Ranking Philly’s Best Malls. In what he calls “A Very Serious, Not Even Slightly Humorous Ranking of the Best Malls in the Philadelphia Area,” The20’s @dhm votes for The Gallery in Center City as his favorite in a column today for The Philly Post. As he says:

“Quiet, haters. The Gallery at Market East is awesome. The ultimate mall product is sneakers, and The Gallery has a million great sneaker shops. (Mini-ranking of Gallery sneaker stores: 1. Ubiq. 2. Villa. 3. Kicks USA. 4. Finish Line. 5. City Blue.) There are two video game stores, a surprisingly decent Old Navy and a surprisingly cheap Burlington Coat Factory.

The place is stuck with tacky early-80s art and a decent amount of vacant storefronts, but even that turned out pretty neat: The mall donated studio space for JJ Tiziou’s How Philly Moves mural, now installed at the airport. Sometimes you hear New Order over the sound system. There’s a pizza place that serves dollar slices. Also, there’s a train station and three subway stops.”

Note, he doesn’t include malls in New Jersey or Delaware (sorry, Cherry Hill, Christiana and more). But The Gallery? The same place where mallgoers were peppered with flying trash and flash mobs organized? And over Franklin Mills, of which @dhm notes “If you simply must shop at a mall with a giant Ben Franklin head, this is your only option.”

The full rankings:

1. The Gallery
2. King of Prussia Mall
3. Willow Grove Mall
4. Plymouth Meeting Mall
5. Oxford Valley Mall
6. Neshaminy Mall
7. Springfield Mall
8. Franklin Mills
9. The Shops at Liberty Place

What are your thoughts? Favorite mall in the area?

-LD

[@dhm, The Philly Post]

Photo: Getty Images