This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

There is so much to do at the mall. You can get your ears pierced. You can build a bear. You can go get an orange Julius.

Late at night, when the game stops and the hot topics are all locked up and the food courts taking out the last of the trash,

it is usually time to go home. But what if the mall was your home? This ad came on for the

Providence Place Mall. It was this woman talking about how it was going to be so convenient for her

to get everything that she needed for her kids, for herself.

If only she could live there.

I just had this idea, oh, we should live in the mall.

The new documentary Secret Mall apartment is about a group of artists who built, you guessed it, a secret apartment inside of the mall.

We interviewed the group's ringleader Michael Townsend a few years back,

and after the story, we'll have an update about what's happened since then.

In downtown Providence, Rhode Island, there's a large plot of land that sits on the bank of the Wunasquitucket River.

In 1838, it was the home of the Rhode Island State Prison, which was notorious for its

horrid smell, dreary outward appearance, and reputation for solitary confinement.

Later, the landhouse, the continuing education campus for the University of Rhode Island,

and after that,

a dirt parking lot called Ray's Parkin Lock. Then in 1999, in a grand effort to revitalize the city,

and with much fanfare, the Providence Place Mall was opened. That's Vanessa Lowe, producer of the podcast,

Nocturn. The mall, costing $500 million, was what was known as a super regional, a one-stop shopping destination, housing everything consumers could possibly want or need in a totally enclosed space.

Partially funded by taxpayer money, it spanned 13 acres, offered 1.4 million square feet of retail space, and dominated the riverfront.

It was the largest construction project in Providence's history.

This one building, and we sort of stood in awe watching it get built.

...