Member-only story
Requiem For What We Dreamed At The American Mall
Even the best malls are dying; farewell to an era
Last Friday I stopped work early to go to the mall.
I used to live about half an hour from the largest shopping mall on the U.S. West Coast. Now I live a little over half an hour from the largest shopping mall in Florida.
The two malls are similar: wide, arching glass ceilings that allow ample natural light to stream into their climate-controlled interior. Marble floors that are cool and smooth underfoot. Glass-walled elevators the color of the Gulf of Mexico under a clouded sky.
I think the trip I took to the mall this past Friday will be my last — for a long while.
It was Friday afternoon and I parked very near to Dillards. The air was oppressive: it was a late June afternoon in Southwest Florida and time for it to rain. But it hadn’t happened yet.
I walked through Dillards, a store that reminds me of the local Southern California department store Harris’ Co. My grandmother ran the Ready-to-Wear department at Harris’ Co. in Redlands for 25 years. My mother painted the mural in Mr. Harold Harris’ house and did their holiday windows. I modeled for Harris’ Co. from age 13 to 17. After being bought by several larger corporations, all of the Harris’ Co…
