Malls

These massive multi-purpose mega centers can be visited wherever you may be in the world. You can grab a bite to eat, catch a flick, and even shop till you drop. For a period their popularity seemed to have faded into oblivion, with the advent of online shopping sites such as Amazon, but don’t rule out these opulent palaces for purchasing and people watching. We’ll demystify malls on this week’s episode of FYI!

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these massive multi-purpose Mega centers can be visited wherever you may be in the world you can grab a bite to eat catch a flick and even shop till you drop for a period their popularity seemed to have faded into Oblivion with the Advent of online shopping sites such as Amazon but don't rule out these opulent palaces for purchasing and people watching we'll demystify malls on this week's episode of f why I I welcome to for your info English you got it hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting edition of FYI for your English the topic based show where we learn about anything and everything and remember to send me your suggestions today we're going to talk about something that's all American we've already looked at a few things that are all American such as baseball but I think there's nothing as American as a shopping mall or as we call them malls let's take a look at our intro because as always I've sprinkled tons of vocabulary in there that I think you should know I said these massive multi-purpose Mega centers can be visited wherever you may be in the world wherever you may be you can grab a bite to eat and to grab a bite to eat is to eat something light I think you say Pico de aralgo to grab a bite to eat you can catch a flick if there's a movie theater well the British call it a cinema we call it a movie theater and then I said you can even shop till you drop and yes shopaholics we have an expression for you and it Rhymes to shop till you drop hasta kekas then I said for a period their popularity seemed to have faded let's start with the word popularity it's not popularity it's popularity that you is like Community popularity and it seemed to have faded and to fade is to lose color if we're talking about a shirt or to lose strength if we're talking about a movement or a trend such as malls and what is oblivion El olvido so if something Fades into to Oblivion I think you say in Spanish well that was because of the Advent of online shopping sites and the Advent is the birth of I'm sure you guys know it from the Advent calendar well it's a very fancy word with the Advent the birth of online shopping sites such as Amazon yeah I know you say Amazon we say Amazon but then I said don't rule out to discard to rule out these opulent palaces for purchasing comparcosas usually when we say a purchase it means that it's something that is a little bit more expensive I purchased a car I purchased a house I bought a new shirt and then one of my favorite pastimes people watching and this is sitting there having a coffee with a friend and watching all the girls and guys go by and gossiping well you don't want to be gossipy but saying oh man check her out well hey guys I'm going to tell you about my experiences in malls as a teenager in the United States in the 80s in their Heyday in suap Ohio so it's going to be pretty exciting now I'll tell you I go to the mall from time to time but it's a totally different experience as a father but as we can see malls are made for everyone or maybe not we'll take a look at all aspects of malls from the biggest to the coolest to the most high tech and will even look at the downfall of malls yeah the downfall superdithion and will try and predict if they're going to make a comeback all that in this exciting episode so let's rewind and find out where it all started it all started in Minnesota a mall called the Southdale mall and this was in the year 1952 a Visionary architect a guy named Victor Gruen was commissioned to design a shopping center in Edina Minnesota this was again 1952 and this guy was originally from Vienna so he looked to his home city of Vienna for inspiration and this was America's first example of a large-scale indoor mall because like with anything there are always predecessors so if you think about it before this there were shopping centers but they were more like strip malls like two or three shops together nothing like a mall like we know today and there were also department stores which are more like your Corte Ingles today but we're gonna see where they all meshed together the Southdale mall has 75 shops filling two levels of what they call retail space and at the center of it he built this European Plaza this Plaza from Vienna or at least that was the inspiration and it had fountains goldfish ponds sculptures plant life I mean it looked like an outdoor Garden slash Plaza yeah I know we say the word square but we also say the word Plaza as well so his original idea was not just to make it a place where you could go and spend money where consumerism and capitalism is King no he wanted it to be like a town center where people could get together purchase things they need to purchase have a coffee chat with friends solve The World's energy crisis is you know all of these kind of things so it wasn't just about shopping it was about relaxing socializing and it was a kind of town center and that model was used for many malls to follow in the United States and was it a success this Southdale Mall in Minnesota absolutely some people compared it to the opening of Disneyland just a year earlier it was a huge roaring success and as with everything it had its detractors Frank Lloyd Wright the famous architect said that he wasn't a big fan at all in fact let me quote what he said his exact words were you've got a Garden Court that has all the evils of the Village Street and none of its charm who wants to sit in that desolate looking spot well it seems like the whole rest of the world wanted to be in these malls the people spoke and they love it regardless of Frank Lloyd Wright's opinion and then the American Mall boom began malls would enter into a golden age and malls were popping up all over the American landscape and it was due to many different factors well first of all there was an economic boom so the middle class there was a big middle class and they had a lot of money there was also something called The Highway Act which connected the United States by roads and highways so it created a bunch of suburbs and obviously if you didn't want to go downtown or to the city center well you would need some kind of area some kind of common area in the suburbs because the suburbs were missing those vital spaces as we said those plazas that are so famous in Europe where you can go and just you know chat with somebody on a bench so I guess all the planets had aligned it was the perfect moment and from 1956 when that Southdale Mall opened until some would say the mid to thousands around 2005 shopping malls were number one at least in the United States in 1960 4500 shopping complexes opened a year that's three a day in the 1980s that number went down but they were still opening around a thousand malls a year in the United States and thank God for that because malls are a huge part of my childhood I can't even begin to Fathom my childhood without malls for me it was that place where I could go meet my friends and mingle and get some Freedom get away from my parents no chaperones you know I could be myself and discover who I was and it wasn't only about shopping yeah I would probably buy one CD where I would buy a t-shirt but it was more about going there and being with your friends and the experience and I'm not a big fan of malls nowadays I've got to be honest with you but I can't imagine my childhood without malls and you can see it because it captured the Zeitgeist of a whole generation the movie's Mall Rats I mean that's I don't know what it was called in Spanish but there's a movie called Mall Rats esos that's what they called us people who went to the mall with their friends any chance they got were considered Mall Rats you can check out that movie and in the bonus part we're going to take a look at a lot of movies that take place in malls we're also going to take a look at George Romero's opinion as well and why he used malls in all of his horror movies we'll also take a look at the Resurgence because now we're going to take a look at the boom and the downfall but in the bonus part we will take a look at the Resurgence and the future of malls I'm also going to recommend some books some documentaries remember if you guys are on patreon then I'm gonna share these links if you guys are not on patreon I don't know what you're waiting for we're having tons of fun we've got an amazing community and you can join us for as little as three Euros a month plus tax that'll give you the bonus episode every week where we include a Class part a practical part so today in the bonus part we're not only going to take a look at all the other things I told you but we're also going to take a look at Key vocabulary and phrases you'll need if you're shopping so if you're interested in more information you can go to patreon.com Alberto Alonso and you can get access to bonus episodes you can get PDF documents with all the vocabulary weekly classes where we review each topic and if you're one of our Interstellar students you can get a monthly private class with me where we can measure your progress again more information at patreon.com Alberto Alonso you don't know what you're missing out on in fact I want to send a shout out to all my amazing patrons especially my super duper students Javier Roberto David Jose Maria Mila Alex and Patricio and don't forget about my Interstellar students Carmen Lina Isa Paco and Elgar if you want more information you can get it at patreon.com Alberto Alonso or you can reach out to me on social media and I can send you a little sample I'd be more than happy all right where were we donde estabamos good question to know where were we well I was telling you a little bit about my childhood and before I get too nostalgic I think we should get into the largest mall now what what is the largest mall in the United States well it's appropriately named the Mall of America since it opened in Bloomington Minnesota this is in 1992 it has held the title of the largest shopping mall there are 530 stores there's also a comedy club a children's museum a mirror maze a mini golf course and just to give you an idea of the size it's large enough to fit seven Yankee stadiums within its walls this is what we call a mega mall and this is even a destination Mall some people who are really into malls they've got it on their bucket list they say I've gotta get to Mall of America also remember you can only be the biggest for so long there are all ready some projects underway which seek to Dethrone the Mall of America and this is a bit of a trick question what's the largest mall in North America the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton Canada it employs let's take a guess how many people do you think it employs how many employees do you think it has twenty three thousand employees 800 storefronts a water park and many other attractions and again these are going to be overtaken very very quickly when I tell you about some of the malls that are being built as we speak specifically one in Miami but I keep bringing up the downfall of malls I mean is it true have malls waned in popularity are they a thing of the past is society not interested in shopping at malls anymore well there's an article that I came across when I was researching this and I've shared it on patreon it's called the rise and fall of the American Mall and it's an article by Business Insider it's very very interesting and it talks it goes more in depth about the downfall but as we said before there were many many factors the same reason that malls got popular all the factors we said before well there were many factors that made them get unpopular or LED to their downfall as the 2000s went on there's something in the United States now called Dead malls and these are a series of malls and when I say A series I mean hundreds of malls that have closed their doors in the past few decades in the United States and there are hundreds more who unfortunately will be forced to do the same so what are these dead malls well they're abandoned malls and there's one in Madrid too there's one I go to by Rio Madrid which every time I go there I don't see any stores there's like a Fosters Hollywood and a bowling alley I don't know if you guys know the one I'm talking about madrilenos but it's pretty Eerie you know it's like where is everybody there's almost like a zombie like vibe to it and as I said in the bonus part we're going to hear about George Romero the father of zombies how he compared malls to zombies or Mall goers a mall goers unasis so a party goer assistant a festival goer a church goer I think you catch my drift so thanks to Amazon Walmart and other online businesses people stopped going to malls and if you don't have customers you're gonna have to close your doors sooner or later the good news is Americans are usually pretty creative so a lot of these malls are being repurposed they're Reinventing them into different kinds of spaces such as churches indoor Farms apartment complexes and there's a whole genre on YouTube about abandoned places and there are tons of malls and shopping centers they're wonderful if you consider yourself an Urban Explorer but enter at your own risk you can find out more information by checking out the website deadmalls.com it's pretty crazy when you see these huge centers that were just you know built with these grandiose ideas and in the end they're sitting there empty and withering away even the father of mauls we talked about him before Victor Gruen from Vienna he ended up denouncing malls by the end of his life he said it was the exact opposite of what he wanted them to be he saw these big concrete parking lots with these ugly structures that said nothing he said they were missing a soul they were built to be temporary and they were built with one thing in mind making a profit which as you remember that wasn't his intention at first it was to have it be a place where people could get together a kind of town hall and we all know that's not what they became some people say they're a symbol of everything that went wrong with the consumer society and old Victor Gruen was deeply Disturbed when he saw the state of malls and what they had become he said that developers were constantly thinking about maximizing profits and cutting Corners he went on to call them and I quote gigantic shopping machines and in a 1978 speech he said I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard developments so he didn't even want to take credit for his invention of them all and alimony is the money you have to pay if you get divorced and you have kids heads so he basically calls them all his bastard son that he wished he had never invented he disowns them all we're talking about the father of mauls here but if you look at his original intention that's not what he had in mind he had in mind a place where people could get together and they didn't have to spend tons of money they could have a coffee chat and people watch and for me that's what malls have always been and I think now when I see my niece my niece Candela she's a teenager a lot of times I see myself and her and her friends because you know we'll say hey Candela what are you doing this weekend she goes I'm just going to the mall with my friends gonna hang out and a lot of times you know what are you gonna buy I don't know it's not about buying so I think it's about us changing malls and saying well wait we don't have to go there spend 20 hours there be frustrated because we can't park or remember where we parked which is a whole nother story but it's interesting to see young people finding the original meaning of the malls yeah they may buy a little something when they go but it's more about getting together with your friends and sharing and making new memories together a place where you can express yourself let's hear from my niece Candela she's going to tell us why she likes malls and this is just to show you guys that this is not a generational thing it's not a nationality things malls hold a special place in our heart let's hear from Candela I love going to the mall because I think it's a great place to do a lot of things you can have a coffee while you're looking for new clothes or new shoes and a lot of things I usually hang out with my friends at the mall because I think that it can be a familiar place but you're going to have a lot more fun if you go with your friends there my favorite shops are always the clothes one because I love to try the new clothes there are trendy and new colors and each season to wear a new sweater or shorts and you know go each week to try all the new things they have here in Spain we don't have a food court like in the USA that when you go to the mall you have like a small place with a lot of like restaurants like here in Spain we just have one big place with a couple of restaurants animals so I think we need that here I always buy things when I go to the mall because I think it's one of the things that make it special you can always find something to buy even if you want to buy you have a lot of money or you want to buy something cheaper I'm always looking for deals and in the mall you have a lot of stores so you're always going to find them and maybe you can buy a lot of clothes just for the price of one or Max and shoes you know who doesn't love a bargain next year I will be spending a year studying in the USA and one of the things I'm most looking forward to is a getting to know all these megamax malls and you know trying some food from the food cart I think that's all from now shopaholics will see you all right excellent job Candela she expressed herself beautifully well folks I sure hope you'll join us in the bonus episode of today's f thank you