A Sad Holiday Stroll Through an Empty Hamilton Mall [PHOTOS]

It's no secret that the Hamilton Mall has been struggling.

It's sad to see, and pretty sad to walk through the place. The once-bustling mall was devoid of patrons and stores. I would guess that about 30-50 stores were empty or closed, heck even Santa Claus was sitting all alone, waiting for someone to take a picture with him.

I was in the mall a couple of days before Thanksgiving to grab a shirt for a wedding. It was a Tuesday night at about 6 p.m., I get it, not primetime shopping hours, but may have been the only person in the entire mall.  Macy's had one person working the entire men's section (that I could find), and the mall itself was completely empty of shoppers. I figured maybe it was because it was late at that it was so quiet, but I walked end to end and didn't see another person shopping.

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I went back on Saturday, Dec 14 in the afternoon at about 2:30 p.m. and again saw more closed stores than shoppers.

A picture was circulating on social media of Santa Claus sitting all by himself with no children around him looking to get their picture taken.  The picture was taken on Friday night at 6:30, two weeks before Christmas.

I also walked by Santa on Saturday afternoon and saw him sitting there all alone, waiting for kids to get their picture taken with him.

There were a few outside vendors, almost like a craft fair, but it didn't seem that there was a whole bunch of foot traffic.  We walked down to Norman's Hallmark Shop, and barely saw another shopper along the way, though the card store did have some patrons inside shopping.

While there was more foot traffic on Saturday afternoon than there was when I was there before Thanksgiving, it was really sad to see how much the mall has declined.

I understand people shop online, but I have been to the Deptford Mall and the Cherry Hill Mall and both have plenty of shoppers. I understand that more people live in those areas, but at one time the Hamilton Mall was filled with both stores and shoppers - now it has neither.

I wrote an article about nine stores that could help revive the mall.

I have given some ideas of what to do with Bader Field in Atlantic City, some of those same ideas could help revive this area, but this one would be a home run for the Mall area.

Here is a look at some of the pictures from my stroll during the holiday season at the Hamilton Mall.