The Mall
March 25, 2008 - March 26, 2008
At 10 am on March 25, Chris Clarke led us to the back alley behind the Arndale Center. A series of buzzers, auto-lock doors and sign-ins later, and we were in the control room of the Arndale Mall.
I was the only one amongst us who was not local, who had never been into the mall; this the love-hate symbol of Manchester; once called the eye-sore of the city, now a historic monument with a troubled past.
The Control Room (built anew during the Arndales post-bombing re-generation) was vastly different from the analog control room at the MMU. "206 cameras and more being added", reported Colin. I assumed this included in-store surveillance as well since the Arndale has about 70 shops. But no, the 206 dome covered P-T-Z cameras policed the 'streets' of the indoor Mall, shop surveillance was handled by 'Store-Net', a company that handled security for 'chain stores'.
We spent most of the morning with the staff, Paul led us to the back-room, the DataBank, Colin dismissed the big deal made about privacy, "Take my DNA, if you like, If I've got nothing to fear, as so I have nothing to hide". Their supervisor Gayle, gave the Livewire youth a virtual walk down the history of the mall, "This used to be the bus-stop and the subway, now its the winter gardens and poor old Halle square used to be the posh area, now you can see how dark and dingy it is..."
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