Cities are getting bigger and bigger, new structures are being built every day. All of a sudden, we see buildings appear which, not long before, did not even exist. In this frenzied desire for construction, shopping centers have taken a key role. Too often, the inhabitants of an area are pressured to leave their house, because it will be destroyed to make way for a new building. In a short period of time, displaced people must be able to find accommodation, otherwise they may not know where to spend the night.
This is exactly what happened to this young man, who decided to settle in a shopping center to protest against this situation. He managed to live there for four years.
image: Be Amazed/YouTube – Screenshoot
Michael Townsend, along with his artist friends, lived for four years in a secret apartment inside a shopping mall. The boy lived near Providence Place, Rhode Island. One morning, while out for his usual jog, he noticed that there was a huge unused area under the newly built Providence Mall . Intrigued at the time, however, he did not push his research further. Little did he know, however, that the place would be useful to him years later.
image: Zygmunt Put/Wikimedia – Not the actual photo
A few years later, the construction frenzy hit his building, and all the tenants had to leave, as it was demolished to make way for the mall parking lot. Michael and his friends didn’t know where to move, and that’s when they had the idea: to settle in the mall, as a protest.
“The Providence Place mall radio commercials wondered how great it would be to be able to live in the mall,” the man explains, “because they wanted to show that there were all the products you need to lead a life. healthy.”
At that moment, Michael remembered the huge space he had seen a few years before, so they wasted no time and moved in there.
The area was left untouched, as she remembered it, even though it was full of debris. Michael and his friends wasted no time in cleaning the whole area, then they set up their furniture there, from the sofa to the bookshelves, not to mention the Playstation and television for entertainment. In order to maintain some privacy and to make sure they wouldn’t be spotted, they even built a wall.
This act of protest lasted four years, during which the group of young people was able to build almost a real apartment. When the police cornered them, they were amazed at what they could do.
Do you think Michael and his friends’ protest was fair?
Source used:
https://www.youtube.com/@BeAmazed