bridgetown Grill and just be an anonymous kid where no one gave a shit about my sexuality - much less define my sexuality *by the bands I listened to* - which was so nice.
People used to say that Atlanta was the gay capital of the South because gay folks from small towns all over the southeast - like Hahira, Georgia or Hueytown, Alabama or Tiptonville, Tennessee - could move to the Big City and just "be".
I *absofuckinglutely* understand that.
Hey, I used to go to the St. Charles Deli and Fellini's! I agree with going to Atlanta to be anonymous, growing up in a small town in south west Georgia.
Our high school hangout was the parking lot of the local Piggly Wiggly. No, I am not joking.
It was a little weird seeing Gwinnett Place Mall on *Stranger Things*. I lived in Lawrenceville in the mid 90s, and that was *the* place to be. I also liked the dollar theater on the other side of Pleasant Hill, and Abbadabba’s.
I’d forgotten about Bridgetown Grill. So good!
No, like driving in a circle around town. Or in our case, we'd go to the "big city" 20 miles away and join the kids that lived there-- "cruising the gut" we called it, which was basically just going back and forth down one street near the mall, about 3/4 mile long, then you'd turn around and do it again in the other direction.
Road trips were much less common for my friends before college. We'd go 100+ miles to the Real Big City maybe a couple of times a year, usually for a concert.
I will let /u/Paul-Ram-On speak for himself, but I think he is referring to just aimlessly driving backroads, often with a 6 pack. Sometimes you stop and the abandoned barn, sometimes the haunted church. Blasting the 8-track. We got to the point just wandering back roads (this was a farm community) where we could navigate on a cloudy night simply by looking up at cloud cover. Where the towns were, the clouds would be lit up. Oh, that must be Bucyrus. So home is that way. In my town we would often "shoot the loop" which was two major one-way streets connected at each end of town. You just cruise and see who you see. Sometimes an impromptu drag race. My friend's dad had an auto parts store right on the loop so we could sit in the parking lot and see the entire high school age population go by.
In the 90's,we would drive around back roads where there weren't a lot of cops so we would get high. Literally just driving around in circles. It was fun though.
The downtown library. I loved skipping school and exploring the big library. I would spend hours looking through microfilm of old newspapers. I'd listen to records. Read old magazines. Discover books that interested me.
The mall for sure, El Con in Tucson. Had a very solid arcade, cheap pizza slice place, three record stores, two bookstores, all the 80s clothing shops, other cool food options, and most importantly for Tucson summers, AIR CONDITIONING! :)
I'm a GenXer and there were two malls I'd hang out, depending on where I could talk my mom into driving me. I was in Florida and AC was awesome! One of the malls had a movie theater in a building right nearby too.
No one had time for that. Grew up poor. Had to work to save money for college and to help out with family. No work = no college. Spare time, studied to chase that GPA for scholarships. Hangout 🤣
Sounds like my dad. As I've heard him say about his childhood on the family farm "most 10-year-olds were playing hockey and watching cartoons. I was breaking rocks with a sledgehammer and helped my dad milk and kill the cows."
Poor French-Canadian rural family with six kids? Post-secondary education was not in the cards from the very beginning so the second he could drop out of your typical high school and transition to a vocational school (only required Grade 10 and not the full diploma upon graduation), he packed up his car, left the farm and never turned back. Earned his trade diplomas, obtained his licenses and left that dead-end farming life in the dust forever.
Grew up very rural. Younger… in the woods or a friend’s house. When we got older, we’d go to a grocery store parking lot and hang out. We were always in search of a party or something to do, but actual parties were very rare. Most often 10-15 of us would end up in a field somewhere sharing a 12 pack.
There was a Chinese restaurant called Sammy’s that was open late. If we had money we might go there to drink coffee, eat egg rolls and smoke.
I was lucky enough to live in Montreal where there was this place called Cafe Ludik.It was the upstairs level of an old house and had rooms of couches. It was lisenced and had coffee and meals and pastries. They often had buskers who would pass the hat. You could buy a bowl of latte and study or read in front of the fire until they closed at 2 am. Sadly out of business now.
I started traveling with state fairs all over the country as a teenager and stayed with it right up until the time I decided to settle down and get married.
Working 100+ hours a week isn't as bad when you do it somewhere you love to be.
Edit: This often is what ended me up back in Florida at the end of the season and led me to cleaning up and rebuilding at the end of a hurricane season during the fall and winter.
Another carney. It's another life all right. Rides, games,or shows? I worked games mostly, occasionally giving a kid the fair ball to let him win. Good for business.
I am a professional barker.
I worked with Toledo scales and fool the guesser mainly but also did some work for photography joints, Headline news and old time photo.
Cool. A talker. I mean we all had to shout our gag, but guess the weight was a good gig. I worked mainly county fairs, so not so fancy as the state fair circuit.
In the early 80s when I was in high school we had really only two options: someone's house (ideally a basement or garage) or the local Dairy Queen. I grew up in a small town and there were no other places...no other restaurants, certainly no coffee shop. I guess we had the movie theater, but you wouldn't talk there. The local pizza place (we had one sit-down type) was popular on Fri/Sat evenings too.
For mostly males c. 1980-1984 or so there was the arcade hangout, but we didn't have one...had to go 15 miles to a bigger town for that. Same deal with the mall, roller rink, record stores, and all the other things: we didn't have any of those in our town so until we could drive (and had gas money) it was basically hanging at a friend's house or the DQ.
After the buses stopped running at 3 am, we would hang out in Bino’s (a Canadian 24 hr coffee shop) until they started running again at 6am.
City life, 1970’s. Very few teenagers had cars where I lived - two or three in my entire school - which is good, because we got loaded every chance we got.
I worked at a rootbeer drive in in high school, so kind of there. I was back counter which essentially meant fountain drinks, soft serve and combinations there of (root beer float, root beer shake). We had car hops (no roller skates) and my job was to put everything on the trays, add drinks, ice cream, oh and popcorn (I made really good popcorn, we sold a ton. I ran the popper 15 times an evening)
I made a post yesterday about "cruising the square" back when I was a teen, as that was my "hang out", but apparently describing things using too many words is against the rules for some weird reason that I can't grasp.
Kids would sort of congregate on the steps of the little store run by an older couple who were literally known as Ma and Pa. Wasn't really a great place to hang but it was in fact the only place to hang.
looks like i'm the anomaly who grew up in a big city? we didn't have malls, though we had department stores. in the winter we'd hang out at a friend's apartment (because her mom worked, so no one was home), one of the pizza places, one of the local coffee houses (where we saw live music on the weekends), or any place indoors where other kids were. if it wasn't freezing out, we'd hang out at the park. if we were gonna smoke (whatever we were smoking) we went to a different park so that no one's mom or neighbor would see us and report back to ours.
We had a place called Bob’s in our hometown. It was the place for teenagers since the 1920’s. They used to have carhops that took your order. A one armed cook made great burgers! When I was in high school the drinking age was 18 so all the younger guys thought we were cool when we were seniors.
Old original pool hall, dominoes, pool, snooker, gambling, old men farting and cussing, slamming dominoes and shit talking, a few girls with a less then stellar reputation. Foosball hall later at night.
We had a beautiful city park behind our house. We all mostly stayed close to home. My friends and I didn't have much money. Sometimes we could go shopping at the local mall or go roller or ice skating. Sometimes we went to a movie or concert. I liked to hang out at an all ag s club and listen to music, but wasn't allowed to much.
I came from a big family we had chores on the weekends and were expected to be there for all meals to eat together and help preparing or washing up after.
My parents were both school teachers and vacation times were spent camping, traveling, fishing, hunting with the whole family. We had a cabin in the mountains. We had friends who had beach cabins.
I was a child of the 70s so we hung out at either of two destinations:
The Mall - whenever we had a half day, one of our moms always dropped us off at one of two which we frequented.
The other was The Roller Rink. Monday was Ladies Night, so we skated for half price!
Really didn't hang out much. School, work, home. GF and I would take in a movie at the mall, go out for dinner. By myself? I'd spend time at the arcade at the mall.
After leaving home, but still a teen, I hung out at the local head shop. Then I got married
Probably my friend's house which was about a five minute walk from my house. We'd go there after school and get baked because nobody was ever home there except him and his little sisters. We retreated to his bedroom to smoke and he'd go out occasionally to check on his sisters. They never knew what we were up to although the oldest one accused us of smoking cigarettes (guilty).
the local burger joint...Howdy"s.. back in the 70's..... general motors was right around the corner and we all had muscle cars... there were always races at the GM strip, quarter mile, three/four cars wide....... lots of burnt rubber on that road...
There were a couple neighborhood parks around town everyone knew of to go smoke, drink, and makeout. Or the one right behind the high school is where people would go to fight after school. There was also the alley behind the local cinema, and taco bell was actually pretty chill. There was tables and a firepit outside. They didn't care if kids loitered there as long as someone bought something and we didn't get loud and out of control.
When I first got my license there was a cruise loop through town. One end was McDonalds and the other end was the strip mall. Back when drinking and driving was an Olympic Sport
We had a coffee lounge, Pierre's, and on Friday & Saturday evenings/nights, they had a singer, musician or comedian perform for several hours. The place had plush red velvet seats and you paid $2 at the door and got your first cup "free". Other days we hung out there too, as they served light meals & snacks & had the best raisin toast in town.
I loved playing foosball at the local game room, cruising, and catching a buzz hanging out with friends. My teen existence was very similar to the movie Dazed & Confused.
huh... the racetrack. I was so sure someone else would have mentioned it, I was going to upvote it, but I guess I'm first.
when you were too young to get in trouble you worked cleaning out stalls.
when you were old enough to get in trouble you hung in the paddock and picked up tips to trade for beers
when you were old enough to buy (Underage) beers you drank in the crystal colt and placed beta based on what your buddies fed you from the paddock.
two or three nights a week in the summer some times.
most of us drift away when girls, cars, or guitars become more important, but for a while there, it was someplace to be and be seen.
In the summer it was the beach, long haul down a steep cliff so the cops never bothered coming down, in the winter it was a local small restaurant run by a man and his wife, they were realy great people, a little crazy but great people.
The park up the road from our house…or the minature golf/game room place. All the boys cruised their cars through the long parking lot and around again. Single girls hung outside, date were inside playing the games. Fun times!
The mall or six flags. At six flags, you could take a survey and get a free ticket, so I'd take a couple every time and then sell the extras at the gate for spending money. Good times. We'd chase girls, ride the rides, just had a great time.
We became friends with the older guy who owned the movie theater a couple of towns away where we did Rocky Horror floorshow on weekends. So that theater became one of our main hangout spots. Because we were friends with the owner, we could always go in and see whatever was playing for free, or we'd just hang out in the parking lot, alarming older people with all of our horrifying, unspeakable 'being teenagers"-ness.
Yes, I grew up in the suburbs.
I never hung out in a mall, or any place that was all about spending money. I worked for my allowance, and spent it mostly on books. There was a pervert who hung out in the children's section of the library, so I had to buy or borrow books, wait for Christmas, or read my parents' books. My hangouts were mostly friend's houses, the park, or wandering around the neighborhood.
But when Pong (an insanely primative table top video game) came out, we were obsessed for awhile, and our favorite hangout was the only store that had it. It was a head shop, and they threw us out as soon as they noticed us back there, so we played a lot of unfinished games.
Semi rural. Early to mid teens we’d spend week nights up the woods, heath parkland. Sitting around chatting about nothing.
Friday nights would start outside the off licence till we persuaded some one to buy some booze on our behalf. Then up the park and surrounding woods.
Later teens but still under 18, we’d hang out at my friends mum and dads pub. They’d allow us two drinks each, with strict instructions to stay out of the way.
The parking in front of the movie theater and the arcade.
We’d talk to the local deputy. If you were driving you were cruising. If you were parked you were loitering. But if you talked to the deputy you were okay.
It was the sixties, in a small city that was a suburb of New York. We hung out downtown, mostly, where there were two diners, a pizza place, two record stores, three department stores, two tea rooms. It was before malls took over completely. I never really hung out in a mall.
Dead ends with no houses and open fields. Usually valiantly fighting off death from alcohol poisoning while our parents thought we were spending the night at Amy’s house.
My best friends rec room, complete with paneling, shag carpet, hi fi and a leather upholstered wet bar. Her mom never left her room so we had zero supervision.
Military brat, we hung out at various youth centers at the different bases our dad's were stationed at. Or we just got on our bikes and rode in the woods.
I used to hang out at my old school. The fences were waist high and the gates always open. Sometimes we would go to someone’s house and hang out in their huge garage.
Thursday nights we had late night shopping, everyone went to the main town and hung out in a shopping centre. We would all be checking out each other
Most common was at a friend’s house from after school until just before their parents came home. Then we would take off and drink in a park or drive around. Often we ended up in the Denny’s parking lot.
A place we called The Hole In The Wall. It was a neighborhood outside of Houston that was abandoned mid-development in the early 80's. There was a stone wall surrounding it with an opening for a gate that was never installed (hence the name). The streets were all laid out, and a few houses started but not even finished with framing. We would build a fire in a cul-de-sac de sac, drink beer, and use the ring street to run timed laps in our various POS cars. Good times.
We sometimes hung out in the Plaza behind our house where there was a convenience store. Sometimes we'd go to the mall but it is very small even now and they've made it about twice the size it was then.
We moved to our cottage when I was 14. There, we hung out at anyone's place where no parents were staying, walked around, had bonfires at the gravel pit, or hung out at the roller rink at the beach. The roller rink was outdoors. Sometimes we'd roller skate but you could pull a car up to the fence,l and watch the skaters while sitting on the hood of the car. People would come and go. Then we'd go down to the hotel and get hammered. (They never carded us)
In the town I lived in there was a gas station (2 pumps, service)/pool hall (1 table)/juke joint/nickel burger joint. It was owned and operated by a fellow named Red Lee. We all called it Red's. It was the only place In town (pop. @500) with the right vibe for meeting up. It was our jumping off point for adventure.
My friends and I hung out at movie theaters and Roy Rogers
We also hung out on a couple of blocks downtown that had record stores and nightclubs
I hated hanging out at “the mall.” It seemed really phony and corporate
We took the bus downtown and then took the bus home for dinner
In jr high we hung out at the video game arcades
In 5th grade we hung out at skateboard store
And to explain how weird the mid-70s were? In the 4th GRADE we hung out at the head shop
They let us read all the comix and listen to Hendrix tapes and I had no idea what the place was- age 9!
(I have never smoked pot in my life, my lungs would have revolted, but we wanted to hang out with the really underground people- always)
There was a small independent video store near my house. We used to go there, get a couple movies, then go to the convenience store nearby and play some video games, then get some snacks for movie watching then walk home.
Before my car, it was going to different friend's houses, walking along the Mississippi, we had a couple small parks within walking distance. I went to my first bar when I was 15, coincidentally a gay bar, with a friend of mine and his older boyfriend. After I got a car, it was lots of aimless driving, sometimes for my friends to drink. (I feared my mother more than the cops if I got a DUI. She was a local politician, and would not have been amused.) In the neighboring city, which was a bit larger, they had a mile-long dike the kids would cruise back and forth on, or you could sit on the picnic tables and holler insults at people driving by. Our nearest mall was 45 minutes away, so that was more of an event than a hangout. On weekends, we would drive to that city and see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or The Wall at a midnight movie showing in a strip mall.
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Before I could drive: the mall. Ya know "Starcourt Mall" in *Stranger Things*? That was my actual mall in Duluth, GA. We'd hang out at the food court, smoking cigarettes and being loud and scaring off the suburban parents with our green hair and Suicidal Tendencies shirts. After I could drive: the "local" record store ("local" being 10 miles away), or somewhere in Midtown Atlanta. See, I grew up in the suburbs in the 80s. Because I liked bands like Duran Duran and Depeche Mode the guys at school constantly called me every homophobic slur in the book - "faggit", "dick sucker", "future AIDS patient hur-hur-hur!!", you name it. Every single day.. from 8th grade to 10th grade. Funny thing is, I'm not gay (not that there's anything wrong with that). Anyway, being able to drive to Atlanta, I could hang out at St. Charles Deli or Fellini's Pizza or Bridgetown Grill and just be an anonymous kid where no one gave a shit about my sexuality - much less define my sexuality *by the bands I listened to* - which was so nice. People used to say that Atlanta was the gay capital of the South because gay folks from small towns all over the southeast - like Hahira, Georgia or Hueytown, Alabama or Tiptonville, Tennessee - could move to the Big City and just "be". I *absofuckinglutely* understand that.
Hey, I used to go to the St. Charles Deli and Fellini's! I agree with going to Atlanta to be anonymous, growing up in a small town in south west Georgia. Our high school hangout was the parking lot of the local Piggly Wiggly. No, I am not joking.
It was a little weird seeing Gwinnett Place Mall on *Stranger Things*. I lived in Lawrenceville in the mid 90s, and that was *the* place to be. I also liked the dollar theater on the other side of Pleasant Hill, and Abbadabba’s. I’d forgotten about Bridgetown Grill. So good!
Shoutout to quarter coke on Buford Highway.
Someone's house or, if parents were home, cruising around in someone's car.
Like doing some roadtrip?? I bet that was fun, especially when there is just light to no traffic at all
No, like driving in a circle around town. Or in our case, we'd go to the "big city" 20 miles away and join the kids that lived there-- "cruising the gut" we called it, which was basically just going back and forth down one street near the mall, about 3/4 mile long, then you'd turn around and do it again in the other direction. Road trips were much less common for my friends before college. We'd go 100+ miles to the Real Big City maybe a couple of times a year, usually for a concert.
I will let /u/Paul-Ram-On speak for himself, but I think he is referring to just aimlessly driving backroads, often with a 6 pack. Sometimes you stop and the abandoned barn, sometimes the haunted church. Blasting the 8-track. We got to the point just wandering back roads (this was a farm community) where we could navigate on a cloudy night simply by looking up at cloud cover. Where the towns were, the clouds would be lit up. Oh, that must be Bucyrus. So home is that way. In my town we would often "shoot the loop" which was two major one-way streets connected at each end of town. You just cruise and see who you see. Sometimes an impromptu drag race. My friend's dad had an auto parts store right on the loop so we could sit in the parking lot and see the entire high school age population go by.
In the 90's,we would drive around back roads where there weren't a lot of cops so we would get high. Literally just driving around in circles. It was fun though.
We would party along the river, bon fires, huge speakers in a friends car trunk, moonshine, weed, etc
The downtown library. I loved skipping school and exploring the big library. I would spend hours looking through microfilm of old newspapers. I'd listen to records. Read old magazines. Discover books that interested me.
The mall for sure, El Con in Tucson. Had a very solid arcade, cheap pizza slice place, three record stores, two bookstores, all the 80s clothing shops, other cool food options, and most importantly for Tucson summers, AIR CONDITIONING! :)
I'm a GenXer and there were two malls I'd hang out, depending on where I could talk my mom into driving me. I was in Florida and AC was awesome! One of the malls had a movie theater in a building right nearby too.
Cruisin Main Street! The two end turnaround points were there for us to hang around and visit for longer than just a *yell* across lanes‼️😄
Same
We hung at the powerlines....there was a field that just had power line structure after power line structure for we always all met there
No one had time for that. Grew up poor. Had to work to save money for college and to help out with family. No work = no college. Spare time, studied to chase that GPA for scholarships. Hangout 🤣
Sounds like my dad. As I've heard him say about his childhood on the family farm "most 10-year-olds were playing hockey and watching cartoons. I was breaking rocks with a sledgehammer and helped my dad milk and kill the cows." Poor French-Canadian rural family with six kids? Post-secondary education was not in the cards from the very beginning so the second he could drop out of your typical high school and transition to a vocational school (only required Grade 10 and not the full diploma upon graduation), he packed up his car, left the farm and never turned back. Earned his trade diplomas, obtained his licenses and left that dead-end farming life in the dust forever.
Grew up very rural. Younger… in the woods or a friend’s house. When we got older, we’d go to a grocery store parking lot and hang out. We were always in search of a party or something to do, but actual parties were very rare. Most often 10-15 of us would end up in a field somewhere sharing a 12 pack. There was a Chinese restaurant called Sammy’s that was open late. If we had money we might go there to drink coffee, eat egg rolls and smoke.
We had a pinball place called Flippers. I loved playing pinball.
The beach, local pizza joints, mall, diner. Trips into NYC. When of age bars, discos.
I was lucky enough to live in Montreal where there was this place called Cafe Ludik.It was the upstairs level of an old house and had rooms of couches. It was lisenced and had coffee and meals and pastries. They often had buskers who would pass the hat. You could buy a bowl of latte and study or read in front of the fire until they closed at 2 am. Sadly out of business now.
I started traveling with state fairs all over the country as a teenager and stayed with it right up until the time I decided to settle down and get married. Working 100+ hours a week isn't as bad when you do it somewhere you love to be. Edit: This often is what ended me up back in Florida at the end of the season and led me to cleaning up and rebuilding at the end of a hurricane season during the fall and winter.
Another carney. It's another life all right. Rides, games,or shows? I worked games mostly, occasionally giving a kid the fair ball to let him win. Good for business.
I am a professional barker. I worked with Toledo scales and fool the guesser mainly but also did some work for photography joints, Headline news and old time photo.
Cool. A talker. I mean we all had to shout our gag, but guess the weight was a good gig. I worked mainly county fairs, so not so fancy as the state fair circuit.
In the early 80s when I was in high school we had really only two options: someone's house (ideally a basement or garage) or the local Dairy Queen. I grew up in a small town and there were no other places...no other restaurants, certainly no coffee shop. I guess we had the movie theater, but you wouldn't talk there. The local pizza place (we had one sit-down type) was popular on Fri/Sat evenings too. For mostly males c. 1980-1984 or so there was the arcade hangout, but we didn't have one...had to go 15 miles to a bigger town for that. Same deal with the mall, roller rink, record stores, and all the other things: we didn't have any of those in our town so until we could drive (and had gas money) it was basically hanging at a friend's house or the DQ.
Wandering the streets trying not to get busted by the truancy officer.
Bueller!
Denny's, cheap coffee, open 24 hours, this was the afterhours thing to do and yes, we all smoked back then too, and you could do it indoors
After the buses stopped running at 3 am, we would hang out in Bino’s (a Canadian 24 hr coffee shop) until they started running again at 6am. City life, 1970’s. Very few teenagers had cars where I lived - two or three in my entire school - which is good, because we got loaded every chance we got.
Big boy with the car hops
I worked at a rootbeer drive in in high school, so kind of there. I was back counter which essentially meant fountain drinks, soft serve and combinations there of (root beer float, root beer shake). We had car hops (no roller skates) and my job was to put everything on the trays, add drinks, ice cream, oh and popcorn (I made really good popcorn, we sold a ton. I ran the popper 15 times an evening)
I made a post yesterday about "cruising the square" back when I was a teen, as that was my "hang out", but apparently describing things using too many words is against the rules for some weird reason that I can't grasp.
Growing up in a rowhouse neighborhood in Philadelphia, the usual spot was somebody's front steps.
Kids would sort of congregate on the steps of the little store run by an older couple who were literally known as Ma and Pa. Wasn't really a great place to hang but it was in fact the only place to hang.
looks like i'm the anomaly who grew up in a big city? we didn't have malls, though we had department stores. in the winter we'd hang out at a friend's apartment (because her mom worked, so no one was home), one of the pizza places, one of the local coffee houses (where we saw live music on the weekends), or any place indoors where other kids were. if it wasn't freezing out, we'd hang out at the park. if we were gonna smoke (whatever we were smoking) we went to a different park so that no one's mom or neighbor would see us and report back to ours.
Street Corner. G & Allegheny, Yo.
We had a place called Bob’s in our hometown. It was the place for teenagers since the 1920’s. They used to have carhops that took your order. A one armed cook made great burgers! When I was in high school the drinking age was 18 so all the younger guys thought we were cool when we were seniors.
Each other's houses, the mall, driving in a car up and down Caraway Road, or Circus Circus -the local arcade.
The roller skating rink. Really, it was the only place to hang out until malls became a thing. Then it was always the mall!
We bicycled to the lake and either bought food there or had a picnic.
Arcade.....
Me too
Hanging out by the Harlem river. Putting coins and eels on the train tracks. Lamenting when the 💩 line would drift by.
My favorite was an old abandoned insane asylum city
Pinball arcade!
In the woods or in a cornfield. We were in the middle of nowhere, there was really nowhere else to hang out.
Wherever we could drink beer.
Old original pool hall, dominoes, pool, snooker, gambling, old men farting and cussing, slamming dominoes and shit talking, a few girls with a less then stellar reputation. Foosball hall later at night.
I was one of the few girls who played - I got pretty good. It helps being ambidextrous
Play snooker? I had to play the older men when in high school if playing for money, guys my age wouldn’t play me.
The forest behind my house.
We had a beautiful city park behind our house. We all mostly stayed close to home. My friends and I didn't have much money. Sometimes we could go shopping at the local mall or go roller or ice skating. Sometimes we went to a movie or concert. I liked to hang out at an all ag s club and listen to music, but wasn't allowed to much. I came from a big family we had chores on the weekends and were expected to be there for all meals to eat together and help preparing or washing up after. My parents were both school teachers and vacation times were spent camping, traveling, fishing, hunting with the whole family. We had a cabin in the mountains. We had friends who had beach cabins.
In my small town it was between the pinball machines at the taxi company and/or the pool and snooker tables at the bowling alley
I was a child of the 70s so we hung out at either of two destinations: The Mall - whenever we had a half day, one of our moms always dropped us off at one of two which we frequented. The other was The Roller Rink. Monday was Ladies Night, so we skated for half price!
We hung out in garages working on cars or motorcycles, and in living rooms if they had ac. Or at our jobs because we all had them
Really didn't hang out much. School, work, home. GF and I would take in a movie at the mall, go out for dinner. By myself? I'd spend time at the arcade at the mall. After leaving home, but still a teen, I hung out at the local head shop. Then I got married
Probably my friend's house which was about a five minute walk from my house. We'd go there after school and get baked because nobody was ever home there except him and his little sisters. We retreated to his bedroom to smoke and he'd go out occasionally to check on his sisters. They never knew what we were up to although the oldest one accused us of smoking cigarettes (guilty).
the local burger joint...Howdy"s.. back in the 70's..... general motors was right around the corner and we all had muscle cars... there were always races at the GM strip, quarter mile, three/four cars wide....... lots of burnt rubber on that road...
There were a couple neighborhood parks around town everyone knew of to go smoke, drink, and makeout. Or the one right behind the high school is where people would go to fight after school. There was also the alley behind the local cinema, and taco bell was actually pretty chill. There was tables and a firepit outside. They didn't care if kids loitered there as long as someone bought something and we didn't get loud and out of control.
When I first got my license there was a cruise loop through town. One end was McDonalds and the other end was the strip mall. Back when drinking and driving was an Olympic Sport
Murpheys Sub Shop and the downtown arcade in Hamilton, Ontario in the 70s
We had a coffee lounge, Pierre's, and on Friday & Saturday evenings/nights, they had a singer, musician or comedian perform for several hours. The place had plush red velvet seats and you paid $2 at the door and got your first cup "free". Other days we hung out there too, as they served light meals & snacks & had the best raisin toast in town.
I loved playing foosball at the local game room, cruising, and catching a buzz hanging out with friends. My teen existence was very similar to the movie Dazed & Confused.
huh... the racetrack. I was so sure someone else would have mentioned it, I was going to upvote it, but I guess I'm first. when you were too young to get in trouble you worked cleaning out stalls. when you were old enough to get in trouble you hung in the paddock and picked up tips to trade for beers when you were old enough to buy (Underage) beers you drank in the crystal colt and placed beta based on what your buddies fed you from the paddock. two or three nights a week in the summer some times. most of us drift away when girls, cars, or guitars become more important, but for a while there, it was someplace to be and be seen.
The mall and the skating rink.
The woods
In the summer it was the beach, long haul down a steep cliff so the cops never bothered coming down, in the winter it was a local small restaurant run by a man and his wife, they were realy great people, a little crazy but great people.
The park up the road from our house…or the minature golf/game room place. All the boys cruised their cars through the long parking lot and around again. Single girls hung outside, date were inside playing the games. Fun times!
The mall or six flags. At six flags, you could take a survey and get a free ticket, so I'd take a couple every time and then sell the extras at the gate for spending money. Good times. We'd chase girls, ride the rides, just had a great time.
We became friends with the older guy who owned the movie theater a couple of towns away where we did Rocky Horror floorshow on weekends. So that theater became one of our main hangout spots. Because we were friends with the owner, we could always go in and see whatever was playing for free, or we'd just hang out in the parking lot, alarming older people with all of our horrifying, unspeakable 'being teenagers"-ness. Yes, I grew up in the suburbs.
I never hung out in a mall, or any place that was all about spending money. I worked for my allowance, and spent it mostly on books. There was a pervert who hung out in the children's section of the library, so I had to buy or borrow books, wait for Christmas, or read my parents' books. My hangouts were mostly friend's houses, the park, or wandering around the neighborhood. But when Pong (an insanely primative table top video game) came out, we were obsessed for awhile, and our favorite hangout was the only store that had it. It was a head shop, and they threw us out as soon as they noticed us back there, so we played a lot of unfinished games.
Semi rural. Early to mid teens we’d spend week nights up the woods, heath parkland. Sitting around chatting about nothing. Friday nights would start outside the off licence till we persuaded some one to buy some booze on our behalf. Then up the park and surrounding woods. Later teens but still under 18, we’d hang out at my friends mum and dads pub. They’d allow us two drinks each, with strict instructions to stay out of the way.
Skating rink.
Me too!
The parking in front of the movie theater and the arcade. We’d talk to the local deputy. If you were driving you were cruising. If you were parked you were loitering. But if you talked to the deputy you were okay.
24-hour Perkins.
JFK Stadium, Veterans Stadium, Spectrum, Electric Factory and the Tower Theatre, there was always a concert or a game somewhere.
Space Station arcade .. we worked for our quarters and spent them there every weekend
The mall. It was the 80s.
Totally the mall in Southern California.
The mall and a local pizza shop that doubled as a small arcade.
The Grande Ballroom, The Crowsnest East, The Palladium.
Arcade
Early eighties in South Florida: bowling alley for video games freshman and sophomore years. Keg party at someone’s house junior and senior years.
It was the sixties, in a small city that was a suburb of New York. We hung out downtown, mostly, where there were two diners, a pizza place, two record stores, three department stores, two tea rooms. It was before malls took over completely. I never really hung out in a mall.
Thrifty's.
Wizards arcade Detroit Michigan.
Dead ends with no houses and open fields. Usually valiantly fighting off death from alcohol poisoning while our parents thought we were spending the night at Amy’s house.
Are you me?
In Brockton Massachusetts it was either the park or the mall, which was conveniently located next to the park.
My best friends rec room, complete with paneling, shag carpet, hi fi and a leather upholstered wet bar. Her mom never left her room so we had zero supervision.
Driving thru the Putt Putt parking lot, then driving past that pizza place, then driving thru the Putt Putt parking lot..
The Burger Hut in the 1970s. They had a pinball game that I was the master of and could play for an hour in a quarter. Good burgers, too.
My car.
Military brat, we hung out at various youth centers at the different bases our dad's were stationed at. Or we just got on our bikes and rode in the woods.
Hogie barmichaels- newport beach, ca
Texas Tom's fast food restaurant because they had the 1st Space Invaders game. Then along came Pac Man!
The mall or roller skating rink. Fun fact: season 4 of stranger things roller rink was the one I used to skate at!
I used to hang out at my old school. The fences were waist high and the gates always open. Sometimes we would go to someone’s house and hang out in their huge garage. Thursday nights we had late night shopping, everyone went to the main town and hung out in a shopping centre. We would all be checking out each other
Most common was at a friend’s house from after school until just before their parents came home. Then we would take off and drink in a park or drive around. Often we ended up in the Denny’s parking lot.
I took ballet lessons, seriously. I was there at least five days per week back then and my ballet friends and I would often stay afterwards.
A place we called The Hole In The Wall. It was a neighborhood outside of Houston that was abandoned mid-development in the early 80's. There was a stone wall surrounding it with an opening for a gate that was never installed (hence the name). The streets were all laid out, and a few houses started but not even finished with framing. We would build a fire in a cul-de-sac de sac, drink beer, and use the ring street to run timed laps in our various POS cars. Good times.
We sometimes hung out in the Plaza behind our house where there was a convenience store. Sometimes we'd go to the mall but it is very small even now and they've made it about twice the size it was then. We moved to our cottage when I was 14. There, we hung out at anyone's place where no parents were staying, walked around, had bonfires at the gravel pit, or hung out at the roller rink at the beach. The roller rink was outdoors. Sometimes we'd roller skate but you could pull a car up to the fence,l and watch the skaters while sitting on the hood of the car. People would come and go. Then we'd go down to the hotel and get hammered. (They never carded us)
In the town I lived in there was a gas station (2 pumps, service)/pool hall (1 table)/juke joint/nickel burger joint. It was owned and operated by a fellow named Red Lee. We all called it Red's. It was the only place In town (pop. @500) with the right vibe for meeting up. It was our jumping off point for adventure.
There was an arcade on Gratoit Avenue in Roseville MI
The beach at Knob Hill
There were a few options in my urban neighborhood - candy store, pizza shop, and the park.
My friends and I hung out at movie theaters and Roy Rogers We also hung out on a couple of blocks downtown that had record stores and nightclubs I hated hanging out at “the mall.” It seemed really phony and corporate We took the bus downtown and then took the bus home for dinner In jr high we hung out at the video game arcades In 5th grade we hung out at skateboard store And to explain how weird the mid-70s were? In the 4th GRADE we hung out at the head shop They let us read all the comix and listen to Hendrix tapes and I had no idea what the place was- age 9! (I have never smoked pot in my life, my lungs would have revolted, but we wanted to hang out with the really underground people- always)
There was a small independent video store near my house. We used to go there, get a couple movies, then go to the convenience store nearby and play some video games, then get some snacks for movie watching then walk home.
The youth center in my cousin's neighborhood
Before my car, it was going to different friend's houses, walking along the Mississippi, we had a couple small parks within walking distance. I went to my first bar when I was 15, coincidentally a gay bar, with a friend of mine and his older boyfriend. After I got a car, it was lots of aimless driving, sometimes for my friends to drink. (I feared my mother more than the cops if I got a DUI. She was a local politician, and would not have been amused.) In the neighboring city, which was a bit larger, they had a mile-long dike the kids would cruise back and forth on, or you could sit on the picnic tables and holler insults at people driving by. Our nearest mall was 45 minutes away, so that was more of an event than a hangout. On weekends, we would drive to that city and see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or The Wall at a midnight movie showing in a strip mall.
Your mom’s.
pinball parlour and local public swimming pool