Around this time last year, I went to Springfield Mall, and took a stroll down memory lane. It wasn’t much of a stroll, because 70% of the mall was closed, and the whole place was this cemetery of drywall monuments, where all the stores were like tombs and mausoleums of what was once a bustling place of commerce and social gathering. But at least back in 2011, it was still a place where I could actually go inside, walk around, and reminisce about older times.
The photo above is Springfield Mall as of November 2012.
Springfield Mall, for all intents and purposes, is dead.
I add the “all intents and purposes” because technically Springfield Mall isn’t 100% dead. Most of the structure of the place is still standing, and the photograph above is an isolated part of the mall that’s begun it’s process of deconstruction. It also happens to be the second movie theater that used to be there, where I had seen such “classics” such as Bride of Chucky, Apt Pupil, 8mm, and Silent Hill.
Speaking of Silent Hill, I couldn’t be sure by looking at this staircase if I was still at Springfield Mall, or I had managed to transition into Silent Hill. Yes, I made this same lame joke on my Facebook, but on my brog, I can certainly be more verbose about it. Seriously, with the paint peeling away, revealing rusty metal, the joke isn’t not appropriate; at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the empty parking lots were crumbled concrete, revealing rusty grates and clangy steel floors.
But “all intents and purposes” is added because aside from three anchor stores, the mall part of the mall is completely inaccessible to the public from now on out. That’s why Springfield Mall is 100% dead.
No more, will the common shopper or mallrat be allowed to walk down the halls of Springfield Mall, shrewdly wondering where they weren’t going to spend any money next. No more will failed would-be police officers wearing Springfield Mall security uniforms be ever-vigilant to enforce the rules of twos, where “gangs” were not allowed to walk more than two people side-by-side and two rows deep. No more will the mall that succinctly fit the description of Chris Rock’s “Black Mall” exist, with its six shoe stores and three maternity stores. No more will I be able to walk through a shopper’s graveyard and point at where Another Universe, Time Out II, Montgomery Ward, Taco Laredo, and the spot where Jim Lee showed up to do autographs and signed for approximately for his three hours and dude-bailed with zero remorse on the hundreds of remaining fans.
Even though I grew to resent this place when I was an angsty teenager who worked there for several years, I still can’t help but feel a bit melancholy about this place getting ransacked like this. It’s kind of like the Hostess situation; most people I know, and myself personally didn’t really care about Twinkies and Ho-Hos, and all the other sugary shit they put out. But the fact that it’s a notable change, that they won’t exist, that we can’t get their products anymore whenever we may have wanted them; that’s the part that makes us melancholy. It’s the change. That’s kind of what Springfield Mall is like. I’d been visiting fairly regularly for years, even after I moved to Atlanta. Including this past trip, I’ve been to Springfield Mall approximately three times; I could’ve gone many times more, but I just didn’t care. But now that the option is being taken away from me, I kind of do care now. I won’t be able to do it anymore, and it’s reason for minor emotion.
I went into the Target, which was proudly boasting “still open during construction,” and I wanted to see if it were possible to look out into the mall part from within the doors inside of an anchor store. In the case of the Target, they had gone the route of out of sight, out of mind. Where the gigantic door that led into the mall used to be, they simply walled over. You could tell it was a pretty patchwork job too, because there’s an obvious foot of wall that juts out amidst the otherwise flat wall, and upon closer inspection, you can see the shoddy job they did in painting it. In fact, the shade of red they used on the makeshift wall isn’t even the same color; it’s like they went to Home Depot across the street and eyeballed the color, instead of using the approximate shade code.
So, I went into JcPenney, because I know how the place was set up, and I knew that they wouldn’t be able to drywall over the door, because they had ornate security doors that would have interfered with the construction of such. And the picture up above is what the result was. The security doors are indeed closed until further notice, but that’s clearly not sufficient enough for the mall demolition team. They had to wall off the other side of the door, just to make sure that no curious JcPenney employees or rogue customers would dare traverse through the security doors and wander into the remains of the mall.
All I wanted, was a glimpse of where Time Out I, Orange Julius, Hallmark and the oddly resilient Western Outfitters store used to be. But even that little sentiment would be denied; nay, cockblocked by yet another bigass wall.
As for the JcPenney itself, it was oddly jam packed when I went. This was a surprise, considering when I went in December, two weeks before Christmas last year, the place was deserted. I was frankly amazed at the number of cars in the parking lot for of all things, JcPenney. But walking around the inside of JcPenney, it all began to make sense.
There were large numbers of people surrounding cash registers and isolated tables. Everyone was dressed nicely, as if they worked there. And then it made perfect sense; they did work there; this JcPenney was being used as a live test-ground for all JcPenney employees in training. People were learning how to use the cash registers, and people were learning how to fold display clothing, the J-C-P way. All while in a real actual store, with sparse live customers to practice on if necessary. Everyone who was there was super nice and welcoming, which was behavior I had never seen in this place in all my years. These guys were clearly still green, and hadn’t had their souls sucked dry by Springfield Mall yet.
But then again, they never will, because Springfield Mall is dead. They’ll go back to their native stores, be in Tysons, Fair Oaks, Dulles Towne, etc. Where people actually spend money, and give workers reason to continue working. Not a place where the cretins of Southeast D.C. hop on a Metro rail like it’s a Mass Relay, and go to Springfield Mall to invade and scare all the potential spenders away like a bunch of Batarian invaders.
And this is why extending any sort of mass public transportation to a place where affluent people spend money is never a good idea, no matter what city in America you live in.
Rest in peace, Springfield Mall.
