JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It's the most popular shopping time of the year. Forecasts suggest this could be another record-setting holiday spree. NPR's retail correspondent Alina Selyukh marked this resplendent season by spending 24 hours at the largest shopping center in the Western Hemisphere. She reports from the Mall of America, near Minneapolis.
ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: Depending on how big your local mall is, Mall of America is anywhere between three to seven of those malls stuck together - so big that, the first time I saw it...
Ah, there it is.
...Was from the sky.
You can totally see it from the plane.
Technically, Mall of America opens mid-morning, but it's never really empty. Workers overnight clean and build and fix. At Cinnabon, under dim lights...
(SOUNDBITE OF DOUGH POUNDING)
SELYUKH: ...Three pairs of hands roll and stretch the dough. And right before dawn, mall-walkers silently swarm the building.
SHAMSO MOHAMED: I like it to come to every morning.
SELYUKH: Shamso Mohamed is speed-stepping in a long skirt and sneakers - a morning exercise she's been doing for two years.
MOHAMED: Ten thousand, 20,000 steps every day.
SELYUKH: Ten thousand steps - that's five miles. Twenty thousand - 10 miles. Her path meticulously traces every nook of the perimeter. Every wall around her seems to have another moving shadow - one she recognizes.
MOHAMED: That lady. I love her. She's walking, like, 25 years, seven days a week.
SELYUKH: After a while, I spot a crosscurrent - waves of store workers with badges on lanyards, keys in their hands. And at 10 a.m., it begins.
There are two busfuls of children that have just arrived.
Soon, it's a caravan of school buses. I can hear the horde of middle-schoolers from up the escalator.
(CROSSTALK)
SELYUKH: They're on a field trip to the giant amusement park at the center of the mall.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHILD SCREAMING)
SELYUKH: The park is the size of five football fields. Roller coasters loop around carousels and a SpongeBob-themed jumping gym, a log chute along one side, a climbing wall on the other. A girl - maybe 10 years old - dangles inside the human claw machine, reaching for toys.
(SOUNDBITE OF LASERS FIRING)
SELYUKH: Parents push strollers and corral toddlers like at any playground. And then I see this couple - no kids - rolling full-size suitcases.
JANELLE MAYFIELD: We are traveling from Louisville, Kentucky. We literally just landed.
EVAN MCMANUS: We weren't able to check into our Airbnb, so we were like, let's burn a couple of hours.
SELYUKH: Janelle Mayfield and Evan McManus are visiting for a convention. At the airport, they jumped on the light rail and discovered...
MAYFIELD: The public transit takes you straight here.
SELYUKH: The train dropped them at the mall. It's lunchtime, so they plan to just grab a bite. Mall of America has over 60 options, and then they saw the roller coasters.
MCMANUS: That's awesome.
MAYFIELD: I'm wanting to - as soon as the Airbnb opens up - drop off our luggage and then come back (laughter).
SELYUKH: This is how Mall of America is designed to work, and it's actually a strategy many believe could revive the American mall culture. It's called retailtainment - not just shops, but stuff to do - gyms, hair salons in your mall, pickleball, a water park, reasons for people to return and hang out. Mall of America does this on steroids - mini golf, arcades, even a spa for children.
ANNE THOMSEN: They have big, pink, plush chairs, and so they got her nails done.
SELYUKH: I run into Anne Thomsen and her granddaughter, Marley, who is eating a birthday cake cookie to celebrate her eighth birthday. Thomsen says Mall of America overwhelms her, but Marley loved the Princess Diva salon.
THOMSEN: Show her your nails.
MARLEY: Yeah. They have gems and butterflies.
SELYUKH: And they're pink and sparkly.
THOMSEN: Sparkly, right?
SELYUKH: By now, it's mid-afternoon, and I've got a meeting with someone who knows everything about this place except...
Where am I?
I'm lost. I feel like I just walked by an American Eagle, and this is a different one. The shops glimmer with string lights bouncing off the white stone floors. A hallway turns into another hallway.
How do I get downstairs?
Finally, just a few minutes late, I meet Dan Jasper. He's the senior vice president but really is a walking archive of Mall of America.
DAN JASPER: We have three levels. Each level is 1.1 miles around. And we have 500 retail venues within - we have the largest and longest indoor zipline in the United States. We have the tallest...
SELYUKH: We zoom around the mall on a tour with gems like these.
JASPER: We don't heat Mall of America - no central heating. And it's cold in Minnesota. We heat it with skylights - look at the sun coming through. But body heat is the key ingredient.
SELYUKH: Thirty-two million people visit this mall every year, many because it's a tourist destination. But also, Jasper and his team constantly dream up ways to get people in the door.
JASPER: We set a world record with the largest gathering of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in one space. We had a bride and groom get married in Sea Life in the shark tank in scuba gear. Shark knocked her veil off.
SELYUKH: My tour ends at a special space that Mall of America builds for the holidays.
JASPER: This is my favorite place inside Mall of America. Come.
SELYUKH: Here, I have to note that Jasper bears a striking resemblance to Santa Claus - if Santa worked in corporate.
JASPER: Welcome to the Candy Cane Institute.
SELYUKH: It's a holiday pop-up - twinkly lights, giant ornaments, glowing gadgets and machines for kids to explore. One in the middle looks like a festive metal detector.
JASPER: This machine is calibrated to tell me if someone's on the nice list or the naughty list -never fails.
SELYUKH: Can I go through?
JASPER: You have to stand right there. Let me see.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
JASPER: You're on the nice list.
SELYUKH: (Yelling) Yay.
(LAUGHTER)
JASPER: So good - I was worried there. It was close.
SELYUKH: By the time I emerge back to the stark, gleaming hallways, the mall feels like it's vibrating - though maybe it is just my legs. It's early evening. Children are toting Legos and Build-A-Bears. Young couples grab seats at the food court. Benches get filled with slumped shapes, their eyes glazed over.
LINDA IVERSEN: I'm really exhausted (laughter).
SELYUKH: Linda Iversen is a flight attendant from Germany. She's been here since morning on an extra day off in Minneapolis.
IVERSEN: I'm here with some friends, and we spent the whole day here. We had lunch. I bought a pajama, a moisturizer, games for my kids. I didn't want to buy anything at all (laughter).
SELYUKH: Outside, it's dark. I follow a crowd reeled in by the gravitational pull of flashing roller coasters. I am the biggest wimp about rides. A kid tells me to try one without any loops.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: It's easy.
SELYUKH: It's easy?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yeah.
SELYUKH: Look at that small child going on this ride. I think I'll be OK (laughter).
Dear listener, I was not OK.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAFETY BAR LOCKING)
SELYUKH: Two tiny children behind me put their hands up in the air. I drop my recorder to grip the safety bar.
Oh, no (laughter). (Shrieking).
I'd like to say this changed my life, but mainly...
Oh, I'm so glad it's over (laughter).
Leaving the park, I still have a lot of time before I can claim my 24 hours at Mall of America. But all I really want is a dark, quiet room. And I find a loophole.
My hotel is connected to the Mall of America. Here I am, still technically in the mall, and now I just go up these stairs, and I'm in my hotel.
They've thought of everything, haven't they? Only in my room do I realize I have not spent a second outside since yesterday.
Alina Selyukh, NPR News, Minneapolis.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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