Two-Paragraph Tuesday: The Carcass of a Mall

Crossroads Mall holds a special place in my heart. My family moved two blocks north of the shopping center in 1982. We spent a considerable amount of time there during my formative years...buying books, record albums, electronics, toys, clothes, and all sundry things. Bridget and I window shopped and ate lunch at the mall when we were students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in the 1990s. I even sold magazine subscriptions at a kiosk (for Nebraska Sports Magazine, my brother-in-law's employer at the time) during the 1995 holiday season. 

When the mall was remodeled in the late 1980s it became, for a time, the nicest mall in the city -- three large anchor tenants, a solid food court, and even a video arcade called "Jolly Time" (where I plunked copious numbers of quarters into the Galaga machine). As is too often the case in life, good things eventually come to an end, and a series of poor management decisions -- combined with changing demographics in the area -- doomed the mall (that had opened its doors in the 1960s) to a slow, painful death. 

Target (one of the remaining anchor tenants) has walled itself off from the mall's interior, like a wary organism trying to protect itself from an aggressive disease. 

The mall is host to peculiar places like the "Czech and Slovak Educational Center and Cultural Museum"... which features creepy dolls and accordians... 

One of my favorite places to eat in the food court was "Philly Dilly" (which had a superb french dip sandwich and french fries)... now the court roped off and left to collect dust... 

This drone video (from 2013) shows the mall in all its melancholy glory:

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