Get In Loser, We're Going to the Mall

“The mall is personal,” writes design critic Alexandra Lange in her latest book “Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall.” For denizens of the suburbs, the mall is the place where people got their first jobs, got their first taste of independence goofing around with middle school friends, or bought their first hot dog on a stick. And while often derided by design critics, the mall in its heyday has been immortalized in movies like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Clueless,” “Mean Girls,” and more recently “Stranger Things.” With the rise in the online economy, many have heralded the demise of these temples of commerce but malls continue to reinvent themselves. We’ll talk about the cultural and design history of malls and hear from you about your favorite mall memory.