Malls reached peak radicalness in the ’80s, but we still love them. Yes, the crowds, prices, and parking can get on your nerves, but where else can you buy a puppy, an apple pie, new underwear, and get your eyebrows threaded? That’s right, the mall! Here are five things we love about The Mall.
Stores you can’t find anywhere else
Remember those quaint days of yesteryear, when kids would skip down Main Street after school and play tiddlywinks on the stone steps of your hometown’s Spencer Gifts? When Grandma would send you out to fetch some milk at the general store and some hair scrunchies at the Limited Too? When shy young lovers on a date would stroll arm in arm through the center of town in the twilight, past the town hall and post office, to gaze in awe through the warmly-lit shop windows of the Build-A-Bear? Of course not. Some stores exist at the mall, and absolutely nowhere else. They’re like those Egyptian birds that ride around in the mouths of crocodiles. Without that one bizarre refuge, they’d cease to exist. Some of these shops go out of style (personally, I’m past the days of getting my ears pierced by a bored guy with a mullet and a needle gun at a kiosk). Others are a glorious puzzle (who’s that lady offering 10-minute massages for $12, and why does she need so many curtained-off beds?). But without malls, we’d never enjoy these strange sights again. Except, maybe, at the airport.
Hampshire Mall
This place always has some weird surprise in store for shoppers — like that Spirit Halloween sign placed right over the old Best Buy logo that never got taken down. One loop around the mall and it’s clear that, although many of the stores are locally owned, some will have less than a one-year shelf life (although titans of the venue, like Touch of Class and Dollars and Things, have maintained an iconic status with mall-goers). No other place in New England gives off such a Midwestern vibe. Children, college kids, and adults have all made memories in these dimly-lit hallways. Here’s the arcade, tucked into the corner of the food court, where there’s still a mustard stain on the Skee Ball machine from when a sandwich was thrown on there in July. Here’s a boy at Interskate 91, listening to “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” as part of his birthday party. What Pioneer Valley resident doesn’t have a story about the Hampshire Mall?
People watching
Many shoppers approach a trip to the mall with the planning and precision of a Navy Seal extraction team: get in, acquire target, and get the hell out of there before things go south. But the people watching on hand at the mall is worth a pause. It’s an opportunity to try and place yourself in the shoes of the disparate, Vitamin-D deprived specimens of humanity that wander the eternal Mobius strip of escalators and gleaming white tile, entranced by the pale glow of their cell phones. Which more preferable world are they immersed in? What are they searching for? What does the beauty tech in the surgical mask do when she’s not painting nails? Where would the bored looking teenager selling phone cases rather be? What could possibly possess a person to order a jumbo pretzel dog?
Kiosks
Sure, malls are centered around “anchor stores,” but another thing we love about the mall are those paeans to opportunism, the pop-up stores. There’s just something lovely about a former Best Buy or Border’s space converted into a place to buy Halloween costumes. When Spirit Halloween opened this year at the Hampshire Mall in late-September it was full to the gills with costumes and creepy accessories. By the time Halloween weekend rolled around, the creepiest thing about the store was how picked over its shelves were. If you want to watch consumerism consuming in real time, visit one of these stores at the beginning and end of its short life.
Food court
The food court is the watering hole at which we all gather after foraging for gifts and goods in the retail wild. When you’re weary from hauling sacks and pushing through crowds, the food court offers a unique comfort: a fast food buffet. Want to dip McDonald’s fries in a Smoothie Man strawberry banana smoothie? You got it. Throw some greasy Chinese Gourmet Express lo mein on top of a Wendy’s burger, crumble Mrs. Field’s chocolate chip cookies over your Sbarro pepperoni pizza, and wash it all down with a five-flavor Slurpee. It’s anything-goes fusion and you’re the chef. While enjoying a plate of your own creation, sit back and enjoy the booming digital blasts from the nearby arcade, sitting in that one sectioned-off part of the court like a boss, and the smells of just, oh so many exoticly fried things.
