Hello from the Midnight Streets

a dispatch from Albany

unnamed woman in capitol plaza, March 6 2025

Hello to all you beautiful, beautiful people out there, and welcome to the Midnight Streets, a radio show devoted to the smooth and dark, for all the lovers, fighters, and everyone in between who might be out cruising the beautiful streets of Albany, New York tonight.

So take a load off, take your mind off, and relax into that comfy leather seat of yours as you zip up and down the highways that connect this city, the political nerve center of happenings in this, the very Empire State itself.

We’ll start with a leisurely jaunt up 787, Albany’s Waterfront Miracle, a network of interlocking highways and roads like no other—home to the climactic scene of Angelina Jolie’s magnum opus Salt (2010). These weaving and bobbing bridges of industry call to mind a series of damnable twisty knots that befuddle the mind with their interwoven impishness. Awwww yeah.

Let’s take a left at 90 (starting in the right lane, of course) and head past the office park, past Everett road, all the way down to (you guessed it) I-87. This beautiful beating artery of New York State runs all the way from The Biggle (short for the Big Apple) in the south, all the way to the friendly border in the North. And let’s not forget that north of Albany, it’s called the Northway—even if you’re heading south. This might have confused small Indian children at one point…

Take 87 south past where you turn off for the city, and what do you find? Why of course—a 50 year old beacon of commerce and light. Crossgates Mall.

We saunter past the entertainment options—Maggie McFly’s (is it named after Lea Thompson’s character in Back to the Future 3? And in that movie, which takes place like 70 years before Marty McFly’s parents ever meet, why is it that Lea Thompson is STILL playing the wife in the McFly family, even though she’s a genetic outsider to the family in the 50s? Like, I can get the idea of casting Michael J. Fox as Seamus McFly, because you’re insinuating that the McFlys have kind of all looked like each other for generations, which makes sense to me. But casting Lea Thompson as Maggie is just weird internal logic. Though I guess there’s a fun remix-type symmetry to it which makes it worth it.) and Dave and Busters—and enter the mall.

The mall has changed recently, hasn’t it, dear listener. There are… new things here. An REI. A Zara. A Gong Cha. There’s a Lululemon. This mall… this mall is becoming Groveified. It’s becoming Tyson’s Cornercore. This mall is becoming The Shoppes vibes. But what of the Crossgates you once knew? The sad, dying shell of a bygone era? Where you would once get your hair cut by an amazing Korean “ajumma” in a shop called “Super Mario Cuts?” No—the rot remains. As you pace the hallowed halls, you realize—Crossgates is still dying. It’s still ugly and a bit run down. Maybe those shops moved in because it’s the only mall with space in the area. Bit of a gamble. We turn a corner and see something that can’t possibly exist in Those Other Malls.

We sigh a sigh of relief. Albany is still kind of weird and shitty, and that’s why we love it.

Nabeel’s Footnote