‘Secret Mall Apartment’ Documents 8 Artists Living Undercover in RI Mall
Even if living at a mall isn’t a fantasy of yours, the Secret Mall Apartment documentary will blow your mind a bit.
Growing up in the ’80s and coming of age with ’90s pop culture was a trip. I can remember my friends and I chilling at the mall Food Court and babbling about how long we could last if we lived there. Taco Bell for every meal, endless music at Sam Goody.
And that was before any of us saw George Romero’s 1978 masterpiece Dawn of the Dead. You know, the zombie movie with the survivors trying to gut it out in a mall. Shopping malls and survivalism. Two American staples. And they’re together on screen again.
Secret Mall Apartment: a Rhode Island Story
As the Providence Journal recently reported (and reminded Rhode Islanders and those in the know), back in September of 2007, a strange discovery was made at Providence Place. Actually, the discovery was made inside the mall’s garage.
Hidden in plain sight in a corner of the south parking garage was a 750-square-foot cinderblock abode. Michael Townsend, his then-wife Adriana Yoto, and six other artists were living there, siphoning power from the mall.
They’d been living there for four years.
Secret Mall Apartment: The Documentary
Had it not been for an inquisitive security guard, maybe they’d still be living there today. Lucky for us, they were shooting video all along the way. So now we have Secret Mall Apartment, the documentary that debuted at South by Southwest in 2024.
The doc has its own IMBD page here. And there’s a SXSW piece on director Jeremy Workman below. All told, it’s a fascinating story about a prank that takes on a life of its own and becomes something more meaningful. And it all happened in Rhode Island!
