Where Did All The Malls Go? with Alexandra Lange

Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Self-improvement, Education, Comedy, Society & Culture

4.9 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the late 1990s, American malls were the place to be. Families from around the world vacationed at the Mall of America. Teens flocked to Britney Spears’ Hair Zone Mall Tour. A nine-year-old Jonathan basked in the fine fragrance mists of Juniper Breeze. Today, there are only around 700 indoor malls in the US, and more are in the midst of shuttering. What happened to these institutions? This week, Alexandra Lange joins Jonathan to discuss the rise, fall, and potential resurrection of the American mall. Alexandra Lange is a design critic and author of “Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall.” Her essays, reviews and features have been published in the New York Times, The New Yorker and New York Magazine, as well as in design publications including Bloomberg Citylab, Elle Decor and Curbed. She lives in Brooklyn and walks in Brooklyn Bridge Park almost every day. You can follow her on Instagram @langealexandra and on Twitter @LangeAlexandra. And you can purchase a copy of Meet Me by the Fountain here! Bloomsbury Publishing is on Instagram @bloomsburypublishing and on Twitter @BloomsburyPub. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from past Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn; we’ll be updating it soon with more releases! Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our editor is Andrew Carson. Production support from Julie Carrillo, Chris McClure, and Erin McKeon. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Headshot credit for Alexandra: Mark Wickens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Getting Curious.
0:07.2	It's Jonathan Vanness.
0:08.2	I am so excited for our episode today and I know that I always say that, but I'm like,
0:12.1	I just, I guess my excitement for getting curious is always on 12.
0:15.7	But a few months ago, we were scrolling through Twitter, honey, and we saw a question posed
0:18.9	by our past guest, Kim Kelly.
0:21.2	And she asked, what's the best writing you've read about American mall culture?
0:26.2	And it hit me like my love for Bridget Jones's diary.
0:29.1	We realized that we were curious about American mall culture too.
0:33.4	And thankfully, the Twitter comments led us to this week's guest.
0:37.4	Alexander Lang is a design and architecture critic.
0:40.6	Her newest book, meaning by the fountain, explores the social and cultural significance of American
0:45.6	malls.
0:46.6	It's a story about the smell of Mrs. Fields cookies, teenage quote, mall rats, and candy-colored
0:52.5	rows of gap sweatshirts.
0:54.4	It's also a story about American suburbanization and consumerism and race, class, and gender.
1:01.5	So I think that a lot of our listeners, when they think about malls, they may think of
1:06.1	a certain song by the Olsen twins who are just, you know, icons.
1:11.2	We love the Olsen twins around here.
1:12.6	We're huge fans.
1:13.8	But I think of this song from our local mall in Quincy, Illinois.
1:18.5	It was the jingle for the Quincy Mall.
	...

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