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Sep
15
Dead Malls: The Movie
September 15, 2007 |
UMKC film professor Daven Gee is producing a new movie about dead malls, starring the Indian Springs mall in KCK. It’s amazing how quickly malls in KC have died. Just a few years ago there were as many as 9 or 10 malls, and now only two traditional malls remain - Independence Center and Overland Park Mall. The rest are either dead, dying, or being redeveloped into open shopping centers.
Comments
11 Comments so far
[...] Original post by William Rockhill Nelson [...]
“Overland Park Mall?” It’s Oak Park Mall.
Not that I go there a lot.
I’m not crying over the decline of the big mega-mall complexes. And I disagree that we are losing revenue and jobs… they are being replaced with the newest trend in shopping, the outdoor shopping center like the Legends, Plaza, Briarcliff, Zona Rosa. People like to have a connection to the outdoors, instead of entering into the shopping cave only to emerge hours later. People are becoming attracted to the town-center concept of shopping and entertainment.
Um, no Snodgrass. People like going to places where there isn’t the crack of gunshots punctuated by ambulance sirens.
Here’s the problem. There is no ghetto mall. People living in the ghetto have no place to shop that’s mall like. No mall could survive in the ghetto anyway, due to the crime. So people who live in the ghetto have to drive a long way to shop at any place other than beauty parlors and fast cash pawn places.
So they drive down to Blue Ridge Mall. Normal east side people shop there for a while when the ghetto fuckbags show up and start ripping stores off left and right, causing general mayhem, robbing people, carjackings etc…
That mall then closes. People then go elsewhere. They go to Bannister Mall. Only now it’s a direct influx of ghetto shitbags without the first wave of decent people. Crime, car thefts, shootings, stabbings, mayhem in general ensues.
Mall closes. The middle income and upper income drive longer distance. Meanwhile, ghetto shitbags find a new mall to destroy. They set their sights on Ward Parkway mall.
Since there is no movie theater that can survive in the ghetto without being robbed, this one is the closest drive for people on the east side.
Now, that mall is a fleabag craphole. Try going to a movie there once. First, nobody will shut the fuck up. Second, there are always fights DURING the movie. The place is crawling with off duty PD because it’s well on its way to being the next Bannister mall. Third, shoplifting is NUTS. I watched shoplifting right before my eyes at Old Navy. They don’t want the police to get involved because, someone told me, the police don’t handle it the Old Navy way. Good luck with that Old Navy. Bye bye inventory.
It is now overrun with sleazy hooligans with booze and guns.
So that, long and short is why malls far at the edges of the city are thriving. Even the Plaza is turning into a crapland. There is so much crime down there at nighty it’s outrageous. People robbed at gun point, purse snatchings, car thefts, etc.
I have a friend who went to Ward Parkway to see Halloween because it wasn’t playing on the Plaza, and he told me he’d never go to a movie there again because of people talking on cell phones, etc. I didn’t really understand at the time why he didn’t just complain, but now it makes sense. The theater was filled with douchebags who don’t care if you complain, they will just cause you more problems. The only solution is everything will have to be more expensive to pay for extra security. I’ve been to the Old Navy there, and there are only ever a handful of customers. If they don’t want to “get the police involved” when there’s trouble, they will truly go the way of Bannister Mall. Personally, I’d have cops there every chance I got…it’s good, not bad for real business. People who aren’t criminals feel better and safer with their presence.
Roger, you could have done us all a big favor by just writing “Black people scare me, that’s why I don’t go outside.”
Patrick, to what do you attribute the spectacular demise of Bannister Mall?
[...] (Spotted at BlogKC.) [...]
Changing markets? A changing neighborhood? Mismanagement? Take your pick. But the “and then black people started showing up and ruined everything” seems to be a ready excuse for white Kansas City. That’s hardly the mindset of a “strongly progressive” city, Tim.
Tim put your head back into your ostrich hole.
Crime rates (unfortunately) follow ghetto neighborhoods. Ghetto neighborhoods are primarily black. To say its all the black peoples fault is not true BUT the majority of the shoplifitng and crimes at all these dead malls were done by young disrespecting blacks.
At the Indep. Center Mall the security knows this and will run off ANYONE, black or not, who looks like their not shopping. Hanging out and goofing off at the mall is no longer accepted like it once was.
We have to keep in mind these malls are private property. They can and do reserve the right to refuse service to ANYONE.
Its a good thing they do too or we’d have no malls to even talk about.
This city is far less “progressive” than the liberals would like to think.
Get real and you’ll discover the real problems. Its not a race issue, its a ghetto issue.
Put MY head back in the ostrich hole? Funny, I agree with YOUR analysis…