Talked with an old guy at the Lincoln Mall food court for an hour

Was wandering around the Lincoln Mall in Rhode Island last Saturday taking pics of the empty storefronts. Sat down to rest on a bench near the old food court and this older dude just sits next to me. He asks if I'm a photographer or just sad lol. Turns out he worked at the arcade there back in the early 90s. He pointed at a spot where the carpet was a different color and said the fountain used to be right there. Kids would throw pennies in and he'd fish them out after hours. He had this look like he was still seeing the place how it used to be. Made me feel weird taking photos of a dying mall when someone actually lived parts of it. Has anyone else had a random conversation like that totally change how you see a dead mall?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_cora4d ago

Oh man, I had almost the exact same thing happen at the old Granite Run Mall in PA. I was taking photos of the dead Sears and this lady who used to work at the pretzel stand came up and started telling me about meeting her husband there in 1987. She pointed to this random empty corner and said "that's where we had our first date" and I just felt like such a jerk for seeing a creepy empty building when she saw a whole love story. It really does flip everything upside down when someone shows you the ghost of what it used to be instead of just the shell that's left.

the_sarah3d ago

That lady put the heart back in the room for sure.