The buckets were the first thing I noticed. Three of them were scattered near the main entrance of Western Hills Mall, catching water from a ceiling that was supposed to have been fixed three years ago. It was January 31, 2026, and the cold that hit me walking through those doors wasn't winter. It was absence.
Bright caution tape marked off sections of the faded multicolored linoleum. The LED lights that the new owners installed were dim. I walked past empty storefronts with gates pulled down, locking away spaces that used to hold shoe stores and jewelry counters. The corridors where weekend crowds used to congregate stood still.
What I found was what remains.
The Fountain
When I was in elementary school, my grandmother would take me to Western Hills Mall. Sometimes my mother and her sister came too. We'd walk hand in hand through automated doors that signaled a mall in full swing. I didn't care about the Orange Julius or Parisian. I'd pull us toward the only thing that mattered: the fountain.
It sat at the center of the mall, water shooting upward, coins cutting the surface, the sound echoing off high ceilings. I stood beneath it with pennies in my pocket, moist from being held too long, waiting for my turn to make a wish.
I don't remember what I wished for; I just remember wishing. I remember my grandmother's hand on my shoulder. I believed that if I threw the penny just right, it would come true.
Today, the fountain is a drying basin littered with tarnished coins at the bottom. No sound of rushing water. No children waiting their turn.
What They Promised
In January 2022, the Peleg Group, a Miami-based real estate company, bought Western Hills Mall for $2.94 million. Owner Ami Peleg claimed the nearly $4 million renovations were nearly complete. New parking lot. LED lights. A new air conditioning system. Fresh paint. An expanded food court. Updated bathrooms. A brand new roof.
"We've been working on this for about half a year, just on the roof, and we are still working on it," Peleg said. "Hopefully, within about a month or two months, by the end of the year, the roof will be finished, and for the season, I think the mall will be completely done."
In 2026, the roof still leaks.
Domino's, Wing's Heaven, and Chongwah Express remain the only restaurants open in the food court, and they, along with a few vendors, sustain what spirit of the mall is left: A Hibbett Sports. City Gear. A threading salon. Perfume Point. Mr Jeans. Judy's.
Buckets, caution tape, and a hanging tarp surround an area with missing ceiling panels.
The People Who Stay
Lee has been running Judy's dress shop for about 20 years. His uncle operated it for 15 years before that. The store has been in Western Hills Mall for more than 30 years.
"Long time ago, everybody know Judy," Lee, 56, told me. "Even though there's no signboard, they just know and come."
Now Judy's business is down to one or two customers per week. They come to buy suits for funerals. He told me about the shootings that started about seven or eight years ago. After one of them, the mall manager left, and then the original owners, Aronov Realty, sold the property to Peleg Group.
"After that, nobody," Lee said, gesturing to the empty spaces outside his store. "No manager, no employee. They don't manage the building."
He pointed to the ceiling, gesturing at the visible water stains, and caution tape on the floor, evidence of no maintenance.
"Around this area," he said, referencing other developments in Birmingham, "almost full. But this mall is pretty bad."
Before COVID, crowds of girls came in to buy prom dresses. Now down to just a couple of customers per week, most of Judy's customers are older women. The young people have gone elsewhere.
Right outside Judy's, Mohammad, 37, and Fazal Iqbal, 30, own and manage multiple kiosks and storefronts between them. They're still showing up every day, even as Dream Furniture Outlet, at one end of the mall, prepares to close.
The vendors didn't say much. They just raised the gates, turned on the lights, and waited.
London, 13, told me she's been coming to Western Hills Mall since before the fountain was no longer in service, and she still visits today. She sat past where the fountain used to run and didn't seem bothered by the eerie quiet.
When I asked her what her favorite part of the mall was, she shrugged and simply replied that she just liked being here.
The Pattern
Earlier this year, I reached out to Herman Carnes, Jr., the newly elected mayor of Fairfield, on multiple occasions for comment about the city's plans for Western Hills Mall. My requests received no response.
I also reached out to U.S. Steel, as the company announced it was moving forward with a $75 million investment in the Fairfield area, in partnership with Nippon Steel. The project would bring 44 permanent jobs to Fairfield, they said, and about 250 construction positions.
A statement they shared via email reads:
"U.S. Steel is moving forward with multiple projects in Alabama enabled by our new partnership with Nippon Steel. We have initiated discussions and submitted documentation to state and local agencies, a key step in advancing enhancements to our Fairfield Tubular plant, which manufactures specialized steel for oil and gas customers. We look forward to working with local and state agencies on a swift and efficient permit process with the shared goal of positive economic impact in Jefferson County, Alabama."
The rest of the statement boasts about their development's focus on environmental stewardship, modernizing facilities, upgrading infrastructure, expanding capabilities, driving economic growth, and strengthening America's steel industry. It contains very few words about Fairfield.
Despite the promises made, renovations announced, and significant economic impact predicted, the Western Hills Mall project has offered nothing more than silence, abandonment, and a community left to figure out what comes next without a say in the matter.
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The communities' identities are certainly being reshaped by lost businesses, the stripping of the school system, frustrations with excess costs of rebuilding and insuring homes, and annoyance with the outsiders exacerbating that market problem by land grabbing.
What It Was
Tra Martin-Winn, 31, hasn't been to Western Hills Mall in about 10 years, but he still remembers its significance.
"I used to look forward to going there and regularly went there after school in middle and high school," he told me. "Back even further than that, it used to be full of life and people, and it always felt like a big deal when I got to go there."
He got his locs started at a salon in the mall. There were retail stores where high schoolers could get jobs. There was a barbershop. The area itself, he said, wasn't unsafe like some people thought.
"I've been going to that mall forever, and there wasn't one time I went there and felt in danger," Tra said. "There were always good vibes every time, so I think it was narratives created by people who never step foot in that area."
Western Hills Mall was a place where Black families gathered, where kids hung out after school, where my grandmother and her children shopped, where I flung pennies into a fountain and hoped time would stand still.
[LEFT] A group of young men look at cased jewelry. [RIGHT] Mr. Ford and his family.
Both things can be true. The violence happened. But that doesn't define us.
What outsiders saw was a reason to write it off. What we saw was home.
What Gets Lost
I stopped going to Western Hills Mall sometime after middle school. My family moved, and the mall wasn't easy to get to anymore. Life shifted. Other places became the center.
But I never stopped carrying it with me. The sound of that fountain. The way my grandmother would let me wander just far enough to feel independent, but never so far that I couldn't see her. The KB Toys. The food court. The feeling of being somewhere that mattered, somewhere that was made for us.
When I walked through the mall in January, that feeling was gone. Not because stores had closed or the roof was leaking or buckets and caution tape lived on as decoration. It was gone because the community was gone.
Tra said he would love to see Western Hills revamped, but he knows malls are dying everywhere. Still, he imagines what it could be. A safe hub for young people to congregate and stay out of trouble. Retail stores where high schoolers could get jobs again. A barbershop and salon. More food in the food court. Maybe a small grocery store or bodega to serve the neighborhood.
"Basically, give it life again," he said. "Make it to where people want to be, work there, and get involved."
He works in healthcare management now, but he's thinking about what it means to help keep Birmingham glowing. Give it life again. Let it be something that serves the people who are still here, the people who never left, the people who keep showing up even when nobody else does.
Whose Future
The Peleg Group promised a completely renovated mall by the end of 2022. In 2026, there's no heat, and buckets fill with dirty water from the ceiling that they said they fixed.
U.S. Steel is investing $75 million in Fairfield, but its statement doesn't mention the community. Just infrastructure. Just economic impact. Just steel.
The mayor didn't respond.
Western Hills Mall sits in the middle of it all, caught between memory and whatever comes next. If anything comes at all.
I think about the people I met. Lee, still opening Judy's every day, even though business is down to funeral suits. Mohammad and Fazal, still turning on the lights in their stores. London, who at 13 years old, still shows up to sit in the company of what used to be.
They're still here. The question is whether anyone with power will see them. Whether the people making decisions about Fairfield's future will ask what the community wants. Whether the promises will ever be kept.
Or whether this will be like so many other Black neighborhoods, where "revitalization" means erasure, where "economic development" means displacement, where the people who held a place together get pushed out to make room for someone else's vision of progress.
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My Wish
I stood near the dry and quiet fountain, and I thought about what I wished for back then. Probably something small. A toy. A good grade. But I remember the wishing. I remember believing that this place held something for me. That it was mine. That it would always be here.
I don't carry pennies anymore. But if I did, if the fountain still worked, if the water still rushed and echoed off those high ceilings, I know what I would wish for now.
I would wish for Fairfield to have a say in its own future. For the people who continue to believe in this place to have a voice in what comes next. For Lee and Mohammad and Fazal and London and every person who keeps showing up to empty storefronts and broken promises to be seen.
I would wish for the city to keep the promises it makes. For corporations to talk to communities, not around them. For "economic development" to mean something built with the people who live here, not despite them.
I share Tra's wish for life. For a place where young people can gather, work, and grow. For a hub that serves the neighborhood instead of abandoning it.
I would wish for my grandmother to see it whole again. For her to walk through those doors with her other grandchildren, the way she walked through with me. A place that feels like it was made for them.
I hold onto the wish.
Because if we don't hold on to what these places meant, if we don't insist that they mattered, if we don't fight for the people who are still here, then others get to write our story.
And their story is not the whole truth. The whole truth is that Western Hills Mall was a place where Black people gathered. Where I learned to wish.
If anyone with power would listen, it could still be something. Fairfield's story, and other communities like it, are far from over.