Hello. About a year ago I posted all my Pompei trip pictures here. Today I visited another architectural park, in California about an hour north of San Francisco. As you might remember, I was impressed by the sleek and modern Naples Metro and Tren Campania. San Francisco's trains aren't as good as as Italy's, so I had to drive today. I paid $6.40 in gas and a $11 toll to do this.
The Mall is very old, dating back to mid 20th century. Notably, it only has auto entrances, although there is a bus entrance we'll discuss at the end. The train station is extant but is about a 20 min walk on a small sidewalk that is not paved well. It's empty this side of the freeway, which is odd because of the nearby Casino. 10 years ago, here on /int/ I posted a similar thread of all the destroyed trailer homes and barns between the Casino and the Walmart, which have all decayed away.
This is the original entrance. The original ash trays are still present. Prior to modern vapes, tobacco was sold as a solid, the raw leaves contained within a white paper stick that you'd light with a small flame. Smoking was not allowed within JC Penny, but people would do it outside prior to Entry.
JC Penny was normal, and basically empty as their customers slowly retire from the world. In this instance, by "retire" I mean "die". The inside of the Mall was clean, orderly, and sparely populated. Most people were mall walkers, local Republican Youth Club members, or divorced parents exchanging children as the Mall is a Safe, Allowed Child Exchange Place. Much like a Chuck E Cheese. A small containment play area is available for children to distract themselves while their divorced parents argue about social security or wic benefits.
Target is the Mall's big anchor and is still well used. But why walk through the Mall to Target, when Target has it's own front door. The glass windows hung above are all custom built for this facility, and are larger than my car.
Hallway Junction. Corner stores are either empty or a cell phone accessory store, not a real phone store. All staffed by indians.
Every 30 feet a Pepsi machine. No Coke. This structure was completed 1962. American Culture peaked at about that time, at about 1971 based on gas prices, inflation, and wage-to-debt ratios. The building itself was built for a different American era and has struggled as it's original occupants gradually went out of business. The strong middle class American laborers and artisans that built the mall went away by the time the Target was remodeled in 2015.
There was nobody talking here which was strange. I think this used to be Foot Locker which, as the name implies, was a large shoe store. Americans, like all Anglos, wore closed heel shoes and not sandals as most hispanics, asians and arabs do.
Hallway View East.
Light appliance. I have no idea if it original to the structure itself, or if this used to be an open light box with windows. Nearby is the Mall office and restrooms, but not the original ones, so this might have been a later modification.
Hallway View West.
>>221191565So you walked through a nearly vacant mall?
Sign: Mall Hours. Also on a separate standing sign is the Mall's only attempt at a toy store, actually a "collectibles" store for some guy's ebay business. It is too expensive for the broken families that pass through here. No funko pop stores, probably because the Mall's owner still requires a deposit for a lease.
>>221191852yeswe haven't gotten to the strange part yet. These are the parts of the Mall that still have humans inhabiting them
Let's go outside.
>>221191885Kek. This is a funny thread. Do you have a genuine interest in archeology and history (modern in this case) or are you just shitposting?
The large structure next to and around us used to be a Sears. Sears was a gigantic department store that also ran a mail-order business. A typical Sears, like this one, was three retail floors. This one was no exception and my grandparents bought most of their tools and power tools here. I regularly shopped here just for Craftsman until it was dumped onto Lowe's. Nearby, ahead of us is a large Firestone that used to be Sears Auto. Sears did all my family's car repairs from about 1940 to 2019. The last repair was changing my mom's latest DieHard battery for a newer one. Sears claims it is still under warranty, but they use third parties (ie, indians who hire blacks in stolen trucks) to that run out of the Concord Sears. The Concord Sears is closed to the public, locked off, all signs removed, and is just a big white box in the outer edge of Concord Mall.
West Door View East.
Exiting the main structure, I was about to leave when I noticed all these strange, odd buildings at the very western end of the official property. I walked over past what is now the Firestone and Crunch Fitness, and noticed that at least one of them was still inhabited. I don't remember much about these buildings, but one of them had a Special Education lady/playpen in it and another a drug test lab.
Yes, this building does have a tenant. Some sort of health milkshake shack, boxing club and restrooms. I vaguely recall this being a doctor's office.
Doors were locked because the milkshake guy went home early.
Walking around, these outer structures are in shabby condition and are probably going to be demolished soon. The northwestern building (building 1) was completely empty with only some medical examination beds, tables, and supportive equipment scattered around. Could not get pictures of it because of bad lighting.No idea what this space was supposed to be. Certainly there are protective fencing here, but not anything useful, and there is free access from the street because of the fire hydrants. Across the street are more properties associated with the Mall. Officially the Mall ends at the sidewalk there, but this was part of a larger, greater development by the local Lordship. The Lord, as their kind are want to do, provided his senior Mall Leadership with properties right on the edge of the shopping palace, overlooking it. Consequently this little street contains all very, very, very old retired retail managers. This might seem odd, but back then retail shopping made more money and investors in the mall were typically committed occupants as well. Except for one lot that I'll bring up later. This was back when Americans could afford to actually start a business, and successfully profit from one without competition from the nearby Walmart or Target. Sears was pretty friendly as far as competition went, since Sears charged more.
I turn around and find this notice. Apparently, there used to be a bike rack here. I have no idea why they'd remove it. And, as I sat there thinking about it, I realized I had not seen ANY bike racks or bikes while walking in.
close up
There was a door here, it's gone now.
I walk a little further to building 3. I then notice that it's a US Post Office. Closed. A closed USPS Office. This is becoming more frequent across America as Congress refuses to fully fund America's postal system, which has been underfunded since the 1990s. President Trump's reforms transferred more USPS duties to Fedex, as the current Postmaster is a former Fedex executive and investor. In this way, the USPS is transforming from the national mail service and into a subsidy program for private couriers. This USPS branch location shut down recently last week. I did not know this, and neither did the handful of other people driving up for their mail asking me where it was. When this happens the USPS just forwards it to the nearest branch office where it can be picked up as General Delivery. But, General Delivery requires a Real ID now. Multiple California Citizens complained about that to me as the California Primary is 2 June, and the deadline to Register To Vote is 18 May.
Graffiti complaining about the closure. People would go up and knock, but there was no response.
Post Office Front Door View West.
Interestingly, the usps.gov website isn't fully updated. It still results to the original address (# 1200) but displays "null", while the new one (# 1000) claims it's within the Mall. There's no Post Office within the main building. Also, usps.gov directs people to Apple Maps now and not Google Maps as their main site uses, which is oddly broken and inconsistent for a large website.
This is a newspaper box. In the 20th century, people got their news delivered to them by the newspaper couriers. If they could not afford a newspaper delivery, or just wanted to purchase an additional copy, they could do so from remote newspaper boxes placed in popular areas. Like the Post Office, where older men like my grandfather would put it in a large envelope and mail it to his brothers far up in the remote northern mountains. There were advantages to buying a newspaper outside of your subscription, as each daily paper had different editions gradually updated with the news. All USPS branches always got the Evening Late Edition, which was a much smaller print run vs the Morning Edition that went out to everybody. The Late Edition was always the actual formal record, although all the newspaper archives were shredded long ago when the owner passed away and the family dismantled the business. But this is still relevant for surviving collections, like at the nearby state university. Trump, using his DOGE Reforms, destroyed whatever paper archives of the original newspapers here as part of his larger reforms to the national journalism archive which has been totally dismantled. All of this is now replaced by Apple AI, who can answer news questions faster.
This box had multiple owners. The most recent is a local magazine for old people sponsored by realtors who sell their homes when they die. The digital transition away from paper began under President Obama, but Covid ended most distributions out of safety concerns. This box has likely had at least four or five owners, most within the past six years since Covid. Here is a message from the most recent owner, who has not refilled it.
Post Office Front View West. It will be demolished soon.
New buildings going up. Here, Comcast has already rebranded their office into Xfinity. Xfinity is Comcast's failed attempt to rebrand. Comcast is one of the most hated businsses in America, and is America's oldest cable company. My dad first got Comcast sometime in the summer of 1974, and each room had a coax TV connection next to the Bell telephone connection. It worked great for his entire life, but proved useless once the Internet came around. Because of this Internet was restricted to just one room, because he didn't know how to run the Ethernet cable, and the Digital Modem messed with his Bedroom TV when it was hooked up on that side of the house. Dad never traded up his original 90s era analog Cable Box for the newer ones, which cost $300 apiece and Comcast made him buy two of them. Then, one day, the TV stopped working. Comcast had shut off the analog, legacy TV Boxes from their main server, which was now all Digital. Dad went down to their office and yelled and yelled and yelled but left when they threatened to cancel his service. He hated the new Digital Cable TV Box. It was much slower than the analog box, and had PPVs and subscriptions everywhere that he didn't understand or care for. All he wanted was sports.This happened the same year PG&E forced him to get a Digital 5G Meter, which also got him mad as hell, but he wasn't walking by this point so he just shouted at the PG&E utility workers from the porch. Then, when they actually started working, he moved to the bathroom (outside of which is the meter, stuck his head out and yelled at them that way.
Let's take a look at the fire dept access. This is what the fire dept sees when they roll up. Interesting, right? This will remain here long after the Mall is gone.
>>221192023No way that there is still a running business in there.
Hydrant ID. I noticed that in Europe, Hydrants don't have tags or identifying information cast or stamped onto them. They're trying to make these all 5G too for when people break into them to steal water.
Remember that one lot I mentioned here >>221192109 ? Here it is. This guy is original. This guy wouldn't sell. No matter how much money the Lord offered, he wouldn't sell. So the Mall went up around his home. He has always lived next to the Mall. His house will likely be alone again once these abandoned out buildings are taken down, and his house will outlast the entire Mall. Everyone on this street is over 80. I only noticed that after I was walking down it, until I realized something else that I passed on my way in.
Now we're returning eastward to the Mall itself. I don't know what this building used to be, but it was not the Sears Auto. Sears Auto only used one design and in this case, it is now a Firestone. This building is now a Crunch Fitness.
Architecture is happening here. All over these walls, all this detail for a loading dock and dumpster pen. Painted slate gray. We will probably never know what it once was, but it was likely something impressive like a Macy's Furniture Outlet or Sears Appliance Outlet. My friend thought it was Blockbuster, but I know that's not true because I worked at the Blockbuster down the street.
One of the street lamps was opened up for power. It's usually dangerous to do this. Inside was a phone charger. Neat!
Some mailboxes and signs. You might notice that this is an odd setup. This is because, many decades ago, these homes all shared the same street and the USPS would just dump them all off at a shared mailbox rack you walk to. Not visible here is the rack's other use: Newspaper holder. These have all been taken off in this one, but are visible in other mailbox racks. They are all empty. Next to it, on the eastern side, is a sign explaining how to escape. The sign instructs motorists to pull a dangerous unmarked Left Turn on a busy street, then drive 2 miles to the next Freeway Entrance south of the city. Nobody does this, everyone hangs two rights and gets back on where they came off. Though it is worth noting that both 101 Entrances/Exits here use a very old, very outdated ramp design. This portion of 101 was originally built in 1925 for gas automobiles that struggled to make 30 mph. My sister's Tesla will casually do 85 on Autopilot.
This hispanic gentleman was very happy that I took a picture of his car. This car is rebuilt. Cars from this era smell like shit because they need high octane lead gas, since modern California blends are too weak and are full of ethanol that destroys 20th century cork gaskets. The restoration job was great though because the car only made normal car noises and not noises you'd expect from a 60 year old vehicle. Behind it is a bus in a parking lot it's not supposed to be in. I noticed this.
Northern Westbound Bus Stop View North. The Mall is large enough to have several different bus stops. But not a train stop, because train service was suspended, although not abandoned, at the time.
Just a bus. Driver was having a smoke. In Italy, the drivers would get off and go outside to smoke.
Going back to the back of the main structure, here we see the JCP Trash Compactor. When JCP can't sell clothes, they destroy them. JCP destroys most of their product now, since womens' clothing is so cheap it costs nothing to actually make and they get a reimbursement from the distributor. The clothing is unboxed by underpaid slaves, placed into the compactor, and turned into heavy cubes that are placed into a roll off dumpster and taken away to become shredded plastic forever suspended in the ocean. JCP has acknowledged this, but their baby boomer customers will be long gone by the time it's an unfixable problem.
JCP Doordash Entrance. For older women who can't actually walk into JCP anymore. I thought this was odd until I drove a block over and put all the pieces together.
Only now did I realize that across the street is the California Dept of Women WIC and Social Security Office. Both of these places attract poor people, and is where all the attended play children inside come from. This explained why there were so many bums, neatly dressed children, old women and black people in an otherwise white area.
But the mystery was not solved until after I got back in my car and drove to the "facility" where my demented dad now resides. These apartments are also owned by the Mall, or rather the Mall Lord, and are rented out for various purposes. Our block is for Skilled Nursing, next to us is Palliative Care and then Hospice Care. There's a block of just special needs adults and another block of low risk security jail inmates and their probation officer who lives onsite. All of this is owned by one guy who also owns the Mall.If it's not obvious: Everyone leasing from the Lord gets their Social Security Disability Insurance check once a month, which is then paid to him as either rent or shopping at the Mall. There is no escape from the Mall besides driving or the bus. The train works but requires a ferry transfer to SF, the ferry is expensive and SF buses all their crazy homeless people up here. Not the regular transit buses. But buses provided by the Casino and the Mall deadheading their way back after dumping people off at BART.
Here's some disabled fat people. In America, if you get too fat to walk you get a mobility scooter paid by Medicare. The Medicare office is within the Social Security office. When they're done driving around the mall with the Mall Walkers, both groups get back on the bus and go home a few blocks away. The Lord also owns the local Durable Medical Equipment Supplier Dealer so he makes money off this too.
here is sign slave at the front entrance. sign was for furniture rental which is something only black people do/thread
>>221191781>>221191799>>221191766liminal
