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A bit of nostalgia
13 years ago
Yesterday while playing an album of oldies by various artists, one of the songs that came on was "Downtown" by Petula Clark. This song is interesting on a couple of different levels.
First, it describes a time and place that, for most of us, doesn't exist anymore. How many people live in a place where "downtown" is a place you go to for excitement and to get away from it all? The song was a hit in 1965, before shopping malls really took off and most cities and towns still had a downtown where you could do most of your shopping and get a lot of your entertainment. While this is true in a lot of larger cities, in a lot of smaller ones it is no more, the downtown having fallen into disrepair while all of the action moved out to the malls on the outskirts.
Second, on a personal level, sometime in 1985 or 1986 I purchased a copy of the Billboard Book of Top 40 hits. One of the fun exercises I did with that book was to try to think of the earliest song I could remember hearing while it was a hit. Over a period of several days I recalled several from my childhood, and looked them all up. The earliest turned out to be this one, "Downtown". It charted in January 1965 and reached #1 where it spent 2 weeks. I was 5 years old at the time.
It's interesting to think that having a book like that would be necessary to do that fun exercise. In 1986 you had to buy a book or go look it up at a library if you wanted questions like that answered. Now anyone who wants to find out can just look it up on the Internet. Another way times have changed.
First, it describes a time and place that, for most of us, doesn't exist anymore. How many people live in a place where "downtown" is a place you go to for excitement and to get away from it all? The song was a hit in 1965, before shopping malls really took off and most cities and towns still had a downtown where you could do most of your shopping and get a lot of your entertainment. While this is true in a lot of larger cities, in a lot of smaller ones it is no more, the downtown having fallen into disrepair while all of the action moved out to the malls on the outskirts.
Second, on a personal level, sometime in 1985 or 1986 I purchased a copy of the Billboard Book of Top 40 hits. One of the fun exercises I did with that book was to try to think of the earliest song I could remember hearing while it was a hit. Over a period of several days I recalled several from my childhood, and looked them all up. The earliest turned out to be this one, "Downtown". It charted in January 1965 and reached #1 where it spent 2 weeks. I was 5 years old at the time.
It's interesting to think that having a book like that would be necessary to do that fun exercise. In 1986 you had to buy a book or go look it up at a library if you wanted questions like that answered. Now anyone who wants to find out can just look it up on the Internet. Another way times have changed.
The malls arose because it offered covered shopping and nearby access and reasonable rents. Now that the malls are super expensive rentwise, strip malls are taking over and stealing their money, and the malls will become just as empty as downtown is.
They tried to renovate the downtown by selling loft apartments, building restaurants and recreation stuff, and even a train down the middle of the stupid street. But it doesn't change the fact that everyone has to travel 60 miles round trip at 4$ a gallon of gas, pay 10$ for parking, just to have the pleasure of walking down the urine-splashed streets of downtown in the blistering heat of August. Except for some concerts in a concert hall, people just won't spend an entire night blowing money out their wazzoo just to be exposed and miserable. Perhaps once upon a time, people enjoyed the crowds of downtown when it was possible to afford going there and shopping there. But those days are long gone -- going downtown is less fun than going to the dentist even if there was something interesting there to do.
I remember when malls had a larger variety of stores in them, even stuff like drugstores and grocery stores. Anymore it seems like nearly all the space is taken up by apparel stores of one sort or another (mostly women's) or jewelry stores. And a food court.
Some malls were financial disasters from day one. Remember Ports of Call on NASA Rd 1?
The trouble with a 'Downtown' now is that no one wants to spend the money to not only make it but to keep it up so people will want to go. There is no more sense of pride in ones town anymore.