I remember the first time I beheld the Fulton Mall, nearly 10 years ago. I hadn’t earned my Brooklyn legs yet, so I and a friend of mine decided to venture to Brooklyn together, using the tried and true Manhattan reasoning of “in the case we get stranded, at least I’m not alone”. We took a wrong turn (of course), and ended up on Fulton, and if you think it looks bad now … well we quickly realized our mistake and did the world’s fastest 180, and it wasn’t the abundance of 99-cent-like stores that tipped us off.
Fast forward almost 10 years later and I’m house hunting, being lured by Belltel and her space. The only problem is, the neighborhood is clearly still developing, and while the Fulton Mall no longer keeps me up at night, I’m not sold that it’s going to change any more than it already has. And it has gone through a lot of change. Josh’s grand parents reminisce about how this was the place for shopping back in the day, anchored by some fine stores like Abraham and Strauss. But somewhere along the line it fell out of favor. The “nice” retail stores shifted to the suburbs, and while Fulton Mall was still purporting to be “third most commercially successful” retail street you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. The city had spent millions trying to revitalize it, giving its corners more lights, removing the bus shelters that operated as homeless shelters, all to marginal avail it didn’t seem perceptibly THAT much better. The stores were the same, sneakers, cell phones, 99-cent-junk and thrift stores that also sold expired grocery. Yuck.
But then in this perfect storm kind of way it just all fell together, and suddenly the nicer stuff WAS coming, not just “reporting to think about it”, but as soon as Aeropostale swung open its doors the rest are finally pitching a tent. Aeropostale, then Shake Shack, and even health conscious Panera is joining the party — practically next door to it’s competitor,White Castle. There’s talk of others, some sound like real possibilities:H&M, Sephora, and Filene’s Basement, others are just delusions of having drunk too much Kool-Aid, the Apple store. But even with just this development — I’m happy enough to not complain for at least a week. I may even start to brag about it, and join in on conversations that Park Slopers have about their 5th Avenue. Wait for it.
That’s awesome – though I think the bright lights of the mall are really just there to blind you so you can’t see the troupe of youths waiting to club you with a sack full of quarters.