The Other-Worldly Mall

Crossgates Mall is a major hub for CDTA and is where I change buses twice daily from the line to the shuttle in the morning and back again in the evening.  This means that I spend a lot of time at Crossgates.  Well, not so much at it as outside it, but that time has not helped me to understand its layout any better.  The mall, to me, has always been confusingly oriented with the outside not having any relation to the floor plan inside.  It’s like a freaking House of Leaves over there.  How can Best Buy be at one end of the mall (as it appears from the outside) and at its center at the same time?  Why is the 18-plex so massive when you’re in it, but accessible only through a teeny tiny entrance that you’d miss if you blinked?  Is the mall shaped like a Z or a V or an L or none of the above?  I don’t know the answers so instead of looking at an aerial map or speaking to someone with knowledge on the subject I’m just going to go ahead and assume that Crossgates is a portal to another dimension.  Think about it: stores come and go without warning and there are hallways to nowhere from which ghostly figures emerge and disappear.  “Um, stores change at all malls, and those people are probably just tired employees,” you say?  Suuuure.  All I know is that they card you at the mall, which means there must be something sinister going on there (other than intolerable restaurants.)  Not being eager to find out, I’m going to stay out here in the parking lot where spatial relations obey the laws of physics and no hobgoblins are chasing me with Dead Sea salt scrubs.  Oooh, I’m getting chills just thinking about it.