What I can’t see anywhere are people.

If you’ve lived in Seattle for any period of time, you’ll know I am in the Northgate Mall food court. What you may not know is that Northgate — the nation’s very first mall — is now one of the country’s latest ghost malls. In a trend that reflects shifting retail patterns across the globe, the mall is being “redeveloped,” as brick-and-mortar stores close and online sales surge.

As of Monday, the landlord had turned off the heat in the food court, where Piroshky, Piroshky employees appear to be warming themselves by standing close to the baked meat pies.

Northgate opened in 1950, on a 60-acre plot, and the ribbon-cutting was such a big deal to Seattle that television stations interrupted regular programming to show it. Then newspapers described Northgate as a “miracle mile,” with the $3 million state-of-the-art Bon Marche department store as centerpiece. Back then Northgate wasn’t even covered — it was more like University Village.

Today, America’s first mall is mostly deserted, with all but a few dozen stores closed. I write this in the food court, a place I discovered a few years ago as an ideal setting to work. I’m at my favorite table, which is just far enough away from the automatic doors to avoid a breeze, but not too close to Sarku Japan, which would make me smell like teriyaki. But these days there isn’t a lot of meat on the grill at Sarku, and those automatic doors hardly ever slide open, either.