Hollywood Made Millions From This Abandoned Mall. The City Got Nothing. скачать в хорошем качестве

Hollywood Made Millions From This Abandoned Mall. The City Got Nothing.

August 1979. A film crew from Universal Pictures arrives at Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois. The director steps out and looks at the building. Store signs still hang above locked doors. Inside, through cracked glass, pigeons nest in the rafters. Merchandise sits on shelves in darkness. The mall has been closed for exactly one year. Over the next several weeks, Jake and Elwood Blues will tear through these corridors in one of the most iconic car chase sequences in cinema history. The Blues Brothers will gross $57 million at the box office. The mall will never reopen. Dixie Square Mall opened in September 1966. Four hundred thousand square feet. Two anchor stores—Sears and Wieboldt's. Sixty specialty shops. By 1966 standards, it was a complete, modern shopping center. It lasted twelve years. By 1978, both anchors had closed. The last store shut its doors on a Tuesday in late 1978. The building was twelve years old and completely empty. What followed was thirty-four years of abandonment. Water destroyed ceilings. Vandals stripped copper wiring. The building became a genuine ruin. The story of Dixie Square is about what happens to a community when the economic model it was built around collapses. Harvey, Illinois was experiencing the demographic shifts reshaping Chicago in the 1960s. White working-class families—the mall's intended customer base—were leaving. African American families were moving in. The retailers did not adjust. As Harvey's demographics changed, sales at Dixie Square declined. Anchors closed. Specialty stores followed. Harvey's population dropped from 34,000 to 25,000. Industrial jobs disappeared. Unemployment rose above fifteen percent. The vacant mall sat generating nothing—no jobs, no tax revenue, just liability. It took thirty-four years and a federal grant to bring Dixie Square down. Demolition finally happened in 2012. The building spent more than half its existence abandoned. The Blues Brothers footage, filmed in a mall closed for one year that would remain closed for thirty-three more, remains one of the most celebrated sequences in American comedy. The real cost was paid by the people who lived around it. Harvey is still struggling. The site remains largely undeveloped. This is the story of Dixie Square Mall. Twelve years operating. Thirty-four years decaying. And the city that paid the price. Copyright & Fair Use Disclaimer This video is a non-commercial, educational history documentary created for commentary, criticism and research. Some archival photos and footage are used under the principles of Fair Use (Section 107, U.S. Copyright Act) for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. #DixieSquareMall #BluesBrothers #DeadMall #AbandonedMall #Harvey #Illinois #Chicago #RetailHistory #AbandonedPlaces #UrbanExploration #JohnBelushi #DanAykroyd #JohnLandis #MallHistory #1970s #Documentary #TrueStory #EconomicHistory #Urbex #ForgottenPlaces