Providence-Based ‘Secret Mall Apartment’ Documentary Available for Streaming on Netflix

A documentary about eight friends who lived in a secret loft space at the Providence Place Mall has arrived on Netflix. 

Secret Mall Apartment chronicles the story of the New England artists who secretly inhabited a 750-square-foot loft inside the Providence Place Mall from 2003 to 2007. 

The group was discovered by mall security in 2007. One of the members of the group, Michael Townsend, was arrested and banned from the mall, while the other artists largely avoided public exposure at the time.

Led by Townsend and seven collaborators, the group moved into the empty mall loft amid redevelopment efforts at Eagle Square in Providence. The artists described Eagle Square and nearby Fort Thunder as areas under threat of redevelopment.

Watch the trailer for Secret Mall Apartment below.

Naturally, some may wonder whether the artists' actions in holing up at the mall were in response to gentrification.

“It kept changing in front of my eyes,” Workman explained in a Boston.com story. “I think a viewer feels that, too. You watch this and go: ‘It's a middle finger to gentrification … Suddenly it starts morphing … It encompasses a lot of different things for me, and I think for viewers.”

Footage captured during that period forms the basis of Jeremy Workman's documentary. That footage, and the memories recorded on it, remained largely hidden for years until it was included in the documentary.

Before debuting on Netflix in 2024, Secret Mall Apartment had its New England premiere at the Somerville Theatre as part of the Independent Film Festival Boston. Last year, it screened at Somerville Theatre as part of a national theatrical release. Executive producer Jesse Eisenberg went on The Tonight Show to play up the release, pretending to have lived under Jimmy Fallon's desk for years.