Valley View and Pan Pipes

I recently took a 2 minute drive east and took a leisurely walk around Valley View Center.  It's a mall, much like the Macon Mall in Georgia, or Crossroads mall in Oklahoma City, which, in the prime of its existence, was the most attractive shopping destination in Dallas. But bigger and better things are built. Superhighways of goods flow across the Internet, and towers of glass and steel rise above the horizon, leaving the flat shopping paradise behind.  They have a web site dedicated just to those slabs of granite, Deadmalls,, that paint in detail the dying world of shopping malls.  But where people see crime infested corners and empty shops, bringing poverty and depression, I see a world filled with potential.  Perhaps those in this part of the world do, too.  For what is now inside Valley View Center is worth the notice of any traveler to Dallas.

Upon entering, you see that the shops are indeed closed. Go on a Sunday, like I did, and the entire mall is basically empty. But the few signs of life are vibrant, colorful. A church gathers in one small shop and sings patriotic hymns, praying for our nation. An artist works in his shop, preparing paintings for the next week.  The lights from the dance studio are on, thought no one is inside, and the lady on the second floor selling fake Peruvian jewelry has Incan Pan Flute music playing, and it echoes throughout the empty hallways.

Upstairs, the mall has been turned into an art gallery, each framed and ready to sell, for the right price. It's here that my dad would have felt right at home. He was a sprinkler engineer, and designed pipe layouts for skyscrapers like the Peachtree Tower in Atlanta, and the giant glass greenhouse and Arboretum in Oklahoma City. In his mind, the steel beams ran through the walls, across floors and elevators, and in those urban landscapes, I'm sure he saw the construction of those buildings in his mind. Why not see the ideal structures erected inside your mind while the real ones, imperfect maybe, slowly assemble up from the rock and the noise of the construction crew. He would have seen these paintings, of urban landscapes such as those of Ozz Franca, a Brazilian painter who drew abstract landscapes of towers and bridges (as well as Native American portraits), and he would have loved them. The fantasy works that might as well have illustrated the covers of his science fiction novels, the geometric designs filled with color and depth... these are the things he would have loved.  I hung (or will hang) the ones my dad had in their bedroom in my living room.

I know that James (a co-worker from Borders) would have loved the gigantic space to work and create art and sell it to the world.  The idea is amazing, that the owners of this mall could turn it into a service based center for arts and movement, the tactile creations when we move our bodies and create.  They have a boxing ring there, for lessons, and a place for martial arts. There are soothing spas for the masseuse who has learned to press stress from the body. And all the while, the music of the pan pipes play, and the colors from the murals dance. There is no other place, except the dirt trails that meander through the forests, where I could be utterly at peace.  It's evident that the Hispanic culture has influenced the culture around here, but also that of Japan and China, and that of America. 

As I left, I found a Western shop, where cowboy hats could be bought, and boots, and jeans. All symbols of the Nostalgic American West. It is a part of this country, just as the Mexican culture and the Japanese culture are as well. We think of Hispanics and we immediately think of those who would cross over the Rio Grande, smuggling drugs and bringing their crime-ridden pasts with them. But remember that also, they bring with them a vibrant culture of food (which I'm sure I'll sample much of), art, music, and a hard work ethic. Let's not throw the amazing things humans can do out with the vices and flaws that we all have.  I'm not saying we should just give everyone amnesty (in fact, I have no real solution to the problems facing our country today). Perhaps, though, if we went inside this center of beauty in the middle of Dallas, and saw the colors of paint dipped onto easels, and heard the melodies of the Incan Pan Pipes, maybe some thoughts would come to us.  It's worth a try.   

Empty Things

I talked about memories in the last blog, the tastes of foods and the smells of the chlorine water wafting up from the indoor pool at the college, filling the air with a warm humid touch (well, I would have had I wanted to). We all have those memories, things we pasted into our brains as children. Places that I visited often as a child, that once seemed magnificent and wonderful, now seem mundane. I remember going to Crossroads Mall in Oklahoma City with my grandmother (my dad's mom, Mema. My other grandmother couldn't stand shopping). It used to be one of the biggest malls in the nation, 9th I think, at one point. The glass ceiling arched overhead, as if some artificial sky, keeping us dry and warm. The small fountains that surrounded the stairs and escalators, moving in a single file line, like ants, toward the magnificent plume of a fountain in the middle of the mall. Where coins would be thrown, and wishes made, and the water would tower up to the second floor before hurtling downwards. The McDonald's food always seemed better there (imagine, a McDonald's! inside a mall!). The long rows of clothing stores and other chain establishments meant nothing, really. It was the size of the place. It was the toy isles at Montgomery Wards or maybe Toys R Us just outside the mall. What a gigantic cathedral to human consumerism, exalted and revered.

And later, in college days at Milledgeville, GA, our friends would go to nearby Macon, where the Macon Mall was the largest in the state. You had to walk through J.C. Penny to get to the other side of the mall. It had a Disney store (much to the glee of Brandy, one of my friends that always drug us along), and a full parking deck which made it easy to go through the Parisian's door, past the green manikins, a sip at the water fountain, and into the mall itself, toward EB or Waldenbooks. How many days when, a year or two after, I would arrive in Macon for my classes, and, depressed from being in those classes, would run to EB and purchase any number of Magic the Gathering cards to take up time in the classes, as purchasing them made me feel better. And then eating at the Applebee's across the street. Always Fajitas. It was a destination, an evenings outing, with maybe a movie at the end. How special those days were. How long ago in times of economic prosperity. And now, both malls stand vacant, as empty shells of human happiness, echoing through the shelves of closed shops.

My family went to the Macon Mall a week or so ago, to meet up with relatives driving to South Carolina from Texas. After our breakfast at Waffle House, we drove around the mall, now filled more with a police precinct and armed forces recruiters than shoppers. There were entire sections of the mall without stores, and it made me sad, that the once vibrant structure was now so still. It reminded me of the day I drove around Dekalb County, handing out fliers for Teacher Appreciation Day at Borders, and finding on my outdated map schools, and then driving to see them boarded up and empty on days when they should be alive with children. What if one of my schools became that way?

Upon returning home, I wondered, what would become of those malls that are now afflicted with the economic downturn? So, upon doing research, I found Deadmalls.com, a site that keeps tabs on empty shopping malls. I looked back at Oklahoma's list, and was shocked to find Crossroads on there as well. It was dying a slow death just like Macon was. What would we do with these now slumbering giants?

For most malls, I would use them as I have seen in my dreams before. Let's turn them into Community-based learning centers, much like the Forums in Ancient times. Take the Macon Mall, for instance. The Macon mall has three colleges nearby (Macon Tech, Macon State, and Mercer). Combined with the Bibb Co. school system and the private schools which are a big part of the county, the Macon mall could be refit to house classrooms, conference rooms, lecture halls, as well as shops and restaurants that would make it financially profitable. The main anchor stores could be gutted and made into athletic centers and gymnasiums, and the outside area could be landscaped to allow for park space and outdoor activities. Now, of course, with the economic state as it is, this probably isn't possible right now, but it might be doable in Oklahoma for some of those malls (there's one in Midwest City that is dying.) They could also be used to house vocational and technical classes that could teach the unemployed to learn new skills to become more competitive in today's market. I've always felt a need to have someplace in a community where people can continue their education, much as the old opera houses and lecture halls were in the 1800's. Some place that Emerson or Thoreau would feel at home in, or even perhaps Plato, debating philosophy inside a comfortably A/C'd building. It's simply a dream of mine, but maybe one day it will happen. There are too few centers of education and culture in the world these days. Perhaps in the world of empty shopping malls and vacant boxes, one can be constructed.