Artists built secret apartment in mall parking garage

(10/02/07 - PROVIDENCE, RI) -- What would it be like to live at the mall?

The leader of a Rhode Island artists' cooperative has been placed on probation for trying to find out -- by illegally living inside a secret apartment set up in a parking garage at the Providence Place Mall.

Michael Townsend and other artists started building the apartment nearly four years ago inside a void in the parking garage.

The apartment eventually had a sectional sofa and love seat, coffee and breakfast tables, a rug, paintings and a video game system. The artists built a cinderblock wall to disguise their hideaway.

Townsend says members of the collective would stay for up to three weeks at a time. Plans for a one-year stay fell apart when mall security found Townsend last week and detained him.

He has pleaded no contest to a trespassing charge.

Police Major Stephen Campbell says while he's surprised by what the artists accomplished, their stunt was still illegal.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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