“The afterlife of a dead mall is interesting. Schools are moving into malls; some students are completing high school in a converted Macy’s in Vermont. A Dillard’s in Texas is now a radio station. Malls are becoming home to community colleges and libraries and offices.”
“The first step — and I can’t emphasize this too much for anyone who might be considering a similar move — was to hire a structural engineer. Putting this many books in an upstairs area is just asking for trouble. Books are heavy.”
“This all still sits there, now well after the celebration — a world built for one purpose, temporarily filled and now waiting indefinitely to be stumbled on again. Which makes it just like the vast majority of the billions of Roblox places.”
“Not a single century passed in which this spot was not being used and transformed, and every transformation is still here. And all that time, from the first sacred spring, to the Mithraism, to today’s Irish Dominicans, this spot has been sacred.”