On the busiest road in Madison, in the cut, sits East Towne Mall. This place was built in 1971 with plenty of stores. Now it has become… not so busy.
With stores going out of business and people shopping online, the indoor mall has become nonexistent. Big traffic stores such as Sears and Gordman’s shut down at the mall in 2020, The Boston Store closed its outlet there 2018.
I could remember the 1990s like it was yesterday. My friends and I would go walk around the mall with other friends. We would go to the dollar movies. We would go shopping. And of course, we would go meet boys from other schools.
This mall was one of the many hangout spots that teens had in the early ’90s. Another hangout we used to have was the skating rink on the west side. The owner sold the business, and now a 70-unit apartment building is standing in its spot.
Most of these hangouts left the community because of Covid. Or, they do not have the right people running them; for example, there are so many older white people trying to run spaces that BIPOC teens are so disconnected from. Giving these kids a person that they can connect to would help the space to run smoothly. Most teens need to see people that look like them running a space.
If I had the chance to buy East Towne Mall and change it into anything, it would be a fun place for teens.
I would have a virtual reality room, mini golf, dollar movies, a selfie booth where you can go take your own pictures, a roller skating rink, a bowling alley, an inflatable bounce house, a teen club that would be only open on weekends and, last but not least, the biggest food court, with all the food teens and kids love.
I would also have spaces for tutoring classes, cooking classes, and sewing or crochet classes. We could also have space for on-the-job training, spaces that teens with businesses can rent out for little to nothing. This would also teach the kids a work ethic. For example, we could have them both pay rent to use the space to do what they are good at.
We will definitely have people object to this project. Most of these objectors will be older people who wouldn’t want more traffic in their community. Some of them won’t even look like the kids we will be serving. Let’s ask these grumpy people to volunteer to make this a reality, so we can all be involved in our community.
Why wouldn’t you want teens off the streets and doing positive things with their time? This kind of place would help calm them down and keep them from doing reckless activities. And, hopefully, it would cut down on kids fighting because they are bored.
I believe we as a community can come together and raise the money to buy this space. The money that is made from the teens coming and doing the activities and the young adults renting the space will help keep this place afloat for a long time. It would add more job opportunities for the community.
This project will be a work in progress, getting teens and young adults back under one roof again into a safe place, but I believe we can do it. So let’s get them off the phones, ipads and game systems.
Let’s give them their childhood back.
My name is Tanisha Milligan and I am a mother of three kids, one of which is autistic. I work in the school district and love the kids I get to work with daily.
