My sister said something weird about the old Sun Valley Mall fountain

We were looking at my pictures from last month's trip to the dead Sun Valley Mall in Phoenix. I had a shot of the empty fountain, and she goes, 'You know, that's where I learned to tie my shoes.' She was dead serious. Our grandma took her there in like 1998, and she sat on the fountain's edge to practice. I'd only ever seen it as a sad, dry pit, but for her it was a core memory. It made me realize I'm just looking for decay, but other people are looking for their past lives in these places. Has anyone else had a totally normal memory pop up in a spot that's now just ruins?

2 comments

2 Comments

seth_martin3413h ago

The problem with that view is it can get real sappy real fast. That broken tile isn't a monument to a dropped pretzel, it's just a broken tile. People attach meaning to everything, but the place itself doesn't care. The mall is dead because it failed, not because our memories left. Focusing on the past like that just covers up the real story of why these places close, like bad management or the town changing. Sometimes a dry fountain is just a sign of a bad business plan.

chen.jade13h ago

I used to only see dead malls as these sad, empty boxes. Then my friend pointed to a broken tile in the food court of our old mall and said that's exactly where he dropped his first soft pretzel and cried for an hour. It flipped a switch for me. Now I walk through those places and wonder about all the regular days people had there, not just the end of the story.