tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40864562009-10-13T16:55:16.337-07:00SHOPOPOLISconsumer culture: past, present and especially the future...by the author of THE MALLING OF AMERICA.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-59730314561187126422009-10-05T01:12:00.000-07:002009-10-05T01:18:35.922-07:00 The much beleaguered Bayshore Mall in Eureka was humming on Saturday, so what does that say?--see post below. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-53820257708739148072009-10-05T00:51:00.001-07:002009-10-05T01:19:23.133-07:00A Sunny Saturday at Bayshore MallAutumn is the sunniest time of year here on the California North Coast, and this Saturday was very sunny--but the warmth of the sun was cut by the occasional cold breeze, so clearly this was one of the last summery days of the year.So people were out, everywhere we went on our errands--including at Bayshore Mall in Eureka. As chronicled in a local cover story, Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-49378962357151399472009-04-02T00:47:00.000-07:002009-04-02T00:48:22.098-07:00This is a model of Xanadu, the mega-mall under construction in New Jersey during what seems to be doom time for the shopping mall. Is it? See the post below.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-12449566770782177432009-04-02T00:05:00.000-07:002009-04-02T03:33:29.801-07:00Sustainable DoomOnce again, the shopping mall is doomed. The death knell has been sounded periodically since the 1980s, even before The Malling of America was first published. Now the sudden and still continuing destruction/reinvention of the financial system and the severe downturn in the American and world economy--the Great Recession--seems to make it certain.Time Magazine hangs its obituary Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-2364266050451435902008-12-24T23:55:00.000-08:002008-12-25T01:00:36.042-08:00 Christmas at Ye Olde Shopping Mall: New traditions and even nostalgia now locate Christmas memories where, for better or worse, families have been going to celebrate as well as shop... for forty or fifty years. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-47857518440711126642008-12-24T23:03:00.000-08:002008-12-25T01:06:27.989-08:00Mall Nostalgia: Recalling Christmas at Ye Olde Shopping MallIn what’s shaping up to be a bleak Christmas, thoughts may naturally turn to better days gone by. Holidays often look happier in memory anyway, and since Christmas is so associated with childhood (your own or your children’s or grandchildren’s), the season inspires recollections of magical lights and displays, exciting street scenes and Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-1971527987248455812008-12-24T21:47:00.000-08:002008-12-25T05:02:55.890-08:00 Photos I took of Greengate Mall in 1999, when it was nearly abandoned: (top) outside the old Hornes (later Lazarus) department store; inside at center court, the famous fountain; and in the floor near the fountain, the time capsule, buried in 1985 and scheduled to be opened in 2005, but which apparently "disappeared" during demolition. In it, among other things, was a signed copy of my book, TheCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-12347383191864215052008-12-24T20:54:00.000-08:002009-01-04T03:04:36.302-08:00Greengate was built on land that had been part of a farm and summer home owned by the appropriately named John S. Sell family. (The place even had a name: Sellcroft.) This was an era when a lot of the fresh milk sold in Greensburg came from local dairies and dairy farms. The farm was just west of the town of Greensburg, along the two-lane Lincoln Highway, adjacent to the Mount Odin drive-in Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-33046181106660302992008-12-24T20:09:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:23:34.350-08:00 Greengate Mall, center court Christmas display. Click photo to enlarge. BK photo.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-20210514135690649692008-12-24T19:57:00.000-08:002008-12-25T05:06:16.238-08:00Local news coverage about Greengate’s demise inevitably mentioned its Christmas events and elaborate decorations. (I’d written about the overnight process of setting up the center court tree and Nutcracker theme exhibit, surrounded by a child-sized train ride.) Christmas season at Greengate was popular with the surrounding communities for at least 30 years—long enough for some who experienced Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-51829110381161186222008-12-24T19:06:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:27:54.297-08:00 “I remember it was where I first told Santa what I wanted for Christmas,” said one. “I always loved going to Greengate Mall with my parents. It seemed like the holidays weren't the holidays unless we had our usual trip to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap.” Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-61959978948067586032008-12-24T18:30:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:32:06.348-08:00 “I remember lights in the food court that would change colors (yellow, blue, green, etc) during Christmas as Charlie Brown music would play.” “There was a puppet show that kids would huddle around and watch.” Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-63863522057551509262008-12-24T17:34:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:36:46.626-08:00 Many recalled riding the train through the snow-covered Christmas village. “I remember the animated deer with the jerky movements that built toys as kids rode through the display.” Another recalled a young adult perspective, of accompanying nieces and nephews, and watching “how big their eyes would be when they first walked into the center courtyard... Nothing made my parents more happy then Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-54946378577186469832008-12-24T16:41:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:44:06.656-08:00 The element of nostalgia is particularly evident in the frequency of comments such as: “Wow, nothing compares to it today.” A department store employee who met her husband there wrote, “We all have very fond memories of Greengate Mall. We especially miss the beautiful holiday decorations!” An ex-employee of another store who remembers “singing on the steps in center court in 1980 for Christmas” Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-26920701029795003102008-12-24T16:07:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:48:39.550-08:00When I was first writing about Greengate in the late 70s and early 80s, I often heard similar sentiments expressed about downtown Greensburg in the 50s and before: memories of shopping in the department stores and shops on Main Street, going from store to store in the falling snow, seeing friends and ducking into the Chat and Chew. But Greengate and other malls drew the department stores away Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-29618157533606155192008-12-24T15:50:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:54:07.789-08:00 Then they simply lasted, and thanks partly to years of shared experiences, the local shopping mall often became a real place. And so they became part of memories, and now, of nostalgia. A woman who remembers Greengate as a child (“at Christmas especially. It was wonderful”) has since moved away but visits family in the area every Christmas. She writes: “I'm sad the mall is gone. I would have Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-81677620431910902422008-12-24T14:51:00.000-08:002008-12-25T00:53:26.112-08:00Christmas is still being experienced at hundreds of malls, and thousands of photos taken with Santa. But even before the latest economic blows, malls were under serious assault by Big Box developments, chiefly Wal-Marts. After decades when not a single regional mall failed, many began to fade, and some (like Greengate) were demolished. Now retail sales so far in this Christmas shopping season Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-11479926727951047032008-12-11T01:26:00.000-08:002008-12-11T02:01:53.462-08:00Big Box Reuse: an inspiring, important book about transforming abandoned retail spaces for crucial public uses (or at least public fun.)Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-43011490715766709302008-12-11T00:55:00.000-08:002008-12-11T01:27:49.945-08:00Big Box Reuseby Julia ChristensenThe MIT PressThis is a wonderful, inspiring book--all the more so because it is meticulously reported and cogently written. But it's also wonderful and inspiring because of the people who made all these projects happen.The book is about 10 projects in various parts of America that took abandoned Big Box buildings (usually Wal-Marts and some K-Marts) and Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-40531295528991715682008-11-30T02:14:00.001-08:002008-11-30T03:06:04.581-08:00When Black Friday ComesWhen Black Friday comes, I stand down near the doorand catch the great men when they dive from the 14th floor.When Black Friday comes, I call in everything I'm owedand before my friends find out, I'll be on the road....--Black Friday by Steeley DanBlack Friday--the day after Thanksgiving-- got its ironic title in recent years because as one of the biggest shopping days of Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-39496895284465422612008-11-12T19:21:00.000-08:002009-03-05T19:22:36.136-08:00Abandoned Greengate Mall in western PA, a few years before it was torn down. BK photo.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-27823107262891700052008-11-12T00:34:00.000-08:002008-12-11T02:07:12.586-08:00The Wasting of AmericaIn sites all over the Internet, the shopping mall has become an item of nostalgia. I understand how malls can inspire these feelings, but when so many of these cherished malls are no more, this devotion is a sign of the shopping mall's decline.There are lots of abandoned malls that aren't necessarily cherished, but there is still lots of fascination--at Dead Malls and other Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-59011795690934641352008-08-22T00:55:00.000-07:002008-11-12T00:34:37.458-08:00As products get crappier, malls get gaudier, especiallyfor upscale buyers, and especially overseas. This isone section of several theme areas in a mall in Dubai.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-49444465759925625422008-08-22T00:23:00.001-07:002008-08-22T04:04:41.385-07:00JunkThis summer required our household to consider some major purchases, and it was an eye-opener. It began modestly, but with portent: the old microwave gave out. The next one lasted about a week--among its defects, the light stopped working. We took that one back, exchanged it for a different brand. That one took several weeks for the light to go out. We don't much like it, it's pretty shoddy Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4086456.post-1867925045846530212008-04-12T01:02:00.000-07:002008-04-12T01:06:57.881-07:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0