Is The Beverly Center the same mall in the Woody Allen/Bette Midler movie where they are stuck in the parking lot forever? I think it was called “Scenes from a Mall” or something like that. I hate malls. They make me dizzy, mostly because of the crowds and the terrible lighting. I think the lightbox wall would be a major improvement upon flourescents. I know flourescents are more energy efficient and thus cheaper and blah blah blah, but they give me migranes.

I think it’s funny that the first mall was literally an enclosed former strip mall, and now they are tearing down those malls to make faux Main Street USA strip malls (like Mashpee Commons on Cape Cod, or the Derby Street Shops in Hingham MA) that have huge parking lots in the middle or around the borders behind Panera Bread and Borders Books. It all comes full circle. Who knows, perhaps in another 25 years people will actually shop at the charming, within-walking-distance, currently deserted business district real Main Streets that the shopping centers are modeled after. Stranger things have happened.