Yet Another Dead Mall

I'm fascinated by dead malls. Since all shopping malls were built in the '60s and '70s, the ones that don't make it or don't get updated decor become time capsules for the hideous concepts that passed for interior design of the times. The miles and miles of stone-inlaid concrete; the dark-brown laminated wood; the odd fountains and topiaries that dot the floorplan; the absent food court; the shiny aluminum surfaces; and everything swathed in brown and harvest gold. There is nothing more beautiful/ugly than a mall on its last legs.

Last weekend, because The Girl and I were in the area and had nothing better to do, we made our annual stop at the Machesney Park Mall, just because we think it's funny to see what stores could possibly still be in that mall. I used to go to the Machesney Park Mall all the time as a kid, because, even though it was out in the middle of nowhere, it was closer to where we lived than the more popular and still-living Cherryvale Mall (or at least that was my mother's logic). And time has not treated it well.

What we discovered on this particular trip was that Rockford has yet another dead mall on its hands, joining North Towne (which was literally sliced in half and turned into a furniture store) and Colonial Villiage (which became a "church" that draws more visitors than the mall ever did) on the "Do Not Resuscitate" list.

The mall is completely empty inside, with only the anchor stores (JCPenny's and Boston Store) on the ends still open. (Imagine the picture up top, but close the Deb, get rid of the plants, benches, and candy machine, and kill those trees, and that's what it looks like inside.) The parking lot was full of cars, but we soon discovered that all those cars belonged to people who had parked there to catch the shuttle bus to a concert at the Rockford Speedway. I was surprised that you could go into the mall part, which is now a skateboarding hoodlum's paradise and rife with vandalism opportunities. It was totally devoid of life in a creepy and ominous way, and I fully expected to see the occasional zombie shambling about. As the anchor stores had signs posted by their mall entrances that said, "The doors to the mall close at 7:00pm," The Girl thought it might be a neat idea to hide out until they closed and just live in the mall. I rebutted with the fact that there probably already are people living in the mall, and I didn't feature the idea of being murdered by CHUDs after the lights went out. All in all, one dead-ass mall.

But, all hope is not yet lost for the mall. While the mall itself is scheduled for demolition in the next month or so, JCPenny and Boston Store will remain, with the 500,000 square foot space in between being redeveloped into a mixed retail/commercial district. It's all part of a huge development push in that area that coincides with the opening of the I-90/Route 173 interchange later this year. So, from death comes life.

While it's sad to see the old dump go, it's probably for the best. I'm just glad I got to see it in its out-dated glory one last time.