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.
“I like the mall…it reminds me of Europe”
Yep, the northern suburbs of Paris, South London, parts of Rotterdam, Palermo…I could go on.
“i like the mall- it reminds me of europe”
My parents are from Europe and they love the Fulton Mall, just like the dollar stores on 5th Avenue in the South Slope and Brighton Beach. Me too for that matter. We go to Cookies to buy crazy fun clothes for my white yuppie niece in Holland and my mom loves the Goodwill store.
It’s where the ‘real’ people shop, sorry working-class minorities. I don’t understand how you can dismiss African-American Brooklyn as a minority. Brownstoner’s words or the papers’?
Don’t forget Jamaica Center. It’s even bigger.
Fulton Street caters to some non-black ethnic minorities that are afraid to actually open up shops in the heart of the ghetto. Downtown Brooklyn should be the crown jewel of the borough, not a dilapidated shopping district for the residents of East New York who scared all the shopkeepers off of Pitkin Avenue.
Quite frankly, I’ve witnessed a great deal of unruly behavior near Fulton Street. It really does attract a certain kind of ghetto person who subscribes to the media-created hip-hop lifestyles. I’m not quite sure how to stop it, but I’m sure there is a way.
Dont worry about Fulton Mall – if it is replaced just go to Fordham Road in the Bronx- West of Webster Ave – EXACT same thing
fresh mozzarella balls, anyone?
Put me down as someone in the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” camp. Those big box stores are nothing special or in any way unique, just big traffic magnets. They can’t duplicate the volume on Fulton as it is. They are generally a poor use of commercial space and have only symbolic “suburb in the city” value.
Fortunately, the transition from ghetto bazaar to suburban mall in the city is tough to project. How do you throw out high rent paying tenants in favor of future gentrified mall strategies? So you put in a Bed Bath in part of the Fulton Mall, how do the new shoppers mix with the old? Its a tough transition which maybe explains why it hasn’t been made.
I’m thinking this will remain ghetto fabulous long after Ratner and Magic Johnson have moved in. Fulton may stay black longer than Harlem does. Ghetto is profitable.
Atlantic Ctr and Fulton Mall development are the mallization of Brookyln. Can’t you design a less suburban looking mecca? The plan is nothing but a poor conceptualization by developers and architects who care only about the dollar return. We can have a better Fulton Mall that is useful positive for every customer in and around the city.
AY = D-O-N-E-D-E-A-L!!!
Yeah, but Atlantic Terminal is such a soul-crushing miasma of misery, I do anything possible to avoid it. The worst-designed, worst-maintained, worst-staffed, and butt-ugliest retail environment I have ever seen–and THIS is the guy who gets Atlantic Yards?