There are probably hundreds of dead malls across the United States.

At the same time, nostalgia has become a serious market force.

So the obvious question is: could one of these malls be turned into a kind of nostalgia town?

The point is to keep the feeling of the actual place. You would use the mall because it is the mall. It shouldn’t be a remake. The scuffed tiles, the awkward atriums, the fluorescent lighting, the strange half-empty scale of the place all do part of the work. The original setting carries the idea. Because it is/was the idea. Nothing fake.

One wing has a cinema showing films from the 1980s and 1990s. Back to the Future would be one them obviously. Another wing has music stores where you can flip through CDs, listen to albums on headphones, and buy band merch without the whole thing being turned into an ironic joke.

The food court comes back too, with old fast food interiors restored properly instead of “inspired by” versions. Bright colors. Plastic seating. Menu items people still remember. McFeast!

Then the obvious attractions: gum ball machines, arcade cabinets, laser tag, mini golf, clunky early VR headsets.

There would also be the occasional trading card meetups. Maybe a LAN room in the basement with Doom, War Craft, and Counter-Strike. Okay, this didn’t really exist. It would be something extra.

The important distinction is that this would be a functioning social space built out of a dead commercial one. People would spend time there, eat there, meet there, and move through a version of the past that still has some life in it.

And the most important rule is obvious: phones stay at the entrance.