Exploring Lenox Square Mall

Matthew Lee

ENG 181: Imagining the City

9/10/13

 Exploring Lenox Square Mall

        Last Saturday, I had the chance to visit the Lenox Square with a Hong Konger friend. We called up a cab, arriving at the mall in around 20 minutes, and entered the door that led to the food court. There was a construction going on at the middle of the square, and the beams and poles from the work barred any decent view from the floors. It was quite unpleasant. I walked on with my friend up an escalator, and started down the halls to where the stores were aligned. Suddenly, the view cleared up, and I was met huge open space, with beige marble floors and white walls. The place had begun to look lavish as we meandered away from clamor behind. I was in no need for shopping, so I just followed my friend along as we went into our first destination: the Nike store. A dark tunnel lead us in, with basketball shoes displayed on the wall illuminated inside individual, circular glass frames. We continued on, admiring the shoes, and entered the store. There, in the ceiling, was a stunning site – perhaps more than a hundred basketballs cluttered and shaped to form an undulating wave floated in the air. My friend noticed it a bit late, after he was finished buying his clothes, and exclaimed, “Whoa! That’s cool!” to which I just nodded my head with a smile in agreement.

            We continued our exploration, and ventured further down to the heart of the mall, eyeing the numerous illumining names of the shops. We were there around two hours past noon, and the place was teeming with hordes of people. The scrambling and excitement could be heard throughout the mall, as we slid through, or often forced through, crowds of people to get across. As I tried my best to avoid bumping into others, I noticed that there was diversity here that I have rarely seen. Large numbers of African-Americans and Caucasians filled the crowd, and numerous groups of Koreans and Japanese students, and a number of Chinese students from Emory that greeted my friend in Mandarin of which I could not understand. But not just of race, there was a diversity of life here, of class, of fashion, which I believe was the result of the collection of stores at the mall. There were shops seen regularly, such as Footlocker, Guess, Gap, and Nike, but there were also several high-end stores like Prada, Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, and Neiman Marcus. There were men who just promenaded around in plain shirts and sweatpants, while there were boys who wore sport shirts under cardigans. Foreign girls carried Louis Vuitton bags and wore sunglasses indoors, while women who seemed to have just finished their jogging strolled along. The diversity here could be seen, heard, and felt, unlike any malls I have experienced.

           During our cab ride back to the school, I found that I had thoroughly enjoyed my time at Lenox. I had seen so many different men and women, boys and girls, students and workers, that all live a different life, wear different clothes, speak different languages, and run a different road. Wearing a pair of grey Havaianas flip-flops, the only treasure I bought during my three-hour visit, I smiled as I walked to dinner.