UPDATE #1: KING’s given the former Compton Report time slot, at least for now, to a blase travelogue show (by the station’s Evening Magazine unit) full of blase trips to blase romantic getaways. And as for the same station’s Sunday-night syndicated version of Almost Live: The same inconsistent humor, the same slick production values, just none of the here-and-now factor that gives the original AL its heart. And, of course, no Kent jokes.
UPDATE #2: Operation Nightwatch, the coordinated admissions service for local homeless shelters, just moved from across from El Gaucho and the Pampas Club to the Millionair Club building a block away. The cause–natch–redevelopment at its old building.
BETTER SHOP AROUND: The Stranger’s already written about big changes threatened and/or rumored for the funky li’l Fremont shopping district. Some funk-lovers worry that inflated rents and new developments like the adjacent Adobe abode could cause the district’s quaint knick-knack shops and cafes to get replaced by bland upscale emporia. So far the only official move is GlamORama, a Fremont anchor for almost 20 years, being put up for sale. If Fremont does get too ritzy for some current occupants, where could the new Groovytown be? It’d have to be a place within the city limits, convenient to buses, where lo-rent, hi-coolness retail stores and public-market-like booths could be amassed within less-than-glossy surroundings. Pike Place should be preserved for the merchants there now, but the moribund Newmark Center nearby might be remodelable into a sort of urbane anti-mall. Other possibilities: Georgetown, the cheap-furniture district on 1st Ave. S., Rainier Valley, or an abandoned supermarket or discount store somewhere. Roosevelt Square (the ex-Sears on NE 65th) could’ve served the bill, but it’s being largely taken over by an out-of-state “healthy foods” chain. Speaking of shopping…
MALLED DOWN: Northgate management, admitting the “Mall That Started It All” (the first modern U.S. suburban shopping center, built in 1950) has looked a bit dowdy of late, announced expansion plans. The central corridor and the exteriors would be spiffed up, but more important (and more problematic, zoning-approval-wise) are the new buildings to be added in the vast parking moats and across the street. Here’s why: There’s a nationwide decline of sales in mall stores, in favor of freestanding “big box” chains. To see the near-future of suburban shopping, look at the vast industrial-park expanses surrounding Southcenter. Where warehouses had replaced farmland, now Target and Circuit City and Borders and PetSmart have replaced the warehouses. Malls are trying to fight back with everything from frequent-shopper incentive programs to new mini-boutiques like “Piercing Pagoda.” But the one thing that keeps folks from avoiding Southcenter’s interior is the food court, which feeds big-box-store customers as well as mallrats. As department stores have served as traffic-drawing anchors for malls, now malls themselves are repositioning themselves as anchors for big-box clusters.
Malls, for all the limitations caused by their restrictive management, remain the closest things to “gathering places” in a lot of sprawling suburbs and exurbs. If they continue to decline, will these communities become even less communitarian, even more isolated? Or will a revived fascination with urban living (as seen in “restored” downtowns and the upscaling of places like Fremont) lead suburbanites to crave more real gathering places of their own? (Already, some Lynnwood residents are talking about wishing to build a “downtown” in that stretch of sprawl that never really had one.)
PUTTING THE `SIN’ INTO `INSINUATION’: Misc.’s truth-be-stranger desk notes how the Northwest’s biggest recent sex scandals now include one potential soap-stud moniker (Brock) and two potential porn-star names (Packwood and Moorehead). The former two were outspoken pro-feminist politicians who got accused of delivering unwanted gropes to several women. The latter’s an outspoken queer-hating preacher who’s been accused of molesting several men. It all just goes to show the seductive power of hypocrisy.
(These and similar matters may or may not be discusses at the fab 1998 Misc.-O-Rama, an evening of readings, music, games, and other pleasures; starting 8 p.m. Monday at Shorty’s, 2222 2nd Ave. No cover; 21+.)
