Recently, I planned to meet a friend for dinner at 5:00 pm in Rockland County. Only one problem: Bridge traffic across the Hudson River after 2:30 pm can be quite bad, given that there is usually a major slowdown on the NYS Thruway just after one crosses the river. So I crossed the river around 3:30 pm, and had time to kill before meeting my friend. Knowing that this mall had a bookstore in which I could sit down, have a cup of coffee and skim a book while passing time, I decided to drop in and see what it was like inside.
This mall has seen its better days. I can still remember when J.C.Penney had two stores inside: one being their typical clothing store, and the other being a JCP branded furniture store. Sadly, both are long gone, and the lower level of the clothing store has been replaced by a store called Mystery Bins. By the time I got there, much of the stock had already been picked through, and there was nothing there worth looking at. What made things worse for me is that the air conditioning wasn't working in the store (it was 90°+ outside, and fans didn't help keep the place cool enough to walk around) and one could see the "bones" of the Penney's store that once inhabited the space.
In addition to the "Mystery Bins" space, there was a 99¢ store in a space which held a more prestigious retailer. But I was saddened by at least one large food outlet on the top floor having been shuttered, not having a successful tenant in years. It would have been more depressing had I continued to walk around the mall, but I retreated to the chain bookstore to chill for 60 minutes. And even there, one could see the signs of a retail store's slow death, as a quarter of the audio/video area was partitioned off as empty space.
Similar happenings have been going on at other malls in this region. Lord and Taylor is dead and buried. J.C.Penney is almost a memory, a fraction of its former size. Sears and K-Mart are corpses waiting for last rites. And the sad decline of in-person, big-box department stores has made many of these malls obsolete. I'll miss them, as they became the Town Square for generations who no longer need this space. I just wonder what will become the Town Square for future generations.
