[New York Diary] The Final Moments of a Shopping Mall: Where Did They All Go?

[Asia Economy New York=Special Correspondent Joselgina] At a studio in Brooklyn, New York, a photo exhibition is currently underway this month, capturing the decline of a once-thriving shopping mall in New Jersey as it closed, was abandoned, and eventually demolished. The works are by New Jersey-born photographer Philip Bueller.

Wayne Hills Mall in New Jersey opened in 1973. Locals who remember this now-defunct mall say in unison, "It was a representative community center where families shopped together and neighborhood friends met."

However, starting in the 2000s, customers gradually decreased, and vacant store spaces began appearing one by one throughout the 100,000㎡ mall. Although the empty areas were cordoned off and operations continued, more and more stores closed. In 2006, county-level urban planning research began to try to revive the dying mall. Within a few years, the number of tenants at Wayne Hills Mall had dwindled to just four.

What happened to the mall with no customers or stores afterward? Wayne Hills Mall was reportedly left virtually empty and abandoned like an eyesore for over 10 years. It was demolished around 2020.

Bueller’s works currently exhibited in Brooklyn capture the mall’s appearance before and after demolition. The nostalgic stage that once hosted Santa Claus meeting children every Christmas season has become a ruined, collapsing site. The traces of Kmart remain only in old signs and worn carts. At the Waldenbooks store, a paper reading "R.I.P. (rest in peace)" was found alongside a coffin. The interior decorations of the Sam Goody record store have been stripped and discarded.

Wayne Hills Mall is not the only thing that disappeared. Kmart, which opened alongside Wayne Hills Mall in 1973, went bankrupt in 2000 and merged with Sears, but Sears also closed in 2018. Waldenbooks went bankrupt in 2011, and Sam Goody in 2006. These were once representative companies operating stores across the United States. Where did they all go?

This photo exhibition does not merely commemorate the end of a shopping mall that may be a precious memory for someone. It fully embodies the passage of time, change, and the process of obsolescence.

Once considered one of the symbols of American culture, shopping malls have been on a path of decline for decades. With the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating innovation in consumer culture, local analyses abound that "the era of American shopping malls has reached its final stage." CoreSite Research previously predicted that 25% of over 1,000 shopping malls in the U.S. would close within 3 to 5 years.

This is largely due to the wave of change brought by e-commerce companies like Amazon dominating the market. The bankruptcy threat and large-scale store closures of Bed Bath & Beyond, once considered a leading American home goods retailer through massive discount coupon marketing, also confirm the current status of companies unable to keep up with market changes.

Robert Tursek, a digital expert who has closely observed the strategies of leading companies such as Apple, Google, and Amazon, described the changes brought by the digital and software revolution as "Vaporized." The traditional industrial economy now faces the risk of suddenly "vanishing" at any moment. The changes we are witnessing now are part of this vaporization. What will vaporize next? It is an era where, like the graffiti on the Waldenbooks store at Wayne Hills Mall, survival is impossible without change.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.