Seph Lawless - Abandoned Malls of America: Crumbling Commerce Left Behind

Copyright 2020 by Seph Lawless

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover and interior photography by Seph Lawless

ISBN: 978-1-63158-523-4

eISBN: 978-1-63158-524-1

Printed in China

Death Wish

The shopping mall was the vision of Austrian architect Victor Gruen. His architectural design would later become known as the Gruen transfer or the Gruen effect, which is best described as the moment when consumers enter a shopping mall andsurrounded by an intentionally confusing maze-like environmentlose track of their original intentions, making them more susceptible to making impulse purchases. Victor Gruen would eventually grow to despise American shopping malls, mainly because of the sea of wasted parking space around them. Gruen loathed automobiles, and shortly before his death, he gave a speech in which he wished that all American shopping malls would end up abandoned and forgotten.

This book is dedicated to you, Victor Gruen.

IN MEMORY

Years ago, when Jason Schneider reached out to me wanting to publish a book of my work, he had a vision. He led me down that journey teaching me a lot things along the way. He may be gone from my sight, but never from my heart.

Seph Lawless

I am a kid from East Cleveland, Ohio. Thats important to know because for a long time one of our greatest claims to fame was a mall called Randall Park. It was, for a short moment in time, one of the grandest malls in the nation. It was an icon, a hub, a touchstone for many of lifes biggest moments, especially mine. I spent every Saturday of my teenage years at Randall Park Mall. I got my ears pierced there. I bought my first New Edition album there. Saw my first solo movie.

Most importantly, my first job at fifteen-and-a-half was at Randall Park Mall.

I was a member of their Hospitality Team. We were a group of young people who walked every inch of Randall Park Mall looking for people we could be hospitable to. Carry a bag, open a door, you name it.

Because of that job, I came to know Randall Park Mall like the back of my hand. And I loved that!

As time passed by, I went to college and soon after, moved away to pursue my dreams in California. Id visit home and my old haunt often, until the year a friend told me simply this: When you come home for Christmas, whatever you do, dont go to Randall. It will break your heart.

I did not heed her advice. To this day, I wish I had. The icon was not the same. The anchor department stores had long ago fled. Whole wings were relatively empty. Randall Park Mall was dying.

It was another ten years before it was shuttered for good and another two or three before I saw my first images of what it truly had become. Those images came courtesy of photographer Seph Lawless.

I saw a ghostly image on the news that Seph had taken. The caption simply read Randall Park Mall. I gasped. Not just because the image captured how dilapidated my old friend had become, but because I couldnt even make out where in my beloved mall the image had been taken. My favorite childhood place was unrecognizable. Long gone were the beautiful greenery and vibrant crimson carpet. It was an eerie shell of what it had been.

I was heartbroken by its state but touched somehow that because of Sephand his willingness to enter the lost places to document them for all of usI got to say a real goodbye.

Randall Park Mall is torn down now. In its place is an online store distribution center, I heard, which feels about right.

Sephs work functions as a time capsule. It beautifully captures a bygone era. I am honored my favorite place caught his lenses. May you discover your own kind of treasures in these pages.

Yvette Nicole Brown (Actress)

Amazon Fulfillment Centers have moved into what was once the largest shopping mall in the world, known as the Randall Park Mall, as well as into Euclid Square Mall and Rolling Acres Mall, which have all been abandoned for years.

In 1976, Randall Park Mall opened as the largest shopping mall in the world. Located in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, the mall played a pivotal role in my childhood, but like most American shopping malls, it has become isolated and abandoned over the last several years. This is so common, in fact, that I started an entire career just documenting these once-thriving colossal shopping malls. I filmed a television show inside an abandoned mall, and I was interviewed on NBCs The Today Show inside the abandoned Euclid Square mall.

Over the years, several of my abandoned mall images have gone viral, creating thousands of news stories relating to the rise and demise of shopping malls across the United States. The general publics response to my work has always been nostalgic. Most have pondered what can be done to repurpose these spaces.

Amazon has an answer to that much-asked question and plans to use these abandoned mall sites for new Amazon Fulfillment Centers. The irony is overwhelming because online shopping has played a huge role in how American consumers shop today. To think that my published books about this mall are currently being sold on Amazon. com, and therefore would be stocked here, inside the former mall itself, seems almost a mockery. It goes well beyond irony. It is paradoxical, even mildly contemptuous, but can this be the future of these once-thriving American shopping malls? It just might be.

Seph Lawless (Author and Huffpost Journalist)