When Green Acres closed

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Evenings at Green Acres Mall are typically peak shopping times. Children and their parents are freed of their daily obligations, and teenagers too are binded by the commercial institution’s rituals of eat, buy and socialize.

But the evening of March 19, was different. At 7 p.m. Green Acres was set to close in an hour — indefinitely — and barely a soul was in sight.

Emptied by the coronavirus, the escalators were devoid of passengers, and the food court desolate. The stores — all except Gamestop on the first floor — were shuttered while a handful of mall kiosk employees stood idly, mostly on their phones.

The mall, like all shopping locations deemed “non-essential” by the state had been ordered closed to slow the spread of the disease, but it appeared that people had already opted to stay away.

Green Acres became another casualty of the pandemic, albeit temporarily. When the crowds will be allowed to return is anyone’s guess.