dead stores

I have a really strange, creepy fascination with stores that have gone out of business. I love it all. I'll beat down to any closing sale I can find - the last few days are like a wake for the utterly useless and ugly products that nobody wanted. (Except, of course, for me - I've scored some excellent iron-on transfers, ugly shoes, 80s pop cassettes, and old makeup in my day.) If we walk past an empty storefront, I feel it's my duty to peer inside and see if maybe an empty clothes rack, an old cash register, or a paper cup of half-consumed coffee were left behind. For some reason, I feel compelled to spend hours online, finding any information I can on shuttered stores and why they folded. Was it poor management? Employee theft?? Bad marketing decisions??? Zayre's. Ames. Hills. National Record Mart. Gold Circle. Montgomery Ward. Nobody cares about them anymore but me.... and this guy.



I found this "club" completely by accident, and I can't believe I didn't think of it first. It's so spookily delicious - pages of pictures of DEAD MALLS!! And what's more, they're even in my "neck of the woods", so to speak - good old Ohesia. It's beautiful. Look at all the empty stores!! I can't believe there's another weirdo out there who likes to look at closed stuff. In related news, there are *two* K-Mart stores going out of business within 30 miles of my house.... if anyone needs some Backstreet Boys folders or t-shirt puff paint, just let me know....