https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1GIF6VNipE

I watched that one a couple of weeks ago. I usually think of a shopping mall in the more contemporary sense. Interesting to see one from a time long before such a place was what they usually look like today.

If I were younger and lived in Providence the apartment-in-a-mall thing might appeal to me. But malls were declining even before Amazon took away a lot of their business. There were/are just too many of them. It's good to see that some are being creatively repurposed, either partially or totally, instead of being torn down or just sitting there empty. One of the malls in my area is being converted to a joint apartment/non-retail business/retail mix. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.

I think that the "strip mall" is a vastly more popular concept in reality these days. The large, expansive building with multiple stores going on for a mile with ten different parking lots just does not appeal to the instant gratification of society. You want to be able to pull right up to the store you want, park outside of that store, go in and get out, and then get right back in your car without having to search for it/remember which parking lot it is in.

Yes, the fickle American consumer likes the plaza type of mall more these days. There is one conventional large enlosed mall near where I live that seems to do well because (1) a lot of the competitors have closed or are shells of their former selves, and (2) they have a mix of a lot of the trendier stores nowadays. I very rarely go there--not my type of shopping experience.

There's an indoor mall not too far from me that was built back in 1968 and is still going strong. The parking lots surrounding it are packed every weekend and this time of year there are actually traffic jams heading into the place.

Seems unusual to me, especially these days, but they've been beating the odds for years and still continue to do so.

Well, the industry is not completely dead, heck there might even be some people who shop there purely for the nostalgic feel. Or, like with anything else, it's all about location, location, location.

The Shithouse finally went up in flames, Jim...


Morrison Hotel made famous by The Doors destroyed by fire while occupied by squatters

This might be one of the few times where "the roof is on fire" is applicable in a literal sense.