Fulton Mall Mallification' Inevitable?
Yesterday the Times had a loving portrait of the Fulton Mall, a chaotic throwback to the era before the sanitization and, yes, mallification of New York City’s retail districts. The article examines how the thoroughfare stays successful (it sees more than 100,000 shoppers each day) by catering to working-class minorities. Despite the fact that retail…
Yesterday the Times had a loving portrait of the Fulton Mall, a chaotic throwback to the era before the sanitization and, yes, mallification of New York City’s retail districts. The article examines how the thoroughfare stays successful (it sees more than 100,000 shoppers each day) by catering to working-class minorities. Despite the fact that retail rents at the Fulton Mall are extremely high, the commercial strip still boasts plenty of mom-and-pop shops and a dearth of big national retailers. That may not be case for much longer, according to Downtown Brooklyn Partnership prez Joseph Chan. With all the housing stock that we have now and the demographics in the communities that surround Downtown Brooklyn, the fact that there’s not a Bed Bath & Beyond, a Pottery Barn, a Pier 1 in the downtown of a city of 2.5 million people is odd, says Chan. He argues that more chain stores won’t necessarily mean the end of the Fulton Mall as we know it: Having greater retail diversity means having more choices. It doesn’t mean eliminating what’s there today. The reality is it’s never going to be all or nothing.
Step Right Up! Brooklyn Mall Is Oasis and Anomaly [NY Times]
Photo by johnkay1.
First guy is fake. There is no way he is gonna convince me that a married white guy who owns a coop is EVER gonna be in the market for fronts. That said, the Macy’s is a sad, sad place and obviously corporate headquarters doesn’t think their Brooklyn shoppers deserve better than crappy dropped ceiling, ugly florescent lights, and indifferent service. I like the Goodwill, though.
Some people have less than zero interest in sneakers, or the names of the companies making sneakers. Thats why they’d have to google it. To me “rod lavers” sounds like some kind of soap you hang from the shower curtain rod.
Theres a whole bunch of people who wouldn’t be seen dead wearing something thats identifiable by a name or a logo. Vive la difference.
Well, my friend (8:14), I was trying to make several points with that comment. First, I was challenging the idea that the disclosure of whiteness, however well-intentioned, somehow validates one’s opinion of the economic culture of FM. Second, I hoped to complicate your idea of what “black people”–often (and oddly) presumed to be a “them” on this blog–like to spend “their” money on. And finally, no, one can’t buy Rod Lavers at FM. That’s why I don’t shop there; it’s not because, as apparently you would assume, I’m not black.
Did you really have to google Rod Lavers? Am I that much of an enigma to you? Is Brooklyn really that confusing?? They’re made by Adidas for goodness sake…
i want a crack house on the strip. It would fit in nicely with the pimps and ho’s that shop there
8:14 I googled Rod Lavers shoes and it cost $45.95 so no need to disclose that. Am not surprised you don’t shop at FM coz Dr Jays and Footlocker charges 2X. What’s the western fries like at applebees?
My only problem with the FM is that all of those gorgeous buildings are boarded or dark from the second floor up. Is it the zoning or do the businesses make so much money property owners can afford to leave so much space shuttered–or is there just a lack of imagination? For example, I’d prefer a loft overlooking FM to any of the new construction on Livingston. I don’t shop FM, but I think it’s charming and needs a decent restaurant–one of which I understand is opening soon–rather than BB&B or PB. The chains can take their places between Applebee’s and McD’s on Flatbush.
And since the convention here seems to be some self-aggrandizing pretense toward disclosure, I’ll qualify my comments by saying that I make a pretty good salary. I wear a sport jacket, jeans and Rod Lavers to work. I’m black (not latino or immigrant), and do not own a car. And I live in Bed Stuy with my wife and kids. Beeatch.
I used to go there all the time when I lived in Brooklyn Heights – I’d trudge over there for Modells and Macy’s (and A and S before that). There’s a good hotdog place there. Anybody that is sentimental about that place though needs a life.
All this might be true, but people will reach a limit to what they’ll spend to buy in Brooklyn if the amenities don’t change as quickly as the demographics are changing.
Besides, if you’re talking about what is more authentic to Brooklyn, that should mean big nice department stores coming back to Brooklyn. Up until the 70’s, Brooklyn had all those stores. Nice ones, not crappy versions of them. If the big stores return, and these shopping areas improve, THAT is what’s more authentic to Brooklyn historically.
Getting back to the Times piece: It was a classic exemplar of their “Biff and Muffy Take the Subway, and Look What They Find!” genre of local coverage. Biff and Muffy find thrillingly tattoo’d ex-cons handing out flyers! They find inexplicably lettered signs and rough-and-ready masses! They mourn the ‘sanitized’ likes of Times Square and relish the “vibrant” strip with its “edge”! And then…they skibble back to Manhattan to file their story.
(Although, come to think of it, there is something more nauseating than Biff and Muffy relishing a shopping excursion with “diversity,” and that has to be the white homeboy-wanna-be who copes with being “married” and having a “suit job” by wearing baseball caps, and calls his “collectible” sneakers his “kicks.” His poor wife; she probably dreams of stepping out with George Clooney while this nitwit is creakily bopping around to Jay-Z on his Ipod…)