0:06

it's productive to say, there are two kinds of

0:08

people in the world i'ma go

0:10

ahead and say it, there are two

0:12

kinds of americans the the

0:14

ones who've had them all in their life and

0:16

the ones who haven't in the second

0:19

category but hearing people talk about their

0:21

mall almost makes me wish i

0:23

warrant

0:27

i want and i like fit

0:30

of rage is a tween

0:32

was like i'm on

0:32

the mall and walk there and that was like the

0:35

yeah never done right i ,

0:37

buying my first and last

0:39

i think actually white leather

0:41

bows sticks has the have felt

0:43

like i had to have that to go with like by

0:45

genes or something i would not

0:47

do that now

0:48

i remember going to mrs fields' cookies

0:51

athletes that's where i learned that

0:53

to pass the core had died while is like waiting in

0:55

line is referred sockets there's

0:58

a sore point kb twice there

1:01

, one time was going out of business and they

1:03

had all these cans and

1:06

wooden swords all these random save

1:08

weapons are like less biased

1:10

on of them got a group of twenty friends together

1:12

and have and duel and we did

1:15

that

1:16

my mom was northgate mall

1:19

in durham north carolina which is no more

1:21

that is a mall where

1:23

i shop for my chore coat it's

1:25

years which is kind of

1:27

an important moment for me because i bought

1:30

it in the boys department and there

1:32

isn't time in my life whereas definitely and tomboy

1:34

and it was important to

1:36

me to tears create my purse

1:38

most of the shopping and the boys apartment

1:41

the woman you just heard is the right or alexandra

1:44

lang as an adult alexandra became

1:46

an architecture critic and her child of experiences

1:49

with the mall didn't have much bearing on

1:51

her career until two thousand and

1:53

eighteen that's when she heard

1:55

about heard new outdoor shopping complex

1:57

opening complex opening greater bay area called

2:00

the center bishop lynch designed

2:02

by the same as italian architect renzo

2:04

piano he

2:06

was interviewed and all these places calling

2:08

it up yard signs are human how beautiful

2:11

it was in his italian accent

2:13

when i don't want to be nice to shop

2:15

the more than nothing against i'm

2:17

just saying that the system's a shopping mall

2:20

this your brand is organized around a

2:22

central p outside with fountains and trees

2:25

but it's also a suburban shopping

2:27

center anchored by a ten three movie theater

2:30

and and put it both a pottery

2:32

barn a gap or west elm sunglasses

2:34

huts and a place to buy becky

2:37

customers can wander through these doors

2:39

and scores of others after parking

2:42

and huge lot located right off

2:44

a major highway the

2:46

with all due respect to renzo piano

2:49

that's a mall and everyone

2:51

saying miles or dead but when i most

2:53

famous architects in the world is designing

2:56

a mall so what's up with that

3:04

this is the code orange i

3:06

will have hoskin you've probably heard

3:09

the mall is dying with

3:11

for a supposedly dying place

3:14

the maltese hanging around just

3:16

one of it's many contradictions in

3:18

this episode alexandra lang the

3:21

author of the new book meet me as the

3:22

found them an entire history of the mob

3:25

is going to walk us through the mall and the

3:27

atrium escalators and food court

3:29

that have brought it to with

3:30

i've been day predicament will also

3:33

be hearing from mall goers his personal

3:35

experiences will help us make sense

3:37

of this wasteful yet use dane

3:40

yet the love disappearing

3:43

yes surviving space

3:45

the today on decoder ring what

3:48

do we lose if we lose the mall

4:10

the episode preview bay st jude

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and it's lifesaving mess and finding

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4:41

one man at more responsible for

4:44

the exists

4:44

tons of the mall than any other

4:47

the architect named victor grill

4:49

in architecture as

4:51

a creative expression like

4:54

if we cannot forget conditions

4:57

within which it can be means

5:00

born and raised in vienna grew

5:02

and had a big life when he wasn't

5:04

designing modernists boutiques was part

5:06

of a satirical socialist cabaret

5:08

troop after the nazis annexed

5:10

austria grew in who is jewish had

5:13

a friend dress as an as as officer

5:15

to drive him and his wife safely to the

5:17

airport he arrived in new

5:19

york and nineteen thirty eight with in his

5:21

words an architect degree eight

5:24

dollars and no english but

5:26

he our ambition and or have any quickly

5:28

sound work his first work

5:31

in the us was a series of manhattan

5:33

to keeps like very glamorous

5:35

these sheets shops including a candy

5:38

store and a jewelry boutique on fifth

5:40

avenue soon earn grew in a very

5:42

different kind of commission designing

5:45

stores for a nationwide women's

5:47

wear chain based in car crazy

5:49

california

5:52

car is federally subsidized highways

5:54

and said early subsidize single family

5:56

two are all coming together to create

5:58

suburbs

5:59

would in turn or creating a whole

6:02

new kind of suppose the dry

6:04

though not the puddle

6:06

three and so nobody walks to work for

6:08

to the corner for a loaf of bread anymore why

6:11

does are walking are walking parking lots she's

6:13

off from in front of a stove and in behind

6:15

the wheel

6:18

though grew in started to have to think

6:20

about what would car centric

6:23

architecture look like how do we get people's

6:25

attention from the highway so the

6:27

cel poland and godesses

6:28

what did he decide

6:30

he decided that you needed

6:32

a big science supposedly

6:35

the architecture of the building didn't matter

6:38

so much like it was basically was box

6:40

but you needed the name really big

6:42

and you needed neon lights color

6:45

is being scripted

6:47

writing

6:48

these techniques worked but they were

6:50

a bold choice for a guy who hated

6:53

the lights and signs and parking

6:55

lots of suburban commercial card or

6:57

so much that he called them

6:59

avenues of a horror vienna

7:02

and impeccably planned elegant city

7:04

was were grew in had had his formative encounters

7:07

with architecture he valued

7:09

design density beauty communal

7:12

experiences in energy and

7:14

to his eyes the sprawling suburbs

7:17

had none of that the hated

7:19

the idea of stores just

7:21

strolling along the highway with no relation

7:24

to each other and idea that you would have to

7:26

pull your car into one shopping

7:28

plaza and park and then pull your car

7:30

out and then immediately go into the next

7:32

shopping plaza and the late nineteen

7:35

forties grew and would come up with what seems like

7:37

a solution to this problem and the larger

7:39

failings of the suburbs a

7:41

planned central communal commercial

7:43

space where you only had to park

7:46

the one

7:49

i hate being in a cough freight the

7:51

worst day is

7:53

they get disconnected parking lots if you have

7:55

my big bastard big box store

7:57

i'm getting back my car so i mean

7:59

the you turn to it crosses the line to

8:02

ghost young three hundred feet to the next

8:04

parking lot i'm

8:06

ira we go and i love the

8:08

of for my and of illinois so

8:11

that i could is a park , car

8:13

once and just walk around

8:16

i get more sense of the more than anywhere else is

8:18

a difference obstacles that people

8:20

and is thousands there too and

8:23

it just objectivism like we went down to frame

8:25

weirdly wanted to go downtown with no it's not

8:27

much easier closer when

8:29

someone to take the burger restaurants with them

8:33

movie theater like get along with the shopping

8:35

for the movie theater that everything you want in

8:37

one location what

8:39

a perfect neighborhood

8:45

the ninety four the a lifter grew and found himself

8:48

in detroit app

8:49

flight he was on landed there unexpectedly

8:51

due to bad weather

8:53

stuck in detroit for a few days and he's

8:55

like okay let let me check out the competition

8:58

so he goes down town down town at

9:00

jail hudson's they'll hudson's

9:02

detroit's premier department store

9:05

and like department stores across

9:06

america and europe it had been a

9:08

downtown destination since

9:10

the late nineteenth century the

9:12

old department stores you know would

9:15

have fountains and the middle of their

9:17

top late court they would have plants they

9:19

would have a lady's retiring room and

9:21

they sold everything they were

9:23

where people went to look at the latest fashions

9:26

they were huge buildings they hired

9:28

the best architects they actually

9:30

play in your these of escalators

9:33

and elevators and air

9:35

conditioning

9:36

this kind of department store

9:38

a both were block with some forty

9:40

nine acres of floor space it had over ten

9:42

thousand employees five restaurants

9:44

and

9:44

the carriers and a circulating library

9:47

ruin it was impressed but the

9:50

neighborhood around it is dead

9:52

in downtown is dead the

9:54

, day he gets a friend

9:56

of a friend to drive him around and the friend

9:58

of a friend is driving him around to all

10:00

of the suburbs of detroit and the friend

10:02

is saying like the here's where the money is

10:04

this is where all the car exact

10:07

live look at these beautiful neighborhoods

10:09

like grew and of course is focus on the commercial

10:11

car doors and that's where he's seeing

10:14

all of these chopped up shopping plaza

10:16

as if stores and limonov a parking lot

10:18

and it's just ugly to him so

10:21

when he finally makes it out to california he

10:23

writes to the head of hudson's

10:26

and is like you can do better

10:28

the time at the city of detroit

10:30

was still growing it would hit its population

10:32

peaked in nineteen

10:33

fifty three

10:34

so we're it's surroundings

10:36

white flight in which white families

10:38

less diverse cities for segregated suburbs

10:41

was just beginning and department

10:43

store owners are already noticing that these

10:45

newly minted suburbanites specifically

10:48

the white mothers who were their core customers

10:51

or not coming back into the city to

10:53

shop the department store

10:55

owners were hesitant to follow these

10:57

customers thou they were proud of

10:59

their downtown flagships they didn't want

11:01

to undermine those the doors or

11:03

the city centres they were so much a

11:05

part of and the ago

11:07

the pretty tax suburban commercial strip

11:10

beneath them

11:11

there and road at a very opportune time and

11:13

he was basically selling the idea

11:16

that you could have your beautiful store

11:18

in the suburbs the you weren't giving up that

11:20

kind of control that design

11:22

presence that civic presence

11:24

the one proposed an outdoor shopping

11:27

complex that could give hudson's grandeur

11:29

and centrale etti in the burbs

11:32

it could take a step out of the city

11:34

without taking a step down

11:37

in sacks grew and convinced hudson's it

11:39

can take more than once it

11:41

could take for so he said

11:44

what if you create a

11:46

new smaller hudson's at

11:48

all four points of the compass what if you

11:50

creates northland southland eastland

11:53

and westlands north

11:56

and will be the first of two outdoor shopping

11:58

complex as they grew and would build for huh

11:59

then

12:00

the birds among other things the common

12:03

and confusing naming convention for

12:05

malls which they are title the

12:07

based on

12:07

their orientation twist city's downtown

12:11

northern open in nineteen sixty four

12:14

it has the nicest modern art

12:16

and the world's as very advanced modern

12:18

design with these very

12:20

simple modernize

12:23

covered pathways and arcade

12:25

that the most famous piece of art with this

12:28

totem pole by a sculptor code gwen

12:30

bucks which was a would and carve totem

12:32

poles and people actually would say meet

12:34

me by the totem pole nor

12:36

when with covered widely in the national

12:39

press and phrase to the skies

12:41

because despite having ten

12:44

thousand parking spaces seem

12:47

to free suburbanites from their

12:49

cars that was actually

12:51

cel mai revolutionary parking once

12:53

in short order it was attracting more than

12:55

forty thousand people a day the

12:58

us government heavily subsidized the

13:00

building of highways and they heavily subsidized

13:03

the building of single family homes

13:05

and plan suburbs but ,

13:07

completely failed to think about

13:09

what people would would

13:12

in between those two places that people

13:14

need a third place and

13:17

so

13:18

grew in and the departments or owners

13:21

were essentially providing a place

13:23

that the government's

13:24

they're gonna about

13:27

soon after north lens opening grew

13:29

and began working on a project for dayton's

13:32

minneapolis's samir department store

13:34

them for and a half decades later they

13:37

ins would take on the name of it's very

13:39

successful discount operation

13:41

and become targets but at the

13:43

time statins wanted a grand

13:45

suburban

13:46

posts to

13:47

one gave them more than that he

13:49

drew up a plan for a four hundred and six

13:51

the three acre mixed use developed that

13:53

included not only shopping but

13:56

apartment the schools a park

13:58

a leak basically

13:59

well planned pockets city but

14:02

only the shopping center

14:03

parking lot or ever built

14:05

they differ from northland in one key

14:08

way i change made in deference

14:10

to minnesota winters

14:13

though this was part of his sales tax

14:15

lakes people don't shop in x

14:17

y z months because it's to unpleasant to be

14:19

outside but that's on a problem

14:22

if you create an air conditioned indoor mall

14:24

thou stale opened in nineteen

14:26

fifty six in the suburb of a diner

14:28

minnesota it was the first ever

14:31

indoor shopping mall a temperature

14:33

controlled paradise where is the ads

14:35

put it every day is a perfect

14:38

shopping day with south dell

14:40

grew in and created the model mall

14:42

south they'll had an unassuming exterior

14:45

two levels of shopping joined by escalators

14:48

and to department store anchors

14:50

all housing and the your were like

14:53

sound temperature and security

14:55

were completely controlled it

14:58

was to be fair be fair nicer

15:00

than many of them all that followed consider

15:02

it's posh atrium which was grandly

15:05

called the garden court of

15:07

perpetual spring they were really

15:09

selling they kind of year round beautiful

15:11

weather in minnesota which

15:13

totally makes sense that

15:15

, have a glass roof but it has like

15:17

a big glass clear story so you would have

15:19

gotten natural light into the center

15:22

and , an aviary it had a carousel

15:25

it had a cafe with umbrellas

15:28

as if you were outside that

15:30

kind of hard to imagine now given

15:32

how familiar the malls aesthetic

15:34

has become a growing was going for

15:36

something in particular he

15:38

talks a lot about the cafe culture

15:40

of the yeah that was the ultimate to

15:43

him and i think we can all agree that is very

15:45

nice and that was actually what victor ruined

15:47

was train and provide but in a

15:49

diner minnesota

15:54

my name's heather and i

15:57

born in minnesota like a new

15:59

south dome

15:59

when the first mon america is my dad's

16:02

always very proud of like any sort

16:04

of minnesota trivia

16:06

tokyo in particular has

16:08

wonderful atrium and they for

16:10

period had like birds

16:12

, around and like very large cages

16:15

now i can feel sorry for the birds i'm sure they were well

16:18

cared for for was just kind

16:20

of thrilling as a kid and specially in

16:22

the middle of winter and minnesota it

16:24

was doesn't really needed respite of

16:27

to seeing people i would you could mom

16:29

like oh there's something different there's weird

16:31

people there's

16:32

the when normal people that i do

16:34

love being alone in a

16:36

public space with strangers

16:38

in i think maybe that seals planted

16:40

there and the mall was like

16:42

the closest

16:43

in to something

16:45

excited

16:54

we'll be right back

17:03

in the metaverse doctors will practice

17:05

surgery hundred of times before operating

17:08

on real patients the metaverse may

17:10

be virtual but the impact will be

17:12

real learn more at met

17:14

a dot com slash metaverse impact

17:17

biography has been in our bedrooms

17:20

and living

17:21

for almost twenty five years he

17:23

was a lot of time provide read young

17:25

guy that would not might i

17:28

fail and this is a

17:30

new series from that sex and money about

17:32

how biographies influence supplies

17:35

and relationship exceed that

17:37

exceed that help

17:38

here are and how by hundred

17:40

team to be in the first place he fixes

17:42

said stuff the front of everybody

17:45

listens wherever you get podcast

17:49

in the years after south dell more

17:51

and more malls rebuilt slowly then

17:54

quickly liquid there are less than

17:56

safety indoor malls built

17:58

before nineteenth

17:59

they were between nineteen sixty and nineteen

18:02

seventy there are like two hundred built

18:04

all those malls or

18:05

the missing something that

18:07

the other thing having the seventies as blew my mind

18:10

food courts yes i

18:12

know i that also blew my

18:14

mind there were fifteen

18:16

years of malls without food courts

18:19

the food court was first introduced in new

18:21

jersey in the early

18:22

the nineteen seventies as a way to keep people

18:24

at the mall for longer up and it spread some there

18:27

the early malls of and had a woolworths

18:29

with a lunch counter it's not like they didn't

18:31

have food but they didn't have

18:34

food in that grabbing go

18:36

casual away and they didn't have a

18:38

collective of small food businesses

18:41

the introduction of this cheaper more

18:43

casual way of eating did get people

18:45

to spend more time at the mall including

18:48

an unforeseen demographic

18:53

in the nineteen eighty two movie thousand times at

18:55

ridgemont high a group of southern california

18:57

it doesn't work play and grow up against

18:59

the backdrop of the local malls because

19:02

that's where we'll teens were coming up to

19:12

that time one of the earliest films

19:15

and what would become a long tradition of

19:17

keen mall movies including valley

19:19

girl clueless and mole rats

19:21

which in particular is about a bunch of verbose

19:24

college kids who spend pretty much every

19:26

minute their percent of our part of the food

19:28

court

19:31

o'connell downstairs the kurdistan is

19:33

up

19:34

there was not like we're talking quantum physics

19:36

you can count on an eerie the reason

19:38

for the food court bullshit eateries that

19:40

operate within the designated square downstairs

19:42

qualify as food court anything outside

19:44

of said designated square is considered

19:47

an autonomous unit for me

19:48

knocking the mall had been designed

19:51

specifically to appeal to white

19:53

suburban mother's the kind of p

19:54

who would eat lunch at woolworth's

19:57

while these women and adults more generally

20:00

named the malls core customers

20:02

in terms of dollars spent the

20:04

food court gave teens and affordable

20:06

a hangout hub one both they

20:09

and the mall could live with his

20:11

is very ambivalent relationship of

20:13

mall management to teens because

20:15

they didn't spend that much money they could be

20:17

rowdies they could turn off other customers

20:20

the food court and the arcade

20:23

or a little bit of containment zone

20:25

for the teens because the moms

20:27

would have still been going to the department stores

20:30

and in of the other boutiques but

20:32

the teens could can be in their own zone

20:34

these are provided

20:37

more than just snacks they were also

20:39

nostalgia factories turning out the kind

20:41

of early encounters with independents

20:44

that adult put that on lovingly the

20:46

lessons tends to be the time when people

20:48

form a lasting attachment to

20:50

a mall is a time when all

20:53

the malls flaws don't really register

20:55

because you and your friends have the run

20:57

of the place the through the price

21:00

an an orange julian

21:04

i'm katie separate holly hill

21:06

mall was my childhood long

21:09

that was

21:10

four minute drive from my house is a kid

21:13

td who would hang out with the holly

21:15

holm mall in north carolina is

21:18

also the new producer of decoder

21:20

ring and like how

21:22

well how biggest holly holm all at the tiny but

21:24

huge to me and that high maybe

21:28

fifty stores maybe it

21:30

was the only thing that thing was allowed to

21:32

do other than go to church you

21:35

got dropped off at the mall for an hour it was sort

21:37

of that weird thing that you could do when you can't drive

21:40

but your parents need your to be and it contains and

21:43

big thing was sort of to walk around

21:45

and pretend like we

21:47

could buy thing you know when

21:49

obviously we can't we're so like

21:51

wasting the salesperson life

21:54

and but our

21:56

games is always the first thing always games

21:58

and then get you get always press

21:59

for that was like the move

22:02

and loved about a mile

22:03

even went on to work there because as a little

22:05

girl was

22:06

oh everything reeks

22:08

and i love it race and then another

22:11

big thing that i really love was

22:13

i've loved hang on she is

22:15

a huge is going to try and

22:18

police's say like actually

22:20

these areas fit me fit

22:22

have my allowance will never allow me to get this

22:25

that was what i really love to do

22:30

the malls everywhere all over the country

22:32

all over a pop culture they're

22:34

making money teens love them families

22:37

use them suburbs would be themselves

22:39

without them

22:41

and yet their reputation

22:43

not great

22:45

wonder if the worms or to turn which is not

22:47

to say

22:47

most up being built but like you

22:51

will get snobby about them

22:52

the world senses turn in the early

22:54

nineteen seventies he started to see critique

22:57

of the mall where people

22:59

overview architects works and

23:01

say oh but

23:04

the central atrium has escalators

23:06

that's kind of like gumball and you can you

23:08

can hear them sneering because a mall

23:10

is commercial an embarrassing

23:13

i'm always were

23:14

women and their kids

23:16

went shopping an increasingly

23:19

bland buildings i

23:21

compare them to shopping that's like the shopping

23:23

bag equivalent of architecture like

23:26

a big plain brown or tan box

23:28

with like a giant departments or logo

23:30

on one end you can boxes were

23:32

also not functioning as architects

23:35

like victor grew in had hoped he

23:37

believes that the mall could counter

23:40

act sprawl make the suburbs

23:42

more centralized and sophisticated

23:45

instead they were islands in islands sea

23:47

of parking than enabled sprawl

23:49

exacerbated white flight and further

23:52

hollowed out cities found

23:54

him leaders anticipated this

23:56

they were very worried about this this is one reason

23:59

it took them so

23:59

long to

24:01

the old satellites stores in the suburbs

24:03

they were like but isn't that gonna ruin our downtown

24:06

business and it

24:08

did like a it all happens a was

24:10

all as for told

24:12

for example northland would you

24:14

remember it was started in anchored by detroit

24:16

hudson's department store would

24:18

help drive the downtown hudson's

24:21

out of business the nineteen

24:23

seventies cities or desperate enough

24:25

to start developing downtown malls

24:27

and pedestrian mall to draw people back

24:30

to the core litter , and

24:32

himself design some of these new city

24:34

base pedestrian malls even as he became

24:36

increasingly disillusioned with the suburban

24:39

shopping mall but shoppers didn't

24:41

feel the same was was

24:43

in and one thing they liked about they

24:45

mall in particular was named

24:47

for victor grew and the grandparents

24:49

or is a moment when you're at your mom with

24:51

the something list and suddenly

24:53

you don't care about the shopping list

24:56

anymore and you're just browsing and

24:58

looking and experiencing

25:00

the mall as a place

25:02

rather than as a list of errands the

25:05

girl in chains are puts customers

25:07

into a kind of shopping a few

25:09

states one that turns a chore

25:12

into a pleasure it's the

25:14

thing that makes a mall

25:16

work because

25:17

that's the thing that makes the mall bond

25:20

but this blissed out mode of shopping

25:23

is also mindless

25:25

and in nineteen seventy nine

25:27

a movie shouted that out

25:33

what does make

25:35

a new i'm off george romero down

25:37

the dad is about a small band

25:39

of humans to take shelter from the zombie

25:42

apocalypse inside of a shopping

25:44

mall even as the zombie

25:47

ward is also trying to get inside

25:51

of , group

25:59

having found c d in the mall

26:02

most of the human

26:03

character mommy's

26:05

, for them can't bear to leave

26:08

even if it costs them carolina

26:22

it's a good seat of the grew and transfer

26:25

that we don't even know what

26:27

we're doing anymore but we are

26:29

and of irresistibly drawn even

26:32

at the end of the world to shop

26:34

at the mall the dead

26:37

didn't slow miles down but a few

26:39

years after the so

26:40

relief

26:41

they did begin chomping on each

26:44

other started in nineteen eighty

26:46

two that's lands the u

26:48

s pops out at the number of

26:50

malls like it should have to serve

26:52

people and so after that

26:54

if people are building malls they are

26:56

cannibalizing the business of

26:58

the earlier mall alonzo

27:03

sitter mobile things would have first edition

27:06

it's a new shopping center with colorful sensational

27:08

stores small her growing at twice

27:11

the rate of the population

27:12

or the country being over mall didn't seem

27:15

like a big deal so what if a few of the

27:17

weakest and oldest were being called

27:19

the mall was a sack of life and

27:22

all the competition at made room for different

27:24

kinds of people to have them all

27:27

how about two malls so

27:29

they got the white more

27:31

i'm

27:33

i'm all why people used to go to

27:37

that chris rock show is from a set in which

27:39

he laments the quality of so called black

27:41

malls but the existence of

27:43

these malls at all was a knock on effect

27:45

of over mauling new mall

27:48

owners were still chasing white customers

27:50

but there just weren't enough of them to keep all

27:52

the malls in business and so

27:54

they started to inadvertently diversify

27:57

meanwhile other malls were trying

27:59

to be the

27:59

newest and splashy

28:01

including the biggest

28:03

small of play

28:12

america's largest mall opened outside of

28:14

the twin cities just down the road from south

28:17

dale in nineteen ninety two it

28:19

was designed by architect named john

28:21

gertie who believe them all should be a theatrical

28:23

experience about entertainment

28:26

that to shopping and so he put

28:28

an amusement park right at

28:30

the mall of america as center

28:32

there is some later critics who have

28:35

posited a dirty transfer

28:37

which is the moment

28:39

where you stop thinking about shopping

28:41

any certainty to certainty going on a roller coaster

28:44

basically the mall of america

28:46

enjoyed tremendous success and it

28:48

continues to pre pandemic

28:50

it's four floors and five hundred plus

28:52

stores rollercoaster and paul

28:54

bunyan seemed to log ride through about

28:56

forty million visitors a year that

28:59

includes international tourists and locals

29:01

who can walk the mile plus loop inside

29:03

and cold minnesota mornings when

29:05

the mall opens early to let them exercise

29:08

but them all of america is part of part cadre

29:11

of elite malls and as the nineteen

29:13

nineties were on with some a hundred

29:16

and forty miles going up a year

29:18

these malls we're putting immense pressure

29:20

on older mall

29:22

which by the two thousand were also

29:24

dealing with the problems

29:26

plaguing their department store anchors

29:29

some of them had to do with online shopping

29:31

the not all of it so if you look

29:34

at the department stores that are still working

29:36

and making money today it tends to be the

29:38

high end department stores like neiman

29:40

marcus nordstrom but the middle

29:43

department stores like the macys

29:45

the jc penney's the sears have been

29:47

hollowed out because the shoppers who

29:49

used to shop at those are shopping

29:51

instead at walmart or target mom

29:54

and department stores had been intertwined

29:56

and co dependent from the very start

29:59

getting used up

29:59

apartments store with its inventory and

30:02

size that had long been the malls

30:04

major draw when they

30:06

fail fewer customers visit

30:08

which leads to other store closures

30:11

which leads to fewer customers

30:13

the on and on until the mall

30:15

is

30:15

ghost town not even

30:17

a zombie standing at the pretzel

30:23

my name is sabrina the past and

30:26

owings mills mall names

30:29

and whole lot of memory for memory andrew

30:32

marr is located the owings mills which

30:34

is

30:35

an boss my county

30:37

then about twenty five miles

30:39

west of baltimore city i

30:42

would go to the mall with my cousin my family

30:44

and we'll just like walker hound legs

30:46

it would be passed the psu quarterly reports

30:49

that he put on the escalators there's a slight

30:51

hansen people around

30:54

though as an adult

30:56

between ages of seventeen and twenty seven

30:59

i didn't frequent owings mills

31:01

mall but when i did come back to

31:03

visit family and my parents

31:05

it was kind of sad

31:07

i would go and and the thing like

31:09

a columns and like that still being

31:11

there but as the silver actually itself

31:14

not being there has to hers the cycle is

31:16

difference like i'd probably was the

31:18

only person other person other that were working on some all

31:22

they are there's one day where i

31:24

was driving in the area and say

31:26

not them all down and says saw

31:29

a bunch of mounds of rock

31:32

where the mice to be

31:39

we're going to take another break

31:49

the daily show is actually the

31:52

whenever the hill you wanna show not

31:54

you can get it was ever the hill you want

31:56

it in podcast for as the daily show

31:58

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31:59

it doesn't satisfy your auditory cravings you can

32:02

dive deeper with the all new daily

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32:06

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all you can hear buffet with the

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daily show podcast on the iheart radio

32:20

app apple podcasts or wherever

32:22

you'd get your podcasts

32:25

calling all ancient history fans this

32:28

is the ancients the podcast dedicated

32:30

to all things ancient history

32:33

from great battles of antiquity

32:35

the get killed off one by one and the roman

32:37

slaughter a great number and even

32:39

kill the women and the animals

32:41

that for their wagons who are watching

32:44

from the sideline

32:44

the new discoveries that's a radically

32:46

reshaping our knowledge of the ancient world

32:49

a bulldozer bulldozed and reveals

32:51

the opening sewage him and some of the names

32:53

on the i swear he's a very interesting so there's a joseph

32:55

there's a jesus there's a married so

32:57

it's an interesting constellation of names but

32:59

all of those names were extremely common

33:02

among the jewish population of jerusalem

33:03

check out the ancients on history hit

33:06

wherever you get your post costs

33:11

two thousand seven the year of the financial

33:14

crisis was the first year since the invention

33:16

of the indoor mall that there were

33:18

no indoor malls built in the united

33:21

states

33:22

the reminded into sounds like there

33:24

are headwinds and there's consolidation

33:26

and there's cannibalization and some balls are dying

33:28

but like the businesses still churning

33:31

and then two thousand and seven it's like oh

33:34

you know like

33:36

in a good business anymore

33:38

this is one the dominant narrative about

33:40

the mall becomes one of death

33:45

these are the ruins of

33:47

a dying culture the american

33:50

shopping mall

33:51

the sixteen hundred

33:53

i [unk] models built before two thousand

33:55

and seven only a thousand or

33:57

so are left with a quarter more projected

33:59

to those in the coming years

34:02

mall

34:02

seem like a victim of their own

34:04

excess and of our own excesses

34:07

was shopping and convenience and

34:09

cars and these dead and

34:11

dying malls have been widely chronicle

34:14

in erie videos of abandoned interiors

34:16

and an elegiac still photographs of

34:19

vast empty corridors and

34:21

defunct fountain

34:24

when you see videos and photographs like this you

34:26

seeing what's there

34:27

and what not there at the same time

34:30

their pictures of beads to resources

34:32

and infrastructure

34:33

concrete and glass and steel that has

34:35

been reduced to a fire hazard of

34:37

the light

34:38

a week

34:39

they're also pictures of an absence

34:42

the missing life and hubbub

34:44

people they used to gather

34:46

there there's something else

34:48

about these images though

34:49

in them the mall gets to

34:52

be something is otherwise not

34:55

the romantic grand

34:58

bittersweet you

35:01

want my lot of people using the word elegiac

35:03

about a mall

35:04

the last it's dying it's like

35:06

only on a dying can them all

35:08

any respect and

35:11

alexander lang finds that pretty

35:13

exasperating

35:15

mark died and people less

35:17

in these these like cancer for the mall

35:19

is it even with the predicted

35:21

number of miles dying over the next five

35:24

years there will still be seven

35:26

or eight hundred miles in the us that

35:28

is still a lot of malls

35:30

don't get her wrong she knows malls

35:33

have fallen on hard times but that's different

35:35

than them being dead people

35:38

see those photos and they think that

35:40

means all the most er det more

35:43

the are contracting you could look at

35:45

what's happening to them and emphasize something a little

35:47

different than just their dramatic downfall

35:49

you can emphasize that the hundreds that are surviving

35:53

some even thriving are the ones

35:55

that are doing something the mall has

35:57

all we've been trying to do maybe

35:59

the

35:59

one thing

36:00

hard to fault them for

36:02

the providing a space for people

36:05

to be together

36:07

some of them off doing that's a really

36:10

fancy expensive high end

36:12

malls and places like

36:13

yeah me orange county honolulu

36:15

mainline philadelphia and dallas

36:17

or marble interiors lead to gucci

36:20

and chanel stores

36:21

the others are well run malls

36:23

effectively serving their communities

36:26

community is that can be much more diverse

36:28

than the ones the mall was originally designed

36:30

for

36:32

over especially the past thirty years

36:34

the diversity of the suburbs has

36:36

exploded like who lives in the suburbs

36:39

has completely changed from late nineteen

36:41

fifties and sixties version and

36:43

so some of the malls and have remained

36:45

successful reflect the changing

36:47

demographics of their center korean

36:50

suburbs the enemies suburb central american

36:52

suburbs and ask know burbs as they're called

36:54

more largely often have thriving

36:57

malls community hubs it's a lot of

36:59

good the services and food

37:02

eating as much as shopping has become

37:04

one of the malls entering activities

37:08

what

37:08

the upscale food hall afterall

37:10

i'm all for eating

37:12

mob in other words are adapting

37:15

to their customer bases to contemporary

37:17

case and also to are

37:19

changing i'd

37:20

is about how to address sprawl

37:22

northland victor grew and first

37:25

outdoor mall is currently the being read

37:27

developed as a me

37:28

you site though be an apartment

37:30

building in the parking lot and a food

37:32

hall in the former hudson

37:34

the whole hate taking another shot at

37:37

in density to the suburbs

37:40

small successfully making a go of it may

37:42

not be as dramatic as

37:43

the ones rotting and being raised

37:45

they're the ones that are still giving us something

37:48

that we need i feel

37:50

a guy came around to

37:52

a humanist says this and about the malware

37:54

this the mall is serving something

37:56

that's very deep in human nature

37:59

and sure

37:59

it would be great as a public realm

38:02

was providing this and sure it will be

38:04

great if like mean

38:06

streets and midwestern town for still

38:08

like zelda shops that people wanted to

38:10

go to but that is not the reality

38:13

and in that breach we have

38:16

them all so let's respected

38:22

before we go i want to play you a

38:24

song came to us in an extremely

38:27

serendipitous way a couple of

38:29

weeks ago i brought a biography

38:31

of victor growing into a coffee

38:34

shop grew in as i mentioned

38:36

came to regret creating them all

38:38

when he returned to the anna lee in life he

38:40

discovered to his horror that i'm always

38:43

going up near by destroying

38:45

the idealized cosmopolitan

38:47

urban fabric he'd once hoped the mall

38:49

could emulate anyway

38:51

at the coffee shop there was there was man

38:53

with a mob of

38:54

curly blond hair sitting at the bar

38:57

my name is even blake

38:59

when i was waiting in line ethan no

39:01

i didn't know his name yet pointed

39:03

at my book and said say

39:06

i like about

39:07

he poured over it for a couple of minutes long

39:09

enough for me to wonder if he be finished by the time my

39:11

coffee with done and then instead of handing

39:14

the book to me he handed

39:16

me a sheaf of papers from ohio

39:18

right in front of him about six pages

39:20

typed and stapled

39:22

i look down to read them

39:24

only to find

39:26

they were about victor ruin

39:29

it turns out ethan

39:30

his writing a musical about

39:33

him

39:34

totals are in jeopardy

39:36

in the musical the goes the victor grew and

39:38

is haunting them

39:39

and short hills and extremely high

39:42

and mall in new jersey it's not too far

39:44

from where he grew up over the

39:46

the musical grew and relays his

39:48

life story his early optimism

39:50

giving way to disillusionment and cynicism

39:53

until the provisional ending with

39:55

ease and gave us

39:56

permission to spoil

39:58

the right now the ending

39:59

as i did you see these two

40:02

preteens he sees twins who grow them all

40:04

and he's like off or drinking like

40:06

starbucks frappuccinos and there and

40:08

like lululemon and any stops

40:10

he was like oh like thereon

40:12

at first day there like

40:15

falling and puppy love he does

40:17

like still does drink on her and she just laughs

40:20

this is a moment for them

40:22

when they're older the the back and they'll say this

40:24

happened at the mall okay

40:27

maybe there's been a year maybe like i did create

40:29

something that yeah no matter

40:31

what the ideal is

40:32

there's human like going on here and

40:35

i thank you for itself

40:39

that's the thing about the mall for

40:41

all it's flaws since challenges

40:43

and reported deaths

40:45

for now

40:46

life goes on there

40:48

you

40:51

were going to

40:51

the that idea and this in progress

40:54

version of one of ethan songs

40:56

and the dudley titled the professional

40:59

dreamer

41:06

on an igloo around a failure

41:08

she's i'm a traitor of exercise

41:11

alone embark on sell out runs

41:13

out either this card goes

41:15

to juke boxes which and with phone screens

41:18

on and off had , stocks

41:20

that as i see what

41:22

i do believe we've

41:27

reached the blood of a million

41:29

love exert process

41:35

and are now

41:39

the sky

41:41

the decoder ring i'm will

41:44

have haskins you can find be on twitter

41:46

at will up haskins and you have

41:48

any cultural mysteries you want us to decode

41:50

you can email us at decoder ring and

41:52

wait dot com i want to really encourage

41:55

you to go out and by alexandra [unk]

41:57

book meet me at the fountain and inside history

41:59

of the

41:59

small which contains much more insight

42:02

into and details

42:03

that malls their history and their

42:05

future and we could cover here

42:08

the book that was instrumental to this piece and

42:10

was the one i had in the coffee shop is

42:13

mommy

42:13

victor grew an architect of

42:15

an american dream by am and jeffrey

42:17

hardwick

42:18

you also heard a clip from the docking

42:20

treat the great love affair about american

42:22

car culture

42:25

the cornering is written by will have has skin

42:27

and produced by will have hoskin and haiti

42:29

shepherd derek john a senior supervising

42:31

producer of narrative podcast marriage

42:34

jacob is our technical director like

42:36

to thank to the people you heard at the top of

42:38

this episode and credit at lauren

42:41

bands and brian louder think you also

42:43

to jennifer's i'm and eric crag katie

42:45

krombach rosie i'm a hoarder and everyone

42:47

else to give us health and seeds if

42:50

you haven't yet please subscribe and read our feet

42:52

and apple podcasts or wherever you got your

42:54

podcast

42:55

and even better tell your friends

42:57

thanks for listening and will see you next week