Finally cracked open that sealed off wing of the old Bel Air Mall yesterday

I've been poking around the Bel Air Mall in Birmingham for months now, and last week I noticed a door I'd missed behind some collapsed drywall. Took me two trips with a crowbar and a dull hacksaw to get through. Inside was a tiny arcade from the early 80s, all the machines still there but totally dead. One cabinet had a melted power supply that looked like it caught fire years ago. Anyone else find something weird in a sealed off part of a dead mall?

2 comments

2 Comments

chen.phoenix13d ago

Wait, have you checked if that melted power supply was actually the original failure or if someone deliberately sabotaged it? Back in the early 80s, arcade owners sometimes fried their own boards to claim insurance money when a mall was dying out. That might explain why the whole wing was sealed off instead of just cleared out.

evan_anderson13d ago

That thing about arcade owners frying their own boards is wild, but it actually tracks with what I've heard from old repair guys. In my experience, a lot of those 80s power supplies were built like tanks - they could take a beating and still run. So a "melted" one that's clearly burnt up, that's suspicious. It takes a lot to actually melt one of those things, like a direct short or someone pouring something flammable on it. And the whole wing being sealed off instead of just the one arcade? That sounds more like a cover-up for an insurance scam than a simple electrical fire. Your mileage may vary, but I'd bet money someone in the mall's management knew exactly what was going on.

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