Petyrc iPhoneographer

Dying Mall

In 2018, I visited my daughter attending Syracuse University. While exploring the surrounding area, I came across the ShoppingTown Mall in Dewitt. The mall was massive in space and in the last throes of its life as a center of community and commercial activity. It was quite a haunting experience to walk through a commercial space so devoid of life, energy, and human activity for which it was specifically built. The mall was deafly quiet with few patrons wandering its vast halls. Most stores were empty and locked up.

As a Gen Xer, I'm a child of malls. I grew up in mall culture. Malls were the place to go, to be seen, and hang out. Their presence holds a very distinct place in my childhood and teenage memories. I've seen a couple of dying malls in my life, and their always sad to see because you know they were once vibrant with activity. ShoppingTown Mall first opened as an open-air shopping center in 1954, it was enclosed in 1973 and remained a major shopping center until 2020.

I wrote a short poem about a person growing up with a mall and watching it die.

I’ve known u my whole life. You’ve clothed me, fed me, provided me with presents, and been cool to hang out with. Now you're sick and dying. There’s nothing I can do for you. Every time I visit, another part of you has died. You're becoming something different, something I don’t recognize anymore. Now all I have of you is a memory of how you used to be and the fun we used to have. I cannot bear to see you die like this. Farewell, old friend.