Radiolab - City X

Episode Date: July 1, 2008

This week, a piece from one of our favorite radio-makers, Jonathan Mitchell. 'City X' is a history of the modern shopping mall through perspectives of people living in a real, yet unnamed, city.

I should quite. You're listening to Radio Lab, the podcast. From New York Public Radio, WNYC, and NPR. Hey everyone, this is Radio Lab. I'm Chad Aboumra. This is the podcast. While we work on season five, which is coming, we thought we would use this podcast as an opportunity to introduce you to some interesting radio and interesting radio makers. And I have one such person in the, the studio with me here. Hey, Jonathan. Hi, how you doing? Introduce yourself real quick. My name is Jonathan Mitchell. And we're going to play a documentary that you made, which is about the mall, right? Yeah. Tell me, before we hear it, just quickly, how you came up with this idea. So I wanted to do a piece about what it was like to grow up in the Midwest. I grew up in a town

of about 100,000 people in the middle of Illinois. And for me, growing up in the Midwest had a lot to do with the mall. The mall was built right in the middle of my childhood. It was built in like 1976. And that was like my earliest experience of my city was watching this mall come and totally change the character of the city. How exactly? Well, that's sort of what the piece explores. So yeah, I don't know if we want to go there. Okay, we won't get into that. But tell me generally who you, there's a lot of voices that we're going to hear. Just generally, who are these people? These are all people that I either knew personally, friends of mine, family members, or they were involved with the town in some way that was relevant. Like there was the city historian I talked to.

I talked to a man who worked for the Chamber of Commerce. There's also the owner of what was the biggest department store in town at the time the mall was built. And who's the archival guy that we're going to hear from sort of early issue of piece? Yeah, that's Victor Gruen. And he's the architect who is credited with inviative. venting the idea of them all. Okay, well, let's hear it. This is CityX from producer Jonathan Mitchell here on Radio Lab.

What are you looking for? I don't know. How will you know when you find it? I get this really funny, fuzzy feeling. Once upon a time, they existed. A middle American city. It's in the middle of the Midwest. Very conservative, Midwestern town.

Great place to raise your kids. to which I will refer as city X. We wanted comfort. I love that. Sometimes I have to have it. We wanted convenience. I wish I had that. Isn't that cool?

We wanted variety. I think humans want lots of things. They wanted bigger things. They wanted enclosed malls. And that was the trend. It was coming. It was what was going to happen. City planning for the year 2000.

2000. Our first speaker, an architect of distinction. Mr. Victor Gruen. Ladies and gentlemen, we may take a pencil and figure out that the new millennium is only 44 years away. This might sound shocking, but I predict that in the year 2000, it will be considered just as foolish to take vehicles into the...

the interiors of business centers has to days that it is peculiar to put one's feet on the dining room table. They used to say if you could stand on a phone book here, you could see all the way to Chicago. But where are we going? Going to the mall? We're driving on the road to the mall, yeah. And the traffic is always forward out here. It's the busiest street in the entire city because of... the mall and the businesses that have popped up around the mall because of the mall.

All these stores have sprouted up. And it all, it just all built up. It just everything cropped up around the mall. There's stone boxes. They're all concrete boxes that are surrounded by parking lots and connected by roads. And there's no sidewalks anywhere. It's all on land that used to be cornfields. It's not the way it was. It's the way it is. Well, I figured they could make more money if they sold the land and put stores on it.

That must have been progress. I'm sure it's much more profitable than growing corn. There's plenty of corn. Everything that you think is, well, this isn't going to be so good. It's good for business. It's an opportunity for somebody. I don't know. In the larger scheme of things, maybe it is a problem.

I don't know. But what was couldn't have been. Sabermia. Freshness. Edge city development. That was the sign of the future. The very future of... Who we want to be.

Metropolitan. Younger, fresher, cleaner. You know, what we have here is what we have. Bam, it's all there. It's all there. People were so ready for a mall to come here, and it... It was just an untapped market. You have to change with the times,

and you have to figure out what people want. Who wants to walk around downtown in the middle of winter? Nobody. The mall offered a whole new range of national companies that weren't present in the community at that point in time. Everybody will want to come to our mall now. It was American. It was metropolitan.

Metropolitan feeling. Why are we the only town that doesn't have them all in the United States? So when it came... We were hip and happening. We were a real town. We weren't just some little spot in the middle of a cornfield. We've made it. And it left such an enormous hole in the downtown.

I kind of like downtown like it was when I was a kid, you know. the business are downtown. For many years, downtown had been the epicenter of retailing. Older people don't like change that much. They'd like to have it just like it was. Downtown was magical. People came down here on Friday night, and it was the hangout. It was the place where you came, where you had something to eat, where you shop,

and we felt with a great deal of pride that we were the leading department store in town. It started in 1886 on 5th Street. My grandfather and his two brothers built this 10-story building at the corner fifth in Washington in 1925 and 1926. I think that changed. With the coming of the automobile, edge city development, suburbanization, automobile culture, the moving outward. It was the 60s, and the trend of the day was these new walls that were popping up everywhere.

Walls were being built, and we wanted to be involved. The large department stores made a pretty quick exodus from the downtown to the the new mall. Because it was part of being in business and trying to grow your business. The usual newspaper stories appeared decrying, you know, the loss of our downtown our sense of community, and I think with some real basis. We had heard these horror stories in certain towns where a mall had been built in the downtown stores had dropped its volume as much as 40%.

Well, that'll put you out of business in a hurry. And we knew we were going to drop volume because some of the... the volume of the people that came downtown to the store, we're going to go to the new shopping center, obviously. So we calculated that it would be about 25%. Well, when it was all said and done, it was 100%, because the store was eventually closed. When I was five years old,

I remember driving by the mall just to see its progress and seeing this huge... And it was so huge. This huge building. This mall is just massive. She's huge forms. I don't remember seeing anybody actually working on it, but I remember watching it and wondering what was going on in there.

Because at that time I didn't understand the concept of a mall. Okay, we are now driving around the mall. There's the Sears. It looks like any other mall. We're looking for, we're going to go around the mall to the second level, and it's where the theater, we have a movie theater where the entrances, but that's also the main drag into the food court. People tend to have their favorite entrance.

Even if the store that you're going to is far away, you always park up in the upper level by Bergners because that's where you've always parked and it's easier to get out. They all have their motivation. This is my favorite place to park because it takes you bam right into the food court. My favorite place to park is actually the lower level near Bergeners.

Yeah, because it's overlooked because it's actually sort of cutting into the hillside. If I cannot find a good parking space, which it's not looking good. There's hardly any parking places out here. Then I go down to the lower level of Sears that'll take me into the automotive section. Just park anywhere.

Just parking in a normal spot? Yeah. I don't think it'll be open, but... We are now in G9, upper G9, and wait, is this a parking space? Because if it is, I'm taking it. Damn! Oh, I hate when that happens.

It's handicapped. That's handicapped. What are you doing? No, here's... I'm sorry, I broke a law. Do you want me to drop you guys off? We're going to have to park a long ways away. It's not looking good.

Dude, let's go down to see. Sears. What, you want to park here? Oh, look, here's a parking place. Amazing. Well, there's always a possibility of a better one. We're still only half a block away from... I suppose so, but you know what? I walk nowhere. I don't. I don't walk anywhere. I drive everywhere I go. So for me... But even when you're far away, you're still, like, you know, if you were downtown, you'd have to walk blocks, probably. That's true, but you know what? I don't go downtown. Most people don't go downtown. You know why? because the mall brought everybody here. What are we going to do?

We'd just walk around and we look at the clothes and... Time disappears. Oh, that's nice. And everything was shiny and new. Restaurants and drugstores and movie theaters and... Smiling, clerks, greet you. Oh, that's nice. And it smelled new.

Very orderly, very modern. There's a place in the center of the mall that they call Center Court. Can you meet me in Center Court? Yes. But, you know, it had skylights and had trees growing inside, which was really bizarre. It was a good place to go look and just look around. And, you know, I was kind of like wishing, you know. You go there and you wish, I wish I had this.

When I get some money, maybe I'll come back and I'll get this. And we did a lot of wishing. Everybody did a lot of wishing. That is cool. Isn't that cool? I love that. Isn't that cool? What are you looking at? Yes, right here. I always want to stop here and look at it in it.

I'm like drawn into the store. It's got shiny objects. That's exactly. It is. It's got shiny objects. Look at that. Isn't that cool? How much is that?

No, I never did like the mall. Never did care about it. The only time I went to mall was to take people there. I was driving a city bus. It's a brand new place. And I was new at the bus company, so I had to take the worst runs, and that was the worst run. We used to leave from downtown at the Kmart, and there was only one bus an hour.

And on the way to the mall, you couldn't stop and pick anybody else up because it was so crowded. So people would just watch you go by. And then when you got to the mall, buses all full up going back to town. That's where he was all day. I guess it became the place to go. for shopping, for entertainment, for just that sort of teenage adolescent lingering around kind of thing. There's a lot of young people in here. I'm looking, I'm standing here looking around.

I could be the oldest one here. Look right over there. A lot of kids. Look at the way they're kind of walking. They kind of got the little twitch in their hip, and their hair is kind of bouncing a certain way, and their eyes are darting back and forth. The eyes. And they're looking.

you would walk around in search of boys. When you're of a certain age, the mall is the place where you find your freedom. That was where everybody went. Looking for boys and clothes and whatever else you could find. Traveled in little tribes around different locations in the mall. Look for girls. That's it. Like these group of guys here, they all have stocking caps all pulled down like over their eyebrows.

Some guys following us around. Yeah, I stalk them. So all you girls out there, watch that now. I'm just playing. We'd all act like we were cool and we really didn't want them to follow us, but... You know, that was the whole reason why we were there was for them to follow us. Have you ever found him right here? Yeah, yeah, a few times.

I don't know, like it'll be in line and they'll ask you something and then they'll just start talking to you. Be myself, that's how you can be. Do you come with your friends? Yeah, actually my friends are right there. They're eating, they're getting food. We came in here to eat. I haven't eaten today. We're coming into the food court. Okay, we have roasted chips.

We have Phila's Euros. Looks you have a subway over there. Nandron Express, McDonald's, Mellow Cream Donuts, A&W, pizza, and great American steak company. Like, if everyone in your family wanted a different meal. Are you going to have a hot dog? I don't think I'm going to have a hot dog. You're not. Why? Because I have that choice.

Are you going to eat? I'm going to have a hero. A giro. A giro. A gyro. A gyro. A gyro. I'm going to have one of those.

of those. What's them all smell like? Popcorn. Popcorn and candy. And perfume. Perfume and really sweet, fast food. Sended candles, that's another one. Fake cinnamon. Yeah. And if you walk in a clothing store, it smells like new clothes. Let's go by and have a whiff of coffee there. I met people by working there. everybody that I knew all my friends worked at the mall and I became the assistant manager and acting manager, thank you very much. I think what there was was a food chain

related to where you worked and you know you started working at McDonald's or one of those god-awful kiosks in the center that sold like, you know, barbecue paste and then you'd work you way up and I got to the point where I was the guitar salesman in the music store and I worked in the CD shop as well

so that was probably the coolest I've ever been Okay, where should we go from here? We have a photo booth. We could get our photo taken at the photo booth. Oh, look, there's a Zoltar machine. And a Zoltar machine. That's new. Yeah, that is new.

It's got the genie and the ball that's flashing there. And do you have a dollar? Do I ever? So I think you press the button that's your sign. Okay, I'm on Aquarius. Hello there. Welcome to Dumas. My name is Zoltar.

See what your fortune is today. What happens? It's popping out. A card's popping out of the bottom here. Okay. Be flexible enough to see the future. To see that the future can be something different than it is. Your calm spirit will see you through emergencies.

Trends come and go. The elephant is your special animal. And we want quick answers, but it's not a simple thing. Where should we go from here? If you can see that things can change and that you can survive and that they can be better. Play again, and I will tell you more. Oh, you know where we should go? Where?

The perfume department. The perfume department. I'm a beauty advisor as my actual title, so, like, when people come up, I tell them about, like, color and that kind of thing, and then, um, sell makeup, basically. Do you makeovers? Mm-hmm. I don't really like working at the mall. I would come to shop, and that used to be fun, but now I just feel like I don't want to even come here anymore, because I have to come here or all this. time to work. Most people are rude. I used to think most people were nice, but most people are rude.

There was a part of working at the mall that I didn't like. I didn't like the idea that I couldn't look outside windows and see what was going on outside. I was stuck inside of this cave. The mall is, I don't know, it's pasty. It's just, it's sunless and windowless and immaculate. Sterile. That sort of hermetically sealed mall type of environment, that corporate street. A really safe environment where there's security all the time. Very orderly, very modern. It gives you a place to be inside. You don't have to get out in the cold or the heat.

What is a mall but a large cocoon keeping the world out? They're too generic. And there's nothing unique about them anymore. It's sort of a homogenous experience where if you go to almost any mall in the country... Any mall in any town in any state. Every mall and every place and every town is... Gap, gap, gap, gap. It's very similar by design.

Maybe there's comfort in that. Our city, I think, has a lot to offer people. But basically, people talk about the mall. People are going to the mall. People are talking about what they bought at the mall. You know, what we have here is what we have. And if you want things, that's where you have to go to get them. Anything you ever wanted is inside of a mall.

Well, I met my wife at the mall. When I was cool, we would get off work at 9 o'clock because that's when the mall closed. And we would hang out in the parking lot at the mall. And we would make jokes about how the full moon was beautiful and shining off of the windshields of, you know, the 88 Buick. And sometimes we would ride in my convertible around the mall parking lot. And, you know, despite all of the problems and cultural homogenization, it's still a pretty fun memory. Do you go to the mall very often? Not so much these days.

How come? Getting older, realized that life isn't about all that things, I suppose. I've learned a little bit more about what I like, and it's not necessarily what everybody likes, and that's what you find at the mall, what everybody likes. but I do like clothes so when I go to the mall I walk by and say I get this really

funny fuzzy feeling and sometimes I have to have it I think humans want lots of things and I think some are good for a society and some are not so good for a society and we make those choices based on what's available now it's interesting in the history of

retailing in the 19th century, actually, before the development of the great department stores, most shopping was done in small regional areas, neighborhood grocers, and so on. And as it became centralized, a group of merchants in Chicago brought suit against the stores like Marshall Fields and others as an unfair competition. Well, some people get left out, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. It's just the way it is. Obviously, that didn't keep Marshall Fields and other large department stores from prospering. And we began to think of our downtowns traditionally as the center of our community.

Cities are a living, breathing, changing entity. Right now, malls are going through a very difficult time. Now, these many years later, the mall has spawned so many other big box stores. And perhaps the bigger threat are the... are the big box stores. So it's nothing new. This is the way that cities live or die. And maybe, maybe, you know what,

maybe if we never got them all, maybe our city would just be this small little town that had nothing, not even a mall. And I think what's significant here is we not only look at history as something that's 100 years old or 10 years old or even one year old. We look at history as happening today

and in the future. Where are we going? What are we going to do? What are we reaching for? Well, the world is moving pretty fast, and as you get older, it even seems to move faster. Trends come and go. We decide as a society, the things that are good for us. If you can see that things can change and that you can survive and that they can be better. Is it better? I'm not sure it is. But that's the way it is.

Our city, I think, has a lot to offer people. It's a really nice place to live. It's easy to buy a house. It's a nice size city. Fairly easy to make a living. I think it's a safe place. And the cost of living is very reasonable. It's really a great place to raise a family.

It's the middle of America. I think that's a good thing. It fits my taste perfectly. You're probably going to find its beauty and the people. Be myself. That's how you can be. It's the people. And I think by and large we have a community full of wonderful, wonderful people.

But while I think that people shape the town, the town shapes the people. The question is, do these people look happy that they're here? Do you think they do? I don't know. She didn't look too unhappy. No, I think they look pretty happy. It's just fun to see our country be our country

and our people be our people. And what better place to do it at them all? Okay, that was CityX from producer Jonathan Mitchell. Thank you, Jonathan. Sure. And we should mention that that piece was commissioned by Hearing Voices. Right. Hearingvoices.com. Thanks to them.

Thank you to Living on Earth, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Science Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation. I'm Chad Abumrod. This is Radio Lab. Thanks for listening.