Today I went to the St Lawrence Center Mall to pick up some work I had in a show that was closing and took my camera along to photograph the Mall. Seeing it today is a strange experience for me because when it opening in 1990 I was in charge of the NYS Employment Service in Massena and our office handled the hiring of hundreds of workers to staff the Mall.
Since then, it has suffered like many other malls from the Internet economy (Amazon, etc.) and only a handful of the original stores remain. One entire section has been walled off. About a dozen stores have been filled with local entrepreneurs but most remain empty and shoppers are few and far between. Despite this, the staff keeps it clean and while I was there one fellow was busy replacing light bulbs that had burnt out. It has the feel of a semi-ghost town, a place that once bubbled with activity and now is fading into oblivion.
Here is a tour of some of the largely vacant spaces.
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