The pet store was my favorite because they let you pick out a puppy and play with it for a while in the little greeting room; the puppies seemed pretty happy and well taken care of, and the employees really seemed to care about all the animals. I was sad to see it go. I got some of my first pets – Siamese fighting fish – at that store.

There was a Claire’s right outside of the Greenhouse food court, and I got my ears pierced there when I was ten. My mother bought me a Pepsi at the Chinese place next door afterwards, and I remember that place having very odd tasting vegetable lo mein, and an omnipresent neon red glow from its old-school sign. Also in the food court were a Newport Creamery express, a Taco King, a Sbarros, and I believe another anchor restaurant at its entrance.

This mall fought a valiant fight, and to me truly died when the EB finally left.

Yes, absolutely. My aunt had a charge card there and used to drag me as often as humanly possible. At one point during the 90s, something happened with the configuration of that Cherry’s…I can’t quite remember, but I think it may have split into two stores – one upstairs, one downstairs – with the lower one being a “discount” Cherry’s. Or maybe they closed the regular Cherry’s entirely and just had it be “discount” stuff. I wish I’d paid closer attention!

What I don’t understand is that this is not the only mall with so called “anchors” that do this, so why do the malls allow it?

My guess is liability. If you own a mall that is mostly or entirely vacant except for anchors, you actually don’t even want people walking around inside. They could be causing all kinds of shenanigans, destroying property, whatever. You’ve got to pay someone to act as security, which feels like a losing proposition if the mall is dead/dying anyway. And if someone gets hurt, either through antics or by accident, then you’re wiped out entirely. Wal*Mart is going to police its own customers, but it’s not going to police your mall space.

Not that I agree with this approach, mind you. I think it’s very short-sighted. To save the salary of a security guard or two, you’re not going to do the one thing that might actually save the mall? What a shame. But at the same time, those anchors probably love being sealed-off; it reduces their costs (construction, maintenance, and security). And they are only going to want to pay these extra costs if they see a clear benefit to doing so – opening up to a dead mall doesn’t seem like a benefit. Again, I think it’s short-sighted, but that’s the way it goes.

Between the fear of lawsuits (or whatever) and pressure from the anchor stores, I can’t say I blame the malls for allowing this, even if I wish it was different. Wal*Mart comes along and wants space in your otherwise dead mall but insists on no mall access – are you REALLY going to say no? It’s the proverbial bird in the hand – better to have an anchor that you KNOW isn’t going to go out of business, even if it means cutting off the mall proper, than hold out for someone who might never come along and ending up with no stores at all.