Morning listenings, on the way to the office:
The developers wanted to tear down nearly all of the old mill buildings and replace them with more retail. Townsend would end up spending the next two years fighting alongside other residents to save the mill district, but unfortunately, the building was replaced by a parking lot for a supermarket. Townsend and the other artists saw it as another sign over excess new development in Providence, but they weren’t done with the developers (or with the mall). They decided the best way to understand what they were up against was to live in the mall for one week without leaving.
Heard this story on that podcast before, ages ago, but somehow this idea of a secret appartment hidden inside the guts of a shopping mall doesn't cease to amaze, same as the general idea of looking for unused accidential space in this kind of semi-public buildings. There's a lot of interesting aspects to this one for sure.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/621-secret-mall-apartment/