Unique Concepts Summer 2008

by Claude Solnik and Randall Mielke

Gypsy Garden's Future Forecast

Malls are emphatically about the present, the ultimate glorification of the "now" as people buy the hottest, latest designs. But at least one corner of the Jersey Gardens Mall in Elizabeth, NJ, is strictly about the future.

Ruby Mitchell last Christmas season opened what the mall describes as a "freeform kiosk" called Gypsy Garden on the first floor between a Tommy Hilfiger and a Nine West.

While mall-goers nearby seek the fashions of the day, others stream into the space where Mitchell reads palms, Tarot cards, crystal bags and crystal balls. "People seem to like the Tarot," Mitchell says. "A long time ago, everybody liked the palm reading."

You don't have to be psychic to know that the mall likes the additional income, Mitchell likes the foot traffic and tourists like the option of making a reading part of their shopping experience.

Denise Monahan, the mall's specialty leasing manager, says Mitchell caught her interest with the idea of a mystical setting in the mall, but the center was fully leased. So visual merchandiser Kat Contreras created a freeform kiosk that's "fun, kind of funky, a little theatrical," Monahan says. The kiosk with its old-fashioned signage and scarves attracts believers, the curious and lots of shoppers merely seeking diversion.

Mitchell may be all about the future, but also has a long past as a psychic. Although she isn't a gypsy, she is of Romanian descent and speaks Romanian. Her grandmother did readings as a hobby. "She never allowed us to read each other," Mitchell says. "She thought we would see negative things."

Mitchell soon began trying her hand at figuring out her and others' future. "I've been doing this since I was a child," she says. "Around seven years old, I would see things before they happened. My grandmother had the same gift."

She started doing readings at home as favors and then began charging for them before working on a psychic hotline a decade ago. But figuring out fortunes for customers calling at all hours of the night wasn't her cup of tea—or tea leaves. "It was very tiring," Mitchell says. "I didn't really care for it. Most calls were in the middle of the night. I didn't feel comfortable with that."

She operated from a storefront on Broadway in New York City for about six years before opening in Jersey Gardens, closer to her home. It's $5 for a palm reading, $10 for both palms, $15 for a face reading, $50 for a half a Tarot deck, $60 for a full deck and $80 for crystal bag readings. The Cadillac of readings is the crystal ball for $135.

Mitchell's work is part public performance and part intimate conversation, part therapy and part theatre. Her kiosk reflects that, carving out a small window into another world in the middle of the hubbub of the mall.