Posted on 03/20/2014 2:56:28 PM PDT by DallasBiff
I know something about Landover (it was a bit too far for regular shopping), more about PG Plaza. The selection at PG was always a bit out there. We used to joke it was for people with no taste. I lived in Montgomery Cty and preferred Wheaton and Montgomery Malls.
I get sad over dead malls. I think about kids with their first jobs, parents buying birthday presents, a nervous guy getting an engagement ring at Jareds, teens meeting in the food court for cheap dates. It’s all very sad. The mall is more than stores; it is a community in many ways.
For those interested in this kind of thing, see http://deadmalls.com/.
yeah, yeah, it was the owners’ fault for not having enough security. They moan that businesses move away from their communities, or won’t come to their communities, but no one seems to want to take responsibility for their own feral youts and the destruction they wreak.
Of course, people say it’s because it “wasn’t close to a highway.” People who actually live here and shopped there know the truth...
Just like Jamestown Mall and Northwest Plaza, and how St. Louis Mills is headed downhill. Just like Bannister Mall and Blue Ridge Mall in Kansas City. All of them have something in common...but none dare say it.
You said it well. That’s the point I was trying to make, and you said it better than I did. The black community in that area bemoaned the lack of security at that mall, and charged that the owners of the mall let it go downhill. The black community never addressed the fact that their own youth were the ones who drove away decent people, and caused businesses to fail there.
The black community lamented the lack of security there, but never addressed why such high security was needed in the first place.
But cities all over the northeast and midwest still manage to support golf courses, at least from March till October. I think only outdoor malls can save traditional retailing.
It's like a mall with all the stores crammed together in a cluster. So tightly, you can't park anywhere close to your target shopping venue. You'll either A)park 1/4 mile away or B)go elsewhere.
I choose B.
I'll catch you guys here, kitty-corner from all that craziness.
Everyone knows golfers in northern cities are nuts out there in snow flurries and cold rain and fog.
Your average shopper won't pursue his/her hobby in the same conditions. Especially critical to store success is the pre-Christmas season which often is crappy weather.
LA and Phoenix and Honolulu are special cases of U.S. retail.
Bannister mall, metro north mall, Indian Springs mall, now metcalf south mall all dying or dead malls. Don’t forget Antioch mall . All in the pass history column in Kansas City.
The great Northwest... Nothing but rubble these days.
Northwest Plaza.
Bussing from the closed Sears store on Kingshighway. The wellston bus going out st. Charles rock road did the great northwest in.
The St. Louis mills is done. The two new chesterfield outlets will do the Mills in. Even chesterfield mall is hurting since the outlets opened in the fall of 2013. I bet the busses don’t go that far west.
I’ve never been in there, but it looks like the Village.
Stop gloating. The Falls in Miami has been open since 1980.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falls_%28mall%29
I’m sure you are correct.
My mother worked at Famous-Barr Southtown at Kingshighway and Chippewa for 30 years. It had everything, bridal shop, furs, furniture, even a restaurant and bakery. That beautiful store is long gone and now we won’t go to that area after dark.
I didn’t mention but to answer your first question, I DO remember Landover Mall, even shopped there a couple of times when I was in MD, maybe 35-40 years ago. A dear friend owned a nice garden apt complex in Langley Park, absolutely safe and middle class. I wouldn’t go near the place today.
But the pendulum does swing. Been to Columbia Hgts in DC lately? Went from crime-ridden ghetto to upscale yuppieville over those same 30+ years.
And the Galleria started to head south when they built the Metro hub right across from it. Enough people spoke up that they cracked down on the ferals.
I encountered a pack of them (probably 20) several years ago - they walked straight down the walkway of the mall and forced everyone out of their way, including the elderly and a mom with a stroller.
I honestly wanted to take them all out.
Is the Cinderella City Mall still there in Denver? I practically lived there when I was in Tech School at Lowry AFB in 1977.
Once again, Los Angeles does it first and does it better.
One of the things that got malls started was the opportunity to visit multiple stores while getting out of the weather, so I'm not sure that this would work everywhere.
I remember it well At the end the place looked like a scene from the movie “The Warriors”
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