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It's amazing what's on kids' minds

The other day, Greta and I had just ended an expedition to one of Dedham's many fine Big Box Retail Outlets when she tripped and scraped her knee. Ow, ow, ow! I helped her hobble over to the car, and as we drove home, of course she cried and yelled about how much it hurt, poor thing. But she's one of these kids that, once she gets on a roll, she just can't stop, so soon she was complaining about everything else that was bothering her:

I'm hungry! I'm thirsty! Why'd they have to close Filene's, anyway? Why does Macy's buy all the good stores and close them down?

Um, what? She's upset about Filene's closing? What?

Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case, not exactly. What was really bothering her, I found out as she continued to wail, was how the closing of the Filene's at the Chestnut Hill Mall meant the closing of the little pedestrian bridge from the mall garage to the store.

Now to an adult, that news would be like, eh. But she's been going on that thing since she was an infant. In stroller days, we'd park up on that floor on purpose - then take the elevator in Filene's down to the mall. After she outgrew the stroller, she liked looking out the windows at the cars and people below as we walked (and if nobody else was around, we'd race from one door to the next).

To her, obviously, it's a big deal. And then I thought back and remembered when I was a kid how, whenever we drove from Brooklyn to Manhattan, I'd wonder how they fit the whole ocean in the giant brick box that was the last thing you saw before you descended into the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (eventually, of course, I grew to learn that was no giant ocean tank, just a prosaic ventilation shaft).

So with any luck, the next time we go to the mall, we'll discover that the bridge is open again now that Bloomie's has occupied the old Filene's space. Because it's important.

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Comments

you're the East Coast Lileks all of a sudden?

;-)

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No, wait, never mind, I can't bring myself to write abut toast ...

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All across the country and coast to coast
People always say "what do you like most?"
I don't wanna brag, I don't wanna boast
I just tell 'em, I like toast.

YEAH TOAST

YEAH TOAST

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It just gets worse. In my short time, I've seen Ames, Zares, Lechmere's, Ann and Hope, the KMart in Warwick, RI, Apex, Almacs (grocery store in RI) and Caldor's bite it, along with Filene's now. I took Ann and Hope especially hard, since I did most of my Christmas and back-to-school shopping there. So I feel for Greta.

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Bradlees, natch.

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:-(

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The bridge is also the only way to get from the garage to the mall on a rainy day with three kids without getting wet. It's also a location in the parking deck where you can almost always find a spot. There are many advantages.

Worse than the closing of the bridge in my family, however, is the elimination of both the fountain (the promise of throwing in pennies was always motivation to stay good in the stores) and the sunken circles where people would sit on the second floor. When the kids got antsy while I was shopping in Sur la Table, I'd send my wife out with them and let the literally run in circles.

How am I supposed to find time to peruse the kitchen gadgets now?

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We had some good times in the circle in front of Filene's. And the stairs by the fountain.

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This is awesome! I would've said the same thing as a kid myself, and of course feel much the same now as an adult.

I am a huge retail history buff, and have my own blog--http://www.labelscar.com--that's devoted entirely to retail history, including old retail chains and vintage shopping malls, because too little of that stuff is preserved for when it's gone. I've just given this post a link and some major props, because I think it's such a cute story.

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