Aphex Twin - Tysons Corner Afternoon

Are malls dying?

Tysons Corner Center is near Washington, D.C. Sitting on 78 acres today, there are plans in motion to double its footprint to over 3.5 million sq. feet. Meanwhile everyone is shopping at Amazon now.

as you watch:
- you will see very few with actual shopping bags
- many of those you do see work in the mall
- the mall is no longer the place to congregate, but a place to slack
- strollers strollers strollers. and these aren't infants or even toddlers riding them.
- how many store closings there are, and how cleverly they're disguised

meanwhile area property taxes, utility bills and especially water fees are spiking to support the roads and infrastructure around what some fear could be a slow dying dinosaur...

Comments and perspectives welcome and thumbs up if you hate trolling malls.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Tysons Corner
• mall
• fairfax
• Virginia
• Aphex Twin
• mead2000

[Thoughtfulguy68]

This is a fascinating video, thanks for posting it. But I certainly take issue with Tyson's becoming a dead mall. The mall is, in fact, one of the largest and most profitable in the country. It is an upscale destination for discerning shoppers with large disposable incomes. You could not have filmed all these "closures" in one walk around around the mall at any given time. You edited them together to create the effect of a decline. I have shopped at the mall for 30 years and know better.

[mead2000]

@Thoughtfulguy68 - Hi thoughtful - thanks for the comment and I hope you are right on the 'dead mall'. The shots are indeed from a single afternoon while I was fighting off boredom having had to accompany a friend while she shopped at Tysons. The 'dead mall' sensation was from 1) the mall was indeed slow that day, 2) we were in the throes of 2007 downturn, 3) the owner of Tysons II (Galleria) had either filed or was close to bankruptcy.

[mead2000]

@Thoughtfulguy68 - one more thought. it is 2011 now, and the political assault on government (ie. federal) spending is probably the biggest economic sucker-punch northern virginia may have to face. anyway, thanks again for your comments and see you at tysons~

[neurodistortion]

It would be good to know the exact time when this video was taken. If it was sometime around lunchtime, I'm sure that food court would be packed with workers from in and around the mall.

[mead2000]

@neurodistortion - this vid clips were taken around 3pm on a thursday, 10/8/09. even when packed, editing and music can manipulate a sense of loneliness / emptiness.

[mead2000]

"Curtains" was selected as background music to carry this video because of its ethereal & lonely beauty - as well as the irony behind its name (is it "curtains" for malls?)

Description and reviews of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works can be found on Amazon.

[38380finster]

Great video mead2000! We have many dead and dying malls around Detroit, but many successfull upscale ones also. Tysons Corner is often mentioned as the poster child of sprawl in America, and what better depiction of sprawl than the suburban shopping mall!

[Thoughtfulguy68]

@mead2000 Just another thought to clarify the last sentence of my previous reply -I guess I'm lamenting that the original idea to build a nice regional mall kicked off the massive over development and crippling traffic congestion that Tyson's copes with today. The malls are a good economic indicator of just how prosperous this area is, and if they begin to fail, we are in deep trouble! -VaFreeways below left a great comment. Lets all hope Tysons stays strong.

[Thoughtfulguy68]

@mead2000 I have an emotional connection to this mall. When I was a kid the site was an abandoned cornfield that was perfect for dirt bikes! I knew the original mall, and I witnessed the 30 year transformation of it into a modern retail utopia. Today, with the continued expansion of the mall, the explosion of population in Tysons/ Vienna, the extension of Metro to Dulles, and the never ending widening of the crippled Capital Beltway, something that once was wonderful now feels sad and wrong.

[VaFreeways]

I take issue with the notion that this mall is dying... stores always come and go... but this mall has such demand from retailers that the owners are actually kicking some of the older retailers out to bring newer, more desirable ones in. I've seen at least a dozen, mostly upscale, national tenants open their doors at the mall over the 6 months and there is more to come. Most of the empty space you see at this mall is probably spoken for. And this is coming from a skeptic.

[policefan1982]

My father used to go mall walking at Tysons Corner when he first retired. Then the mall, in its wisdom stopped the program.. Retirees not desired customers? It was too bad, because it was good exercise year round, plus he got a break from my mother!