by Mark Patterson
I have this recurrent dream- a waking nightmare, really-that I’m walking through long, foreboding corridors. Symmetrical and clearly man-made, their seeming indifference to my presence is strangely belied by the dim lights left on for me, as if somehow, I’ve been expected. Tiled floors, skylights, and chic, functional, chandeliers provide panoramic insight to the tastes and evolutionary progress of whatever ancient culture constructed this maze of expansive runways that lead only to other runways.
Like Stonehenge or the pyramids, the place reveals not its long-expired purpose to contemporary intruders. Glass compartments of varying width and depth line this system of wide hallways, diluting my essence to ghostly reflection. Other specters similar to myself lend no reassurance.
Grim and purposeful; they march as I do, these methodical trespassers in their plain jeans or khakis, and colorful sketchers. More than anything, those expensive tennis shoes define them. Like party guests in a Vincent Price film, one by one they disappear. At the stroke of eight, I’m alone and uneasy about one final circuit-and the prospect of encountering whatever haunts these pathways when even the muted lights go down.
I think I’m afraid that it might be me. Flashing back to the 1970’s, my mind’s eye conjures nostalgic reflections from the windows of once-thriving stores now deader than disco. Congested throngs mill through these corridors. Clutching square paper bags, purses, and the sweetly acquiescent hands of their (always) cross-gender companions, they seek and find both commerce and community here. At the hub resides an ornate Greek-themed fountain spouting fresh, clear water sufficiently skyward to cause ripples on splashdown. Those comforting disturbances create shimmer around copper sacrifices to the Gods of formulaic businesses like JC Penny’s (established, of course in 1906-for some reason, they loved to inform you of that) and Kauffmann’s (once THE retail juggernaut of this region), and food courts, and Maci’s, and a Mexican Restaurant still many corn-cakes from tainted- lettuce extinction.
Now, the walking-near- dead (sorry, but it IS an aged demographic) far outnumber patrons at the Beaver Valley Mall, a once cutting-edge destination established a half-decade (1970) before the Pittsburgh Steelers annexed their first Lombardi. No surprise, since Penny’s has packed it in; mighty Maci’s has likewise skedaddled, and Aunt Annie retired to Robinson Twp. Meanwhile, resilient Chick-fil-A (Do their tenders taste faintly like pickles to you?)-along with some fried-rice counter where the employees just NEVER stop snapping at each other-pretty much amounts to available sustenance. As a final slap in the clenched faces of mall-walkers-that hardy breed present, ironically enough, to push back the same inevitable fate that their exercise ground has suffered-Rural King (sadly, passing for an “anchor” store with its Bags O’ Sidewalk Salt and bulk-sized beef Jerky) never raises the medieval gate barring entrance from the mall.
Once our undisputed cultural touchstone, Center Township’s particular congregation of now flat-line retailers does not shamble to an empty graveyard. During the last decade, some 400 American malls have gone to that land of Orange milkshakes in the sky. Roughly 2,500 such monuments to consumerism stood proud in the big-hair 80’s, with a mere 150 expected to still function by the time our next president palms a bible.
Blame Amazon and the internet, of course. Who puts pants on and burns petrol to brick and mortar when they can shop the whole planet in pj’s or boxer shorts? Blame Walmart, as well, for biting its own chunk from mall revenues. 100 stores under one roof? That behemoth had its own idea: 100 departments under their roof. Anyway, where else could we watch shoppers throw stuff at employees? Or brazenly stuff seven rib eyes down the front of cheap sweat pants (that they might actually have paid for).
Or perhaps it’s a rightful comeuppance for the concept that slayed town-based shops by the dozens, reducing all those riverside boroughs (already reeling from the loss of steel mills) to bleak relics of a different time. Try to buy anything besides a pan crust in Baden, Freedom, Ambridge, or Aliquippa.
Not counting that charity bike place (I SWEAR I spotted my boyhood Schwinn in there) or the bare bones senior center, I tallied just 11 operational businesses last Thursday at the Beaver Valley Mall. Nick Shirley might have knocked and sought answers. I just kept walking.
Sent from Outlook
