Stay away from Randall Park Mall
It was in early 2014, my friends and I had just gotten done exploring an abandoned industrial complex in *****, **** , and since we thought ourselves to be quite accomplished urban explorers we had been wanting something big, we’d heard about the Rolling Acres Mall, a very large mall in Akron, Oh that had been abandoned since 2008, and we decided that we should explore a mall, since my friends and I thought it would be a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience to see something that was supposed to be thriving and full of people, now instead decaying and deserted.
Rolling Acres however was off the table entirely, since we’d heard of some people getting busted there a few months after we had gone to explore the old factory, but we had a larger and much more grand plan in mind, I used to live in a suburb of Cleveland, known as North Randall,
And knew of such a mall that had been abandoned and rotting since
2009, even better yet the mall was larger in size and much more cavernous than Rolling Acres, and from what I remember of visiting it in my youth, had these long ramps and passageways that just seemed to go on and on, It was decided that we would travel to Randall park mall
We arrived at the mall at about 4:00 pm and met at the front entrance, I had believed that it would probably be locked, but to my surprise it wasn’t, we opened the large dusty steel and glass door, and stepped through the gaping maw into the carcass of what was once the largest mall in the world.
Upon entering the imposing structure we immediately noticed a foul stench which permeated the interior, the kind of odor that only years of rancid stagnant water mixed with filthy decaying carpet could produce, it felt inside like a sauna without a heater.
Upon being assaulted by this horrendous smell, I immediately came to a realization,
I didn’t have my respirator, and it was now obvious that this building was heavily afflicted with mold.
I told my friends that I didn’t feel as though it would be a very good idea to go mucking around in the mall without proper breathing protection, but they objected and informed me that the mall was slated for demolition in a few weeks, and this would probably be the last chance we would get t
o explore it, so I went on reluctantly hoping that the photographs we took would be worth the lung damage from inhaling mold. as we walked further into the mall we came up on an area which had large floor to ceiling columns with enormous skylights that allowed light to spill into the mall I took my camera and snapped several photos of the intricate columns and skylights, as we walked around through this part of the mall I saw of one of the few things I did ..remember from my few visits to Randall Park Mall, the long winding ramps which lead to the upper levels and around to various overlooks, the straig
ht of it looked to be at least twenty foot long, and the rest was so curvy and abstract in the directions it led in , that I was unable to tell the length.
as we made our way from the ground floor, around the intricate ramp and up to the upper floor,
It began to show just how trashed the mall really was the floor was littered with all kinds of various items some appeared to be from the mall, and some appeared to be form elsewhere, things such as fire extinguishers and floor buffers etc., just strewn about the upper floor of the mall, at one point, we even discovered a planter filled to the brim with hard hats, needless to say some of the garbage was so bizarre that I absolutely had to photograph it.
Even more peculiar one of my friends, Greg, had picked up one of the fire extinguishers, a CO2 (one of those extinguishers with the big horn) and squeezed it, CO2 fog shot out of it like it had just
recently been refilled, but the refill date on it read “2007”, he exclaimed that he would have thought that the thing would have lost pressure, having been left in the building so long, but Joe, my other friend who was a firefighter, corrected him saying that they can hold pressure pretty well, and that he was quite surprised that some teen hadn’t already wasted all of the charge in it before. He decided that it’d be better off going home with him than it would rusting away in the mall, he picked it up and we walked on, stopping to photograph the other thing I remembered from my few visits to Randall Park Mall, “Reflections at Randall”, the strange trippy 1970s architectural sculpture made up of steel window frames and aqua colored stained glass that hung in the center court.
Very little of the stained glass remained, and it would appear that it had somehow been Toilet papered, how I’ll never know, and also spray painted red, which seemed impossible due to where it was, ON THE CEILING, whoever did it must’ve had a ladder or something, I don’t know. Seems like a lot of effort to go through just to vandalize something, OMG I can’t believe the lengths some people will go to just to commit a petty crime! It was just then when I heard a loud crash, Reflections at Randall or what remained came crashing to the ground seemingly for inexplicable reasons, upon examining it, I offered up the explanation that the skinny steel wires had simply given their last, the fact that they were quiet rusty, helped to add credibility to this, excepting that it also had two small cuts in it, we regarded it as another instance of just how truly decayed Randall had become and kept on walking, for a few minutes, until Greg shouted LOOK!, startling me and Joe, we turned around and looked at the direction he was pointing in, it was a practically undetectable door that we probably wouldn’t have seen had it not been opened, it was the exact same color and texture as the wall,
he asked us if we were aware what it was, and neither of us knew so we just waited for him to tell us.
This is a “maintenance corridor” , he said, it traverses the entire mall from side to side in every direction, and if the stories I’ve heard are true, he continued, it could possibly lead down to the “black room”, what in the heck is a black room, I asked, Edward J DeBartolo’s fortress built beneath the mall, he finished, Why would DeBartolo build a fortress beneath the mall?, Joe questioned.
Because he was a staunch capitalist and despised communism, he felt that if the USSR ever tried to threaten western capitalism, or if there should ever be a nuclear war that he should have a place to ride it out, and what better place than under his crowning achievement, the crown jewel of the capitalist ideal, the then largest mall in the world, Randall Park Mall, he built a large reinforced room with a fully furnished living space, beneath the center court of the mall, Both Joe and I burst out laughing upon hearing his cockamanie story, and asked just where the hell he heard this from and he told us that he had heard it from a janitor who had worked at the mall when it first opened, We decided to humor him and stepped inside the corridor, about 6ft, before it got dark as pitch “We better turn back” I said, Greg, not as ill-prepared as I had been pulled out a maglite from a holster on his belt, and whispered come on we walked for what seemed like a few minutes before coming upon what seemed like something large and metal in an abnormally large section of the corridor, upon further examination it turned out to be 1975 Lincoln Continental, sitting in the corridor, looking brand new, despite being in this mall for god only knows how long. Ah, see here i bet this is part of his stash, said Greg, Well...I don’t know about that, but it is quite bizarre and somewhat unsettling that this huge 1970s lux-car appears to have been somehow shoved into a slightly enlarged portion of this mall maintenance corridor, but i shrugged it off as the owner probably storing his stuff inside the mall, until that is that we noticed the trunk was ajar, I lifted the trunk and was instantly hit with an irony smell, in the trunk liner was the shape of a person, slightly overweight, This unnerved me and I said we should probably turn back, and possibly call the cops, so they could analyze the blood and solve whatever murder I’d presumably just happened upon, but Greg refused and threatened to go on and take his flashlight with him, Slightly disturbed by the thought of this we hesitantly agreed to continue. Strangely as we traveled deeper and deeper into the corridor it ceased smelling like dust and mildew, and began to smell like bleach and cleaning chemicals, at this point I was unsure what we would find next. Just then Joe shouted OW! and something hit the ground with a heavy, loud, metallic clang. Greg Quickly shined the flashlight on what Joe had bumped into, it was a gas cylinder the same size of the one you would use on a welder, but it’s label and paint scheme indicated it contained oxygen, upon further investigation, there were more them, in fact there were 40 of them all lined up in a row against the wall, with the one farthest the 1st, being hooked up to a tube leading into the wall and with meter that read how much was left, the tank was full, At this point i was eager to get further in so i could determine what all of it was for, as it would seem there was a function to it, we traveled farther into the corridors until we finally came to a set of stairs, leading down, told ya so fellas, gloated Greg, as we continued down the stairs and up to a large door, Greg then took the handle of the large safe-like door and turned it to the correct combination, as the lock released and the door slowly creaked open Joe and I were flabbergasted as to how he knew the combination, he did not inform us of how, we stepped into the door and into a small area where a wall concealed the door with only a small opening in the wall some sort of 1970s thing I suppose, as we prepared to walk in we heard a man shouting in russian and sounding extremely desperate, as the sledge hammer could be heard, Joe peaked his head around the side of the cubicle for a split second, and whispered to us you won’t believe this but there are some men torturing Mikhail Gorbachev, WHAT! I said, I had to take a peak for myself, 2 men dressed in black military fatigues had the former soviet leader strapped to a metal table and were pounding him repeatedly with sledgehammers over and over again and occasionally sticking him with long knives blood coated the white plastic tarp on the terrazzo floor, finally in desperation Gorbachev shouts out to the 2 men who are listing names of people killed by communism, I ENDED THE USSR!, this sends one of them over the edge and he Stabs Gorbachev in the neck, blood gushes from the old man's neck up and onto the table, and the tarp on the floor,the same black fatigued man stabs Gorbachev numerous times in various places the men then flip the table sending the body and tarp through a trapdoor in the floor, I shrunk back as I saw a door in the back of the room swing open and a man in a black suit walked in, he spoke, “Is that communist fuck taken care of, Yes sir, good!, he says, bring in the next one, another black fatigued man escorts former chinese leader Jiang Zemin into the room, The man who speaks again, tells his minions, “I’d like to deal with this one myself, the men walk off, and the man pulls out a pistol and shoots Jiang point blank right between the eyes, he cuts Jiang’s wrist and dips a paintbrush into it, he paints a bloody sickle and hammer on the front of jiang’s white dress shirt, and then opens the hatch in the floor, I gasped at what i was witnessing, even though i didn’t care for these men, I wasn’t expecting to see 2 murders, i now more than ever desperately wanted to leave the mall jump in my truck and drive as fast as i could away form Randall Park Mall. It would seem as though the man heard me he held his gun out and approached the door, pointing his gun at us he asked us, “what the hell are you doing here!”, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing standing in front of us gun trained on us was the Developer of the mall himself, Edward J DeBartolo, My mind raced trying to determine how he was still alive since they had announced his death in 1994, and even had a funeral,we...we… came here to explore the mall above, we’re urban explorers and we wanted to see how decayed it really was, “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK!”, “you’ve seen way too much here, and “I can’t have you telling everyone the truth about this place”, He drew his gun again and asked who wanted to go into the maintenance corridor, Greg stated in fear that he had, He pointed the gun at greg and shot him in the head, he fell limp to the floor, He had been right the whole time!, the black room, the black, army, the anti communism, it was all real!, and he paid the ultimate price for his knowledge, Joe and I quickly realized we needed to GET OUT OF THAT PLACE!, Joe aimed the fire extinguisher in DeBartolo’s face blocking his vision, and we ran out of the black room, and back the way we came out of the mall, and into our cars, Never to return again.
To this day Greg’s Family thinks he died from falling from the upper floor in the mall,the police looked for him and found nothing, and the door to the blackroom has since been sealed shut,
And i have been getting strange emails from D1509 threatening my death if I ever tell the truth but I don’t care about that anymore as of right now my death is assured my years of urban exploring have caught up with me, what I didn’t think about in the early days of my explores was Asbestos, a week ago I was informed that I was in the final stages of Mesothelioma, shoulda remembered that respirator.