Some shopping centre failures
By Brett Marlin
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1. Cloverleaf Mall – Richmond, Virginia
In 1972, Richmond, Virginia opened a string of 42 stores inside a
large building and called it Cloverleaf Mall. It had a large court in
the center of it with a twenty foot pool, glass trees and a great
waterfall. Twenty years later, homes in the area were built far
away from where the mall was located, so it was difficult for the
businesses to stay afloat. Then something horrifying happened. In
1996, Charlita Singleton and Cheryl Sonya Edwards were closing
up their shifts in the mall at the All-For-One Dollar Store, when
they were brutally murdered. It had appeared as a robbery, but
the case was never solved.
After the murders, nobody wanted to shop at the mall anymore;
let alone work there. It was commonly referred to as “the murder
mall,” and parents refused to allow their kids to get part-time jobs
at the shopping center. In 2008, African-Americans boycotted the
mall after owners decided to celebrate Confederate History and
Heritage month. Later that year, the county bought the mall and
it continued to deteriorate. In 2011, all businesses had moved out
and was rumored to be torn down; but a quick check on Google
Maps shows that the mall still exists.
2. New World Mall – Bangkok, Thailand
The New World Mall in Bangkok, Thailand, was built in the 1980s,
but in 1997 a fire had demolished part of the building. Instead of
fixing the entire mall, the owners left it alone and eventually the
mall was closed because it had no roof. The eleven-story mall
eventually filled with water from the rain, and two years later
the entire first floor looked very similar to a fishing pond. The
residents of the town were growing sick of the mosquitoes that
were attracted to the water, and decided to do something about
it. They started putting fish inside the building. Freshwater tilapia
fish, to be exact. The large fish swim around the escalators that
are still intact, and residents have put up signs along the outside
so people know not to throw anything into the water, as they
don’t want to harm the creatu