Mall Rats No More

The luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue recently announced that its Beachwood, Ohio, location, which had served Cleveland’s fashionistas for nearly fifty years, would close at the end of May.

Trying on a coat at Saks in better days

I watched this once-vibrant shopping mecca, one of three retail anchors of Beachwood Place mall, decline over the years, amazed at how far it had fallen. 

I clearly remember the excitement of something new in 1978 when the mall first opened, and my mom buying me a bright green windbreaker that I proudly wore to school. 

I nostalgically recall going to Black Friday sales with Joe. We both love clothes, and Saks was at once a vibe, a destination, and a source of inspiration.

In the '80s and '90s, visiting the mall was a way of life. People shopped, met friends, ate at the food court, and repeated it all the next weekend. The TV show Stranger Things captured the essence of the ’80s mall lifestyle. The mall was a place of liberation for teenagers.

Beachwood Place

Saks’ closure might be the final blow to Beachwood Place, which, like malls across the country, has had the life and joy drained out of it by online shopping. There is no longer a mall culture. iPhones have replaced hanging out with friends. Gang violence and shootings have undermined the safety of suburban malls.

“Dying shopping malls are the Roman ruins of our civilization,” declared a recent New York Times headline.

None of this would matter if it weren't for the fact that, as a culture, our entertainment options are shrinking, as are our choices around socialization. We don’t read as much anymore. Because of the immediacy and convenience of streaming media, only a few movies, like Barbie and Oppenheimer, manage to get us off the couch and into the cineplex. The local movie theater is a dying venue, on its way to becoming obsolete, just as the shopping mall that once housed it is.

We are addicted to our damned phones.

Beachwood Place Grand Opening
August 1978

Honestly, I was never much of a mall rat. I lived on the East Coast during the peak of malls and found more sophisticated ways to pass the time and satisfy my shopping urges. When I finally moved back to the suburbs, I sometimes enjoyed going to the mall, even though I could see it falling apart, and I found better options online. I might be mourning something whose decline I helped cause.

At least for now, the flagship Saks in New York City, along with Bergdorf Goodman, appears safe, even if their joint parent company is in Chapter 11. It would be an even sadder day if New York lost Saks and Bergdorf's.

To today’s youth, shopping malls seem as outdated as '50s diners appear to my generation. Their decline might be part of the natural order of things. The elimination of public gathering places, such as malls, contributes to our collective isolation and loneliness.

I may not have always loved the mall, but I also don't know what could replace it.

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