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The Tuesday in 2016 when I had the whole Northgate Mall to myself for 40 minutes
I ducked into the old Northgate Mall in Seattle back in 2016 on a random Tuesday because it was pouring rain and I had time to kill before a shift, and the place was so dead you could hear the fountain echo off the empty tile. A janitor named Ray ended up walking me past the boarded up food court and showed me where the old carousel used to sit, and we just stood there talking about how packed that spot got on weekends in the 90s. Does anyone else have a trip where the mall was this empty but somehow felt more alive than when it was full?
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charles_kim1mo ago
Man, that thing about the echo is what gets me. Malls are built to soak up noise, all that carpet and tile and soft stuff in the ceiling, so when it's empty you hear the building itself for the first time. I grew up near a dying mall in Ohio and I used to notice the same thing by the escalators, this low hum and the squeak of the rubber handrail going around with nobody on it. It's like the place only shows you its bones when the crowd is gone. Ray walking you past the boarded food court probably knew more about that mall than any store manager ever did.
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