[PREV - CHERRY] [TOP]
April 27, 2005
Weirdly enough, the original
idea for shopping malls was
to act as community centers.
A European architect
wanted to bring something
like a "town square" to He was somewhat
suburban American life. disappointed in GRUEN_HILLS_OF_EARTH
the actual results.
When I was a kid on
Long Island, the Walt Yes: the "Walt Whitman Shopping Mall".
Whitman Shopping Mall
actually did function I wonder if there's a
a little like this. "Henry David Thoreau Shopping Mall"?
A "Karl Marx Shopping Mall"?
The department stores
had marble benches (A "Jesus Christ
outside of them, where Savings and Loan"?)
teenage kids would hang
around bumming cigarettes like this place.
There are a few differences I used to go out of
between that shopping mall my way to walk
now, and ones thousands of through the place...
miles away in California, (almost always on my
but not very many. way to the used
books/comic-book
RANDOM_ENCOUNTER place another
mile down the road).
So I was very surprised
when I first heard
hipster-types sneering at
shopping malls, and talking
about how much they hate
them...
But that surprise is
a common pattern.
These things are relative:
if you're living in a bleak
area it doesn't take much
for something to stand out
by contrast.
In a town with real book
stores, something like a
"Borders" is a threat to the
character of the town; but
if you're living in some
place that has no character
to begin with, then even a
far worse bookstore chain
can seem like an oasis of
culture.
To someone raised in the
'burbs, a Starbucks might
seem a godsend, and the
people hanging out at
that one on King St
in San Francisco may have
no idea why I was giving
the place the finger when
I rode by on my bike the
other day.
It turns out that the old
"Walt Whitman" has been
featured at the "Malls of
America" site:
[ref]
[ref]
What it looks like now:
[ref]
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