The old paper mill is gone. I look out my window one day while driving to the supermarket surprised to see the massive building has apparently vanished. The old smokestack stands alone stretching up toward a bright blue sky.
It’s not a David Copperfield style magic trick. The demolition of the mill was planned. It’s been years since it’s been operational, and its demise is a happy thing. The property it sat on is being converted to a facility that will house large batteries for storing solar-generated electricity, the old making way for the new.
This past year they demolished the local mall. It had been closed for a couple of years before that and languishing for far longer. Now piles of rubble that used to be Sears, H&M, Old Navy and Bath and Body Works dot the landscape. It reminds me a lot of the old Talking Heads song “Nothing But Flowers” which itself seems a bit like a reverse version of the even older Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi.”
The future of the former mall property is not looking as rosy as that of the paper mill turned solar energy storage facility. The proposal is to turn the old mall it into warehouse/distribution center space, which with our current obsession with e-commerce seems to be the trend around these parts. That said, they’ve run into a bit of a snag with this plan as the property spans two townships and due to the plans requiring building on preserved space in one of the townships it has been turned down. Most likely they will scale things back and go with a slightly smaller distribution center, but until then the mountains of rubble stand there looking vaguely dystopian. Perhaps given long enough nature will reclaim the space as its own.
— Alissa
Weekly Inspiration
What I’m Reading: Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
What I’m Watching: Man on the Inside
What I’m Listening to: “Nothing But Flowers” by Guster
Find out more about my books at alissagrosso.com
Find out more about my digital art at alissacarin.com
My apologies for the typos and such this post is almost certainly riddled with.
Creativity and Contentment 
6 responses to “Out with the Old”
The times they are a changing.
Always!
Sometimes change is sad even if it’s for better. Hope they clean up soon.
Very true!
Ah, the decaying mall morass. We’re dealing with an earlier iteration of this up in Bangor. Right now it seems to be in the finger pointing stage between the owner and the City of Bangor.
Fun times. I had kind of hoped that the old mall might become something better than a distribution center (which I imagine was also the hope of the homeowners adjacent to the property) but my guess is it will be a LONG time before it becomes anything. That said, I was surprised at how quickly it became rubble.