Mall-icious

A well intended visit to a aged shopping mall reaffirmed my belief that things aren’t gonna get better for our communities unless we all work together. My beliefs are not necessarily everyone’s but I try to witness things in this World first-hand rather than hear about it second-hand. Not always easy to do, rarely the results I expect and for the most part, a harmless weird journey through this land of ass-bleeding brethren and sisters.

The day’s jaunt took me out to Washington Square Mall located on the East side of Indy. I wanted to get some shooting done for a personal video project I planned to shoot in the mall. I wanted an environment that was a bit bleak, maybe dystopian and the mall’s halls are spacious; the perfect look for what I wanted. I wouldn’t be in people’s way because the foot traffic there is down to random couples, or maintenance and security people…not at all the popular spot it was some decades ago, back in the Era of Malls.

I walked in the mall entrance with my Nikon camera hanging around my neck, right past a security lady. I’m not sure she even looked up to register me. She just acknowledged another humanoid trudging through the store. I walked over and shot a pic between the slats of a lowered security gate for an art gallery located where the indoor General Cinemas theaters were located long ago. From behind I started hearing the security lady come to life, yelling ‘sir’ repeatedly. I had my back to her, rolling my eyes wondering what next? What the fuck could I have possibly done to alert a Code Red from Mall Security?

“Sir, you’re not allowed to take pictures in here.”

I looked at her with mild disbelief and started walking away. She kept calling out to me and at this point I was just annoyed about it. I took one shot inside and she’s alerting the head security dude of the mall and after I had walked about 40 or 50 yards, this huge guy confronts me and tells me I can’t take pictures inside the mall, I needed to delete the photos I have on my camera taken inside the mall, and I would have to leave the mall.

We got everything straightened out and he allowed me to stay in the mall as long as I had security hold onto my camera and I had to delete the one photo in front of him. I’ll probably drop that project now considering the negative response from the mall but it seemed somewhat ridiculous to me. Most everyone who walks in that mall has a phone and on those phones are cameras, no different than the Nikon I had with me. My quick count showed three security people inside the mall and those three can’t watch over all customers inside Washington Square so this ended up sounding more personal to me. Personal in the sense that these people working at the mall, the few people still working there, have become scorned individuals. I feel they must vindicate their frustrations on how the public perceives this dinosaur of a shopping plaza by comparison to when the mall was flourishing with traffic and customers, decades ago. A small percentage remember Washington Square in it’s heyday, but that group have become dinosaurs as well-including yours truly.

Mall’s problems stem from a vicious nomadic cycle our communities seem to follow. A pattern of nesting in one location, using it for a few years until it gets old and dusty, then onto a new location as you totally abandon any support, any loyalty at all, to the old businesses you supported. Add onto that the fact that shopping habits in general have changed with the advent of to-your-door shopping through phone apps and services like Amazon or Insta-Cart. Services and eateries all over are switching to market the majority of their product through your phone rather than having you walk through their actual store. Our daily needs are being accessed quicker with less contact to our physical community……but what about our mental well being? Reports show how bad humanity took the isolation experienced from the pandemic. Reports we humans actually do need contact with one another; we should actually experience some things in person. It helps quell our tempers, helps us practice patience with one another. It makes sure that you don’t have to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July digitally. Like through a camera…….
yet everyone’s taking pictures of fireworks on their camera.