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Saw a fountain running in a mostly dead mall last week and it felt wrong somehow
I was at the old Oakwood Mall in Tulsa last Friday, and maybe 15 stores are still open there. The food court is completely empty except for one Sbarro that looks like it's holding on by a thread. But here's what bugged me, they still had the big fountain in the center running with all the water and lights going. It cost me $0 to stand there and watch but I kept thinking about the electric bill and water treatment costs for a feature nobody is around to see. My friend said it makes the place feel less sad but to me it felt like putting makeup on a corpse. Has anyone else noticed malls keeping up expensive stuff like fountains or escalators when the foot traffic is basically gone?
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coleman.christopher12d ago
Yeah the makeup on a corpse thing is just how everything feels now, like fake plants in empty office lobbies.
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Read something a while back about how some malls keep the fountains running because their lease agreements with the city or something require them to maintain "public amenities" even if nobody uses them. Kinda wild if true. My cousin works maintenance at a dead mall in Ohio and he says they still run the escalators too even though like 90% of the stores are empty. Total waste but apparently changing the rules is harder than just letting it run. Spot on about the makeup on a corpse thing though.
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