Some nights, I get completely lost deep within Wikipedia. A few months ago, I stumbled over the entry on dead malls.
It got me thinking about Wonderland Mall in Livona.
Much like the tunnels, I was intrigued.
I hadn’t been to Wonderland since I worked for AT&T, and would stop in from time to time on my lunch break. It was towards the end of Wonderland’s life — well after Ward’s went out of business, and many of the larger stores had pulled out. Last time I was there, I think most of the food court was abandoned, and there were some strange “we airbrush t-shirts” type of stores.
Wonderland was well worth exploring, in my estimation, but alas, it too had been razed long before the news reached me.
I remember when Wonderland looked like this:
<%image(20070319-oldwonderland.jpg|600|381|Taken from http://mallsofamerica.blogspot.com/2006/06/wonderland-mall.html)%>
And then in the magical early 80′s, they covered it and turned it in to a “proper” mall. To me, Wonderland was probably the coolest mall as a younger kid, because they had a big arcade directly across from a toy store. What’s more, the arcade was located in the only mall food court I’ve seen in Michigan (until the “Lifestyle Cafe” abomination opened in Twelve Oaks).
Of course, I grew used to Twelve Oaks, but would visit Wonderland regularly once I had my license, not only because it was “far away”, but also because it was crawling with trashy girls. Not long after, they had remodeled the food court, and the arcade kind of sucked, so I came back to Twelve Oaks.
Going back to dead malls, I came to find out that there are many people who have the same strange interest in abandoned shopping centers. The most (in)famous being Dixie Square Mall, which was used in the chase scene of the Blues Brothers. Apparently, the mall had been open for 12 years, and abandoned for nearly 27 years.
Based on several accounts, the inside of the mall is like a time capsule. Many of the old stores are still identifiable, along with decor fitting for the time.
I gave very serious consideration to visiting Dixie Square while I was in Illinois last week, but… yep… I found out it had been razed in January. Just my luck. And it was only a 20 minute drive from where I was staying.
I’ve been wondering where the interest is coming from, and I think the reason has a lot to do with how our culture is changing.
“The Mall” isn’t the same place it used to be. Nobody seems to hang out there anymore, and really, I can’t blame them. In an age where anybody with a computer has virtually unlimited access to anything produced anywhere in the world.
Why would you go to a music store at the mall in hopes of scoring a cool import, when you can go to Amazon, buy it for less money, and have it delivered to you in a few days? Or taking that a step further, why bother with Amazon, when you can buy the tracks you want from iTunes and have them right now?
Why go to a clothing store to see if they have something you want in your size, when you can go to their website and just buy it?
When virtually every teenager has a cell phone and internet access, why convene at a mall when you can just call your friends, or send them an IM or SMS?
I used to love going to the mall, but I don’t see much point anymore, unless I need something right now and I can’t find it for less money online. And it isn’t as though they’re doing anything to keep me interested in staying. Not a damn thing happens there anymore.
So I see old malls, with remnants of stores long gone and the memories attached to them, and I look at current malls and wonder if someday my children will explore them as shells of a bygone era.
Or maybe I really have latched on the the least interesting thing in the world to be interested in.
