Euclid Square Mall transformed

  On Sunday, my sister and I were stumbling around town and we happened upon the Euclid Square Mall. The area around the mall had at one time supported various free standing businesses that have all closed and been boarded up. The mall seemed to have only one business still open which is a local department store outlet that appears to be in the process of closing. The upper floor has been closed off and the glass doors onto the mall have been shut. You can see into the mall which at first glance seems abandoned. A child appeared across the expanse of the mall, headed toward the exterior doors and exited. We decided to investigate and what we discovered was magical. When we met the chill of the space it gave us the start you get at the beginning of a horror film. The presence of a few people and the directory clued us into the fact that the empty stores had started to fill with churches. There were many clustered near the west of the mall leaving the east end empty. We walked the length of the mall discovering all the entrances locked except the one. We walked back listening to the sounds of one church rise to a fevered pitch. The mall has become dead to commerce and stripped of the telltales signs of capitalism but reborn as a place of worship. The beauty of this was stunning, strange and compelling. Questions began to rise within us about this inspiring place in these dire times. The stories here beg to be explored further.