Palmer Park Mall probably hasn’t seen these kinds of crowds since Hess’s Department Store went out of business in 1994.

But the same could be said for almost any mall on Saturday afternoon in Pennsylvania.

Rap superstar Cardi B was billed for a 2 p.m. appearance at the mall’s Spin Me Round record store . Despite the appearance being heavily publicized as open only to pre-selected fans, few seemed to get the message.

At least 2,000 people, by conservative estimates, had queued up outside the record store’s exterior entrance at the mall by 11 a.m. Saturday. The line wrapped around most of the perimeter of the nearly 470,000-square-foot building, which Hess’s developed as a major retail center and anchored when it first opened in 1973.

The crowd continued to linger patiently past 2 p

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