The Death of the Mall: A Visit to Saratoga's Empty Anchor

What used to be…

I grew up in an era when the mall meant something. It was where you went on weekends, where teenagers hung out, where you grabbed a soft pretzel and walked around for hours without really needing to buy anything. The mall was a social institution as much as it was a commercial one. It was a community.

And now? We do it all from the same couch we used to get off of to go somewhere.

Convenience Has a Hidden Cost

I get it — online shopping is convenient. How did you think I got all my lenses? But there's a real cost to what we've lost, and it goes beyond retail jobs and tax revenue. We lost a place to be together. A place with no agenda, no ticket required—just people, wandering around, running into each other.

That building in Saratoga didn't close because it failed. It closed because we stopped showing up.