Assignment 6: Angelica

For the shopping mall assignment, I visited Lenox Square Mall in the Buckhead Area at about three o’clock on a partly cloudy Friday afternoon. The mall was particularly crowded for a weekday, probably because it was a Friday and the mall staff was setting up for a fashion show which was going to take place early that evening in the central area, in front of Macy’s. Lenox mall is anchored by Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Neiman Marcus with an estimated 250 more specialty stores (largely chain stores) along the two story site. There is not a movie theater in the mall but there are service-dining options with the Lenox Square Grill, which is set as it’s own separate restaurant at the front entrance of the mall, and California Pizza Kitchen which is setup with an open view of the mall and no separating walls from the public walking area. The food court establishments have few local vendors and more fast-food chains. It is located on the first floor of the rear mall entrance, which also makes it easy for customers to park and go into the mall to pick up food. Although ample free parking is available in various surrounding lots and an attached multistory parking structure, the valet parking area directly in front of the main entrance was quite busy with many luxury cars arriving. Using Margaret Crawford’s essay “The World in a Shopping Mall” as a guide in my mall visit, I noticed various parts of her analysis to be true. Lenox Mall falls under the category of regional mall and it does attract customers from many miles away because it is a close walking distance from a Marta station. Observing the customers, I noticed that the majority of them probably fell in the middle or upper middle class, with a few high class customers (evident from seeing the valet car models) because a good portion of the specialty stores are not particularly low priced, such as Fendi and Louis Vuitton. According to Crawford, the customers would be a mix of the achievers and emulators.

The first photograph shows where the seating is located along small protrusions of the walking paths on the second floor. As seen in this photograph, the seating is comfortable and separate from the foot traffic. It makes for a comfortable “people watching” station while taking a break from shopping or waiting for friends. The idea of “trying things on with your eyes” even serves as a marketing tool, like Crawford suggests, because the people sitting down are seeing what stores other customers frequent as they notice the bags passing by.

The second photograph shows one of the five sets of escalators located in the open mall area. This set is in the middle of the overall mall and shows unobstructed views of the nearby shops, along with changing advertisements on the sides of the first and second floors. As Crawford mentions, the dramatic atriums and the “multiple levels provide infinite vistas from a variety of vantage points” (p.14). There is also an absence of outside city noises, which makes the mall seem like it’s own isolated world of safe and clean space everywhere. The ease of transition form one level to the next makes it effortless to shop.

The third photograph shows how even open space between established shops is used for selling products. Different local vendors setup their merchandise on all the sides of small carts to attract the passersby. Unlike the established shops in the mall, these vendors have sales people who walk around their cart engaging with people, trying to convince customers to try samples or take a look at their special products. These vendors probably pay a smaller portion of rent than do the other shops. In a way, I thought this exemplified Crawford’s section on “Retail Magic” and adjacent attraction because the carts are positioned in nodes throughout the mall so each cart lends the other mutual support even if they sell dissimilar objects. On the left are hair straightening tools while on the right there are dog outfits. Out of mere curiosity, a person may walk from one cart to the other because all the carts together seem to create their own store in that space.