advertising for the fledgling enterprise. Because not
everybody could immediately see the 3-D images,
people gathered to coach each other, creating a con-
genial atmosphere and a willing customer base.
Baccei wisely allowed Nvision to concentrate on
the posters and, in the meantime, coined the phrase
“Magic Eye” to market a series of books from pub-
lisher Andrews and McMeel. The books quickly
topped various best-seller lists in the United States
and elsewhere, leading to licensing deals featuring
Disney, Looney Tunes, Garfield the cat, andStar
Warscharacters in books and on greeting cards, ce-
real boxes, and lunch boxes. N. E. Thing Enterprises
even began running a syndicated newspaper fea-
ture, with a different hidden image each week. In
1996, Baccei renamed the company Magic Eye, Inc.
in order to capitalize on the brand name recogni-
tion that he had worked so hard to achieve.
Impact The Magic Eye pictures became one of the
most widespread, lucrative, and enduring popular
culture phenomena of the twentieth century. Al-
though the peak of the pictures’ popularity oc-
curred in the mid-1990’s, Baccei’s company and its
competitors continue to seek out or invent new
niches for this technology, including custom-made
images for companies or individuals, neckties, and
puzzles, proving that this multimillion-dollar indus-
try was not merely a simple fad that would quickly
run its course and fade away.
Further Reading
Grossman, John. “In the Eye of the Beholder.”Inc.
16, no. 10 (October, 1994): 60-67.
N. E. Thing Enterprises.Magic Eye: A New Way of
Looking at the World: 3D Illusions. Kansas City, Mo.:
Andrews and McMeel, 1993.
Amy Sisson
See also Advertising; Beanie Babies; CGI; Fads;
Science and technology.
Mall of America
Identification The second-largest shopping and
entertainment complex in North America
Date Opened on August 11, 1992
Place Bloomington, Minnesota
Since its opening, the Mall of America has regularly at-
tracted over forty million visitors annually to the more than
five hundred shops within it that are housed in an enclosed
area of approximately 4.2 million square feet. With parking
facilities for 12,550 cars (later increased to 20,000 cars),
the mall employs some twelve thousand people, making it a
significant factor in Minnesota’s economy.Strategically located at the intersection of Interstate
494 and Highway 77 close to the Minneapolis-St.
Paul International Airport in Minnesota, the Mall of
America is the most visited megamall in the United
States, attracting annually more visitors than the
Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument
combined. Although it is not the largest mall in
North America—a distinction held by the West Ed-
monton Mall in Alberta, Canada, whose square foot-
age is 5.2 million—the Mall of America attracts more
visitors than any mall in North America. It is the
third-largest enclosed mall when measured by its re-
tail space, but it is the largest in the United States
when measured by its total enclosed area.The Architectural Plan The sprawling Mall of
America is essentially rectangular. Three sides of
the rectangle have three levels with over five hun-
dred shops facing the pedestrian passageways on its
sides. There is a fourth level on the remaining side
of the rectangle, much of it devoted to restaurants,
bars, cocktail lounges, and other service facilities.
The mall is subdivided into four zones, each distinc-
tive in its decor. Because of Minnesota’s harsh win-
ters, the mall is totally enclosed so that visitors are
not subjected to the extreme weather. The design is
also environmentally friendly: Hundreds of sky-
lights provide illumination as well as solar-gener-
ated heat.
Only the entrances to the mall are heated. Some
of the heat needed to make the mall comfortable is
generated by its lighting fixtures, and a great deal
more comes from the body heat of people working
in or visiting the mall. It amazes many people to
learn that in the dead of winter, it is often necessary
to cool the mall artificially to make it comfortable.
Aside from more than five hundred retail stores
that occupy three levels of the mall, each of the cor-
ners of the mall is occupied by a so-called anchor
store, a large department store with a well-known
name. In the Mall of America, the anchor stores are
Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Sears.The Nineties in America Mall of America 547