Miscellany: The Rise and Fall of the Boynton Beach Mall

I used to frequent the Boynton Beach Mall quite a bit in my youth. The BBM was special in that it had two competing bookstores at opposite ends of the mall - in the days before the big-box bookstores and the Internet, going to the BBM almost ensured I could buy the latest book I wanted to read. The mall also had a neat food court, with a giant series of rotating shafts turning a bunch of wicker fan blades at the ceiling skylight. Adjacent to the food court was a video arcade that was invariably packed with the newest games and plenty of competition. It was a fun place to shop and hang out.

The problems started, I guess, when Simon took over. Simon Properties runs malls and shopping centers all over the world, including many in South Florida. Like any big corporate entity, they tend to homogenize their holdings to simplify managing them. No surprise there, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. But here, they took out the awesome fan system (which really puzzled me) and "renovated" the whole exterior of the mall, turning it from grey (which actually stands out quite a bit here in Florida) to a generic shade of tan/peach.

The final nail in the coffin was the Christmas Eve gangland argument that ended in someone getting shot to death in front of Dillard's (oh, the mall has a posted "no weapons" policy - a fat load of good that did). Stores have been pulling out, and the mall seems to be losing tenants at an alarming rate. There isn't even a book store in the mall any more.