Latest news with #MichaelTownsend
National Post
16-05-2025
- National Post
Avi Benlolo: Carney needs to recognize Canada's antisemitism problem
This week, I sat in a courtroom and witnessed something all too rare in today's Canada: accountability for antisemitism. Article content Article content In a decision that should echo across this country, the Ontario Court of Justice sentenced Kenneth Jeewan Gobin, a 36 year-old hate-motivated assaulter in Vaughan to 12 months in jail and two years' probation. Article content The man — already known to police — had spit on two Jewish individuals while shouting 'Heil Hitler' and 'Hitler should have killed you all,' punctuating his assault with a Nazi salute. It was vile. It was deliberate. And it was motivated by nothing other than unfiltered antisemitic hatred. Article content Article content I was present in court to support the victims — Jewish Canadians simply walking home from synagogue on the Sabbath. What I heard from the bench offered a rare, sliver of hope. Justice Michael Alexander Townsend did not equivocate. He called the attack 'a despicable assault,' adding: Article content Article content 'To spit on a Jewish person, telling them that you wished Hitler had killed them and their entire community, saluting and praising the person responsible for the Holocaust — Hitler — is a despicable assault.' Article content He went further, affirming the need for real deterrence: Article content 'His actions are but part of the landslide of hate directed toward the Jewish community; he was not the beginning, nor will he be the end.' Article content One of the victims, Tilda Roll, expressed what so many of us feel: she was relieved — not just for herself, but for the precedent this ruling set. The court, she said, had finally declared: 'Enough is enough.' Article content But this case is not the whole story — it's just a snapshot in a much darker, more complex picture. Because beyond the courtroom doors, the threats are not slowing down. They're multiplying. Article content In recent weeks, news broke of a Yemeni man, Husam Taha Ali Al-Sewaiee, who was arrested in Canada for allegedly attempting to join a Middle Eastern terrorist organization. According to reports, the individual was attending local protests and had been arrested for uttering threats. Despite the seriousness of the case, he was released on bail, and is now living under house arrest in a religious facility, with restrictions imposed through a terrorism peace bond. The message this sends — that credible allegations of terrorism don't always result in custody — should alarm every Canadian. Article content
Washington Post
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
They built a secret apartment in the mall. Now it's a movie.
Jeremy Workman thought he was being pranked. How else would you react to someone telling you they once secretly lived inside a shopping mall for four years? The documentary filmmaker had been capturing footage of a domino-toppling artist in Greece in 2019 when he encountered another American, Michael Townsend, who was decorating buildings there with temporary murals made of low-adhesive tape. Townsend watched Workman as he interviewed the domino toppler, and the two men established enough rapport for Townsend to trust the director with his own revelation:
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
They Lived in a "Secret Mall Apartment" for Years. Now, They're Telling the Story
A group of artists turned a hidden shopping center nook into a clandestine home: "At that time, I had a copy of Dwell and I was like, How do we make this something livable and desirable?" I first heard the story as a student at Brown University in 2023. It was passed down like an urban legend: Two decades earlier, eight Rhode Island artists set up camp in an off-map crawl space in the Providence Place mall. The group somehow outfitted the undeveloped corner of the colossal (and in-use) structure with the trappings of a home, from a dining table and secondhand couch to a TV set. Sneaking in through pitch-black service shafts, they made the forgotten concrete back room into a covert apartment, going as far as installing a door and running electricity, until they were busted in 2007. Scant news coverage and a few blurry photos were the only proof I could find that the unbelievable story was true. Two of the occupants, Adriana Valdez Young and Michael Townsend—then married, recent college grads—say that at first, they were simply curious if they could spend an entire day in the hidden section of the busy shopping mall. It spiraled into their group of eight hanging out in the unit on and off over the next four years, filming their escapades and planning art projects. ("When you're really weird, you don't think anything you do is weird," says Valdez Young. "What else are we gonna do?") Much of that footage made its way into a new documentary about the saga, in theaters (including a screen at Providence Place) as of March 21, after debuting in 2024 at SXSW. Secret Mall Apartment, directed by Jeremy Workman and executive produced by Jesse Eisenberg (who recently did a Tonight Show bit about the film with Jimmy Fallon), splices together the group's point-and-shoot clips with present-day interviews, telling the story of their hush-hush living space and unpacking the wider history of the divisive Providence development. The early 2000s "secret mall apartment" was born at a time of strife in Providence's real estate market. After more than 150 years of industry driving the local economy, the mid-20th century saw production dwindle, and the city became home to a large community of artists. Then, near the turn of the century, the city's economy shifted again. The abandoned textile mills where these artists lived and worked were demolished, pushing them out. Simultaneously, Providence Place was being built, promising to bring the city into a new era of economic prosperity. Today, the remaining mills are still under threat and Providence Place has an uncertain future, effectively declaring the state-level equivalent of bankruptcy. Ironically, some are now calling for the redevelopment of the massive mall into housing. I spoke with Valdez Young and Townsend about making a home in the mall, the state of Providence real estate, and (surprisingly) how Dwell influenced their secret apartment. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Michael Townsend: I had a habit of jogging past the mall's construction site. I identified a space that didn't fit into my calculus of usefulness. It didn't seem like stores or parking. When Adriana and I went to look, we shimmed in, and miraculously, [the empty nook] was there. Adriana Valdez Young: The project was about knowing the enemy, but also knowing what the future looked like. If the mall was the ideal version of Providence or the modern American city, then we had this curiosity to better understand how this behemoth worked. And if there was room for us in its future. MT: The [mall's] advertising campaign had two words: "Defining You." It was everywhere. We embraced it as a challenge and a threat simultaneously. How far will we let this building define us? AVY: This campaign was, oddly, for nothing, right? It was about defining the future of retail and of the city. The massive square footage of this shopping center far exceeded all the total retail in downtown Providence. There's no need to revitalize your little local economy. Don't worry. We're just taking care of it in one strike. The mall had a Tiffany's. There was a Brooks Brothers. How many people are wearing Brooks Brothers in downtown Providence? Nobody, right? It was an image of a lifestyle that didn't reflect local culture. When we were developing the apartment and hanging out at the mall as good shopper citizens, I remember [thinking about] the phrase "critique through hyperconformity." What if we did follow the rules and let them all define us? What would that look like? At some point, I recreated the "Defining You" ads. I bought everything from the mall, staged it, and returned it. It was like $1,000 to get everything you want from one picture. The math does not work when you try to achieve that kind of perfection—maybe for the one percent. MT: This question gets asked a lot. In my memory of the arrest, one of the clear thoughts I had was, Oh no, now I have to curate the story. Until that point, and I know this may sound ridiculous, but it was just our life. That was just how we lived our life. There were eight artists involved in this project, but we made the decision that Adriana and I would be a good face. The idea of a couple who's trying to make it. AVY: The shared American narrative. See the full story on They Lived in a "Secret Mall Apartment" for Years. Now, They're Telling the StoryRelated stories: My Dad, Richard Neutra, Through the Lens of a Landmark Psychological Study What 8 Months of Van Life Taught Me About Making a Home You Love The Unfulfilled Promise of the Nagakin Capsule Tower
