My Family's Business
by John Kassel

Read first few paragraphs of article:

For several months we knew that Christmas Eve we would have a death in the family. And we did. My family's business -- a retail clothing store -- closed its doors for good.

It was 105 years old: born Port Henry, N.Y., 1887; died Middletown, N.Y., Dec. 24, 1992.

I went to visit the patient just before the end. But what really shocked me was how bad the entire community looked. The old downtown section, which had been in steep decline since my grandfather's time, was deserted. And the early-1970s mall, where my father had moved the store, was two-thirds empty. Where was everybody?

At the brand, spanking new Pyramid Mall, that's where.

Thirty years ago when I was growing up there, Middletown was a typical American town of 20,000 people in the Hudson Valley. It had a thriving downtown. Merchants decked out their stores for the crowds that came to cheer the semi-annual parades, complete with fire trucks and marching bands.

But times changed. An interstate highway was built nearby. In the early 1970s a farmer sold his fields near the highway exit to an out-of-state developer who built an enclosed mall. Eventually, most downtown businesses went to the mall.

In those days the community did not seem mortally wounded, just weakened. The outskirts of town filled up with strip development. People drove more and walked less, waved through windshields more and met on sidewalks less. Traffic got worse. Farmland was gobbled up. Suburban development flourished.

Then, in the 1980s, the amount of retail space exploded. The area turned into a regional shopping hub. Downtown became increasingly irrelevant and empty. The community tried to keep itself together. Old-time stores still sponsored the Little League here and the 4-H there, but it was a losing battle: most people shopped at the chain stores.

And then came Pyramid. ...