Rust Belt Mallwalker

  I read recently that most Simon owned malls have removed their customer service desks over the past year. I worked in a Simon mall for years, and was reminded of an asshole customer story, again from the Big Coffee Shop that I worked for. Since we were in the mall, the majority of our regulars were people who also worked in the mall. One day, this guy started coming to the shop. He'd order a venti latte, extra hot, with mint syrup. Not even a mocha, this maniac was drinking hot mint milk with coffee in it. He would go, drink a bit of the drink, and then bring it back to us, complaining that it wasn't hot enough, or there wasn't enough mint syrup in it. He came in nearly every day for weeks, doing the same thing: order the drink, drink a little, bring it back and load it down with syrup and HOT HOT milk. Most of my fellow baristas would remake the drink, and LOAD the damn thing with syrup. Other baristas would follow the recipe (which I believe a large only got 5 shots of ...

  Did you see Machine Gun Kelly's performance on SNL over the weekend? I did. Despite the fact that I live in Northeastern Ohio and have been hearing MGK's name for years, I've never really listened to him. I had read about his pivot to pop punk, and me, a lady who has gone to many a Warped Tour, so I was curious, finally. His performance was solid. But my immediate thought was "hey, does anyone else remember when Machine Gun Kelly got arrested at South Park Mall?" Here's what happened: In 2011, Colson Baker, aka Machine Gun Kelly, was on top of the music world, having just signed to Diddy's Bad Boy label. One day, he tweeted out to his followers, "I'm thinking about doing a flash mob at a mall or something tomorrow lol cleveland should we do one while I'm home?" Over the next few hours, he came up with the location (South Park Mall in Strongsville, Ohio), and gave his fans directions: show up in the food court, and at 5pm, "No one m...

  Archie the Snowman, in his new home at Lock 3. As malls continue to disappear, we hear more stories about the things that people miss about them. The one thing that crossed my mind (pre-pandemic) was Christmas. Malls used to have amazing decorations. I remember Rolling Acres Mall had a huge castle set up, and Santa sat in the middle of it. Richmond Town Square had a similar setup last year; I'm not sure whether they're still even open. When malls close, they usually leave everything in them, including all of the decorations. Akron's Chapel Hill Mall has been cruising slowly towards foreclosure all year, which made me start to wonder around September what would happen to Archie. Archie is an over 20 foot tall talking snowman, who has lived at Chapel Hill Mall on and off since the late 1960's. He lived at the mall until the early 2000's, during an ownership change. There was a crowdsourcing campaign to bring Archie back, which was a huge success. Archie was at Lock ...

  Back in July, I got a text from my dear friend Marc, asking me to come on his podcast and discuss my journey with mental health. I didn't hesitate. Marc was one of those people who, when I first met him and really got to talk to him, I knew he was a kindred spirit. He was a bright spot in a dark time. I talked about what led me to therapy, how I got through everything, and how my work with malls and photography grew out of the work I was doing in therapy. This is one of the more vulnerable things I've done, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. In fact, I'd love to do more things like this! My episode of Recovery Talks can be found  here , or wherever you listen to podcasts. Eternal gratitude to Marc Lee Shannon for having me on. Doing this podcast gave me the opportunity to let everything out, and man, it feels pretty good. In addition to being a great guy, Marc is also a great musician. Make sure to check out his Bandcamp !  

I have a pretty extensive collection of various news clippings that I've collected over the past couple years, mostly focusing on Akron area malls. This article from The Ashtabula Town Beacon in 2007 is the early call: malls are dying. Most of the malls in this article have turned into Amazon fulfillment centers. Ashtabula Mall is owned by the same company who owns Akron's very dead Chapel Hill Mall, and is very much dead. Millcreek is the only mall that I think is still doing ok. "Hopefully there won't come a time when we buy everything either online or at Wal-Mart" makes me wonder if the writer of this is still around. I'd love to hear what he thinks now. COVID has kicked the collapse of the American shopping mall into high gear, but this has been happening for years now. We're seeing the American dream die in real time, both literally (the American Dream Mall is the most cursed mall in America), and figuratively (hi, I haven't been out of m...

I've spent the past four years visiting and documenting malls across the Rust Belt and beyond. It started with a nervous breakdown, which led me to pick up my camera, which led me back to my first childhood home, Rolling Acres Mall. I've always been in malls. Rolling Acres was always quite literally in my backyard. I could see the mall clear as day from my high school, which made wanting to go to school really tough, since high school sucked and the mall didn't. My house was two miles from the mall. We spent a lot of time coordinating how we were going to get to the mall, who we were going to meet there, and who was going to bring us home. My childhood home was unpredictable, and my neighborhood wasn't very safe. I wouldn't walk around my neighborhood, but I'd walk around the mall alone, no problem. The lights were always going to be on at the mall. I could hang out with friends at the mall, and we collectively were able to skip the part where we had ...