“TRAVEL IN LOCAL SPACES”
“Crossgates Mall on Thanksgiving Weekend”

by Jessica Kuzmier

     One of the things that I love about Thanksgiving weekend is Black Friday. All the sales you can possibly get for your Christmas wares, coupled with the mad stampede of soccer moms acting like Bruce Springsteen was in the house. Except the difference with me is that I don't actually go shopping. As far as I'm concerned, that's what Al Gore invented the Internet for. I just like to watch the other people go nuts.

     Going to the mall since I moved upstate has been a somewhat different experience than when I lived on Long Island. Down there, the word "mall" was synonymous with the word "breathing". Here, the word has a more ambiguous connotation. Malls have a way of attracting development; since the one closest to my house was built about two decades ago, a slow stream of big-named companies have trickled in. This kind of thing brings more jobs, albeit low-paying ones, which makes some people happy. The locals who had to travel miles away to any big store at all are glad that they don't have to travel that much anymore. But then again, the mall brings more traffic, more noise, and more people, which is annoying to people who liked the rural/small city lifestyle precisely because there was less traffic, less noise, and less people than in the metropolitan areas. Malls on the Island don't bring that kind of controversy. They just bring in some downtime with the girls and a lot of money.

     Of course, the malls in upstate metropolitan areas are sort of a given. No one moves to Albany for the serene ambiance. At the present time, Syracuse is trying to outdo the Mall of Americas to become the largest mall in the United States; maybe even outdo Toronto for the largest mall in the world. The malls know the business is where the people are, so it is of no surprise that Crossgates Mall in Albany attracts a lot of the big name stores like Lord and Taylor. It's also one of the malls that is still popular around here if you want to get some serious Christmas shopping done. I'd been to the local mall last Black Friday, so I wanted to go to Albany to see some serious crowds.

     Unfortunately, the weather didn't exactly cooperate, so Black Friday came and went without any expedition. On the one hand, it would have been interesting to see how many nuts were out shopping in near-blizzard conditions, but on the other hand, my being out there myself would make me even crazier than the shoppers, seeing that I wasn't even shopping; and the voyeurism certainly wasn't worth risking my life over. So I waited until Sunday. Hey, at least it was still Thanksgiving weekend. The sales were still going on.

     So my spouse and I headed to the mall Sunday morning, dog in tow. Since I moved here, I haven't done much travel to urban areas, so I was acutely aware of the increasing traffic as we got closer to Albany. Cars were everywhere like lemmings. When it got to eleven-thirty the traffic really got bad. Maybe people were getting ready to buy beer. Or maybe they suddenly realized that the mall had been opened for an hour and a half and the last Elmo might be gone.

     Getting to the mall was disorganized, to say the least. My instructions read, get off at the Crossgates exit in Albany. The directions failed to say whether it was I-87 or I-90, which makes a big difference. Take one too far, and you end up celebrating the Boston Tea Party, and the other way you wind up in customs with the new Homeland Security. But whatever, just take the Crossgates exit, wherever the hey that is.

     We found the exit in some no-man's land arena between I-87/I-90, got involved with a maze of lefts and rights like we were trying out for a car chase with the LAPD, and wound up in a traffic circle surrounding the mall that had intermittent signs reading "Easy Parking". After being stuck at a couple of lights, missing a couple of turns and being cut off a couple times, we were finally able access one of the "Easy Parking" venues. So now we were officially in the mall.

     Parking itself actually wasn't too bad. There were a lot of legal spots still available, albeit not terribly close to the mall. We only had to walk a tenth of a mile to get to the stores. And we didn't have to drive around all day to find it.


     One of the first things that I noticed when I walked in the door was how bright the place was. Once upon a time, I probably wouldn't have noticed the antiseptic fluorescence. Living in an area that doesn't even have street lights at night had made me less impervious to the artificial ambiance. It felt like one of those sci-fi movies where they try to brainwash someone under blinding lights. The faceless voices seemed to scream at me, "Buy, buy, BUY!". At least I couldn't here any piped-in Jingle Bells.

     We did go to a store. No, it wasn't a clothing store where I made my husband sit in the lingerie section waiting. We went to a camera store, and felt compelled to help the economy going by keeping the guy in business, even though we could have gotten a better deal online. Merchandise in hand, we proceeded to walk around the mall, the crowds getting larger as time went on. Kids with piercings, guys in working clothes, and John and Jane Public walking by, worshipping at the altar of corporate America on a Sunday morning. We thought of taking a picture, but thought better of it. My spouse had heard of someone getting his camera confiscated in Rochester for taking a picture of his wife in the mall there, and Crossgates was the mall that made national news in 2002 for kicking out a guy wearing a shirt bearing antiwar slogans. We didn't feel like setting off all the yellow terrorist signals to go orange or red, so we didn't take a picture inside, and waited until we were off of the mall property before even thinking of taking pictures of the premises, just to be sure.

     Lunch turned out to be a simple business. At first the idea of lunch at one of the chain bar/restaurants sounded like a nice idea, but the idea of six football games blaring at me in surround sound didn't exactly enhance my appetite, and my spouse wasn't too hungry. We saw a Mr. Smoothie stand on the second floor that had a view of the first floor, and decided to go there instead to watch the people. Taking my peanut butter/strawberry-banana smoothie, and my spouse with his blueberry/banana concoction, we sat at a table that overlooked a glass railing that directly over the first floor. Being squeamish about heights, I felt a little uneasy about being that precariously close to the edge like that. I Zenned myself into thinking that everything was safe and nothing could happen. Though part of me cynically pointed out I could faint and fall over, for the most part the mantra helped me breathe easier, and I was able to watch what was going on below me. Most of the people walked alone or occasionally in pairs. It was either too early for the middle-school kids to be congregating and the women getting together for shopping dates, or Sunday just wasn't their day. We saw an Internet station promoting an ISP. It was in the shape of a circled island. A guy was on one terminal, and his friend was on another. In order to talk to him at all, he had to walk around to even see him, even though he was on the terminal right next to him. A salesperson hawked around them, occasionally looking over and saying something, ostensibly to promote the joys of this service provider along the lines of "Did you know that when you buy twelve months of service right now, you get another year free?", or some other kind of pitch. Eventually the guys left the station. I don't think they bought the service.

     When we finished our smoothies, we hit a couple of stores that sell whacky merchandise, the kind that sell Homer Simpson dolls that insult you and lava lamps and tarot cards. As a college student, I had found this one particular chain store fascinating, but in the ensuing years I must have lost my taste for this kind of thing, because I just found the place annoying, like a bad club that was trying to hard to be cool. There was another chain store that we were familiar with that also sold doo-dads and other odd assortments that also had vibrating massage chairs. The one I sat in grabbed my legs like it was the dentist's chair from hell and then proceeded to punch my back like a Lennox Lewis demo tape. Some saleslady asked me if I was enjoying my message. I was afraid to say no, because I only walked into this store because I knew about the message chairs, and I'm sure she'd seen plenty of users like me. I was afraid of being found out. So in between pummels, I managed to nod. She walked away. Maybe she wasn't sure if I nodded or was getting my due on the fake rodeo buck chair by having my head roll off my neck.



     The mall was considerably more crowded as we left; hangovers had been cured, church was out of the way, and now it was time to spend. The parking lot was full now, and the process of illegal parking had begun. A car, sensing our leaving, sped around the lanes like Batmobile and began to accost us, but got sick of waiting and moved on to find a victim who parked closer. We got to our space and began driving away only to be confronted by another car which must have been watching our progress zooming down the parking lane the wrong way. I guess he couldn't wait to get inside to spread holiday cheer.

     We drove around in circles a couple of times, trying to find our way out of this place, until we found the sign that said "Easy Exit" and proceeded to get cut off and stuck at another light. Our picture-taking was limited to taking a picture of the mall sign as we drove around the circle several times to get the best shot. But we were able to get back on the highway and home without getting rammed by a holiday shopper, and without incurring too much debt. But I was glad once we reached the part of the highway where the houses grew more spaced apart and the mountains bigger. More room for me to breathe in.