Like a lot of you, I grew up at the mall.
I lived in Boston as a young kid and it feels like, for one reason or another, I spent entire days of my life at the Arsenal Mall in Watertown, Massachusetts. My mother would break away for a moment to find clothes for my brother and I, and I’d find my way into a rack of clothing. It was an early “safe place,” I think, tucked away between rows of slacks and jeans.
We moved to Nashville when I was 10, and I’d split my time between a host of shopping centers: Green Hills, Rivergate, Hickory Hollow. My parents rarely put a leash on me, to their credit—if I was feeling particularly adventurous, I’d ride my Huffy to Bellevue Center, a good six or seven miles from my house.
I never went there to buy anything. Constrained by a meager five dollar allowance, I was a master window shopper. Bookshops became libraries, and so did video game stores—I’d commandeer the demonstration units for hours at a time. Mostly, though, I went for the girls. At 12, I did my best to get noticed. Decked out in a Hypercolor t-shirt, Reebok Pumps, and Umbros that were probably a bit too short for a kid my size, I clearly had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t make out with anyone until I was seventeen, I think.
What little money I had, I’d spend at the arcade. Sweaty-palmed, I’d jam at the controls of Out Run, Pole Position, or After Burner with reckless abandon. Maybe, just maybe, I’d save 50 cents for an Icee.
Malls, I feel, were a shared social experience. Maybe I’m being overly nostalgic, but it feels like, as human beings, we used to enjoy being around each other a bit more than we do now. I guess it comes as no surprise, then, that shopping malls went the way of some of the other abandoned places I’ve covered—honeymoon resorts, drive-in movie theaters, and other spaces where people used to gather to enjoy what have become private moments in the company of others.
Now and then, the Rolling Acres Mall. (Photo by Pablo Iglesias Maurer)
Rolling Acres Mall, in Akron, Ohio, was once the largest, most modern mall in the Akron area. Opened for business in 1975, over a million square feet of retail space spread across two stories drew patrons from far and wide. Sunlight poured in through skylights, feeding a host of verdant shrubs and trees. Kids flicked pennies and nickels into red-and-silver fountain in the center of the place. A pair of glass elevators—the first of their kind in Akron—whisked shoppers between the two floors.
The mall grew from 50 stores in the late ’70’s to 120 in the ’80’s and ’90’s. Target came in 1995, and a year later the owners of the mall, Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, posted record profits. But all was not well at Rolling Acres. In 1997, the mall’s main financier had its credit rating downgraded, and renovations at nearby malls only added to the trouble. Crime worsened in the area, as well, and shoppers felt more at ease at some of the area’s more “high end” malls.
By 2002, nearly half the mall was empty. Target left in 2005. The mall’s other anchor tenants—J.C. Penney, Macy’s, and Dillard’s—followed soon after. The advent of online shopping pushed Rolling Acres even further into obscurity. Throughout the late 2000’s, the mall changed hands multiple times, and no particular owner put any money into the place, instead seeking to flip it for a quick buck. Rolling Acres began to fall into disrepair.
In 2011, with the fate of the mall already practically sealed, a pair of grisly events put a nail in the coffin. In April of that year, a man was killed while trying to steal copper from a breaker box behind the mall—he was so badly electrocuted that firefighters who responded to the mall found the victim’s body still burning on the ground. In November, another body was found behind the mall, this one a victim of the area’s infamous “Craigslist Killer.”
The last store to go was the J.C. Penney Outlet, which left the mall at the end of 2013. It’s been empty ever since. Nowadays, it’s a veritable playground for explorers and photographers, drone pilots, and skaters. Bullet holes riddle some of the walls, while others are covered with the yellow and green splotches of spent paintballs.
I visited Rolling Acres with a friend in January, after a heavy snowfall. We wandered the halls of the place in sub-zero temperatures, pausing every minute or two to pull our gloves off to snap a few photos. Ice and snow poured in through the mall’s once-grand skylights, which have long since been smashed to bits.
The once-beautiful greenery that covered these Rolling Acres is gone as well; the trees, shrubs and flowers that decorated the mall are all still there, but have succumbed to the bitter Ohio cold.
It’s all strangely beautiful, but more than a little sad.
Another before and after shot of the Rollng Acres Mall. (“Before” photo courtesy of Ross Schendel – after photo by Pablo Iglesias Maurer)
The Washington Mall in Washington, Pennsylvania hasn’t quite gone the way of Rolling Acres; not yet, anyway. A few stores—a Staples and a Jo-Ann Fabrics—still remain on the outskirts of the place. But the interior of the mall has been empty for a number of years, as evidenced by this gut-wrenching passage published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2001.
The pretzel lady began to cry, her heart seemingly tied in a knot because she’s leaving Washington Mall at month’s end after 17 years of serving sodas and salty snacks to shoppers.
“No business,” lamented Wally Janicki, owner of The Pretzel Oven. “Absolutely no business. We can’t do it.”
The 33-year-old mall is so empty at times, Janicki said, a bowling ball could be rolled down the corridor without hitting anyone.
The mall opened for business in 1968 and was one of two that opened in the Washington-area in the late ’60’s, with the Franklin Mall—now the Washington Crown Center —opening it’s doors a year later. The two centers somehow managed to co-exist for several decades in a town of 15,000 or so, but the addition of two other shopping centers in the area left the Washington Mall with an even smaller slice of the pie.
Washington Crown Center evolved, undergoing a full make-over before a grand re-opening in 1999, but across town, its rival was withering away. By the mid-2000’s only a handful of tenants remained. A 2004 plan to raze the mall’s interior and convert it into a “town square” type development fell through, and nowadays the mall is completely empty.
It’s not accessible, but I managed to stroll into the place through an unlocked door in one of the mall’s adjoining anchor stores. The place is in rough shape. Water damage destroyed the building’s drop ceiling, which has since been completely removed. The stores that stayed ’til the end were a rag-tag collection of local businesses, as is so often the case with “deadmalls.” The Silver Line, a jewelry shop. Special Occasion, a novelty store. And, of course, a pair of deadmall staples: a martial arts studio and a church. All empty. Perhaps saddest of all? “Giggles” a comedy club.
As I stroll through the food court on my way out of the mall, a rodent scurries across my path and ducks into an empty storefront. The customers are long gone, it would seem, but the mallrats have remained.
Washington Mall, now and then. (Photo by Pablo Iglesias Maurer)
