As my wife and I walked the boys around NorthPark this weekend, because it’s too darn hot to play outside, I got to thinking about all of the businesses that used to be there. This was prompted by my thirst for a cool drink as we covered the original part of the mall, and my subsequent frustration when I saw the line out the door at Starbucks.
Back in the day, I could have ducked into McDonald’s and had my choice of five or six registers. I have many childhood memories of eating at that McDonald’s while loaded down with Christmas presents.
Other NorthPark ghosts that were on my mind:
— When I first moved to Dallas in the early ’80s, there was a M.E. Moses or H.L. Green or some other type of five-and-dime store right about where Banana Republic is now. Can you imagine how out of place that would seem today?
— When I was in high school, a friend of mine worked at a Rand McNally store across from La Madeleine. That’s right, kids — a store that sold little more than maps and globes. Another friend worked at the World Foot Locker that had a regulation basketball court and the widest selection of baseball caps I’d ever seen. To my teenage self, that place was da bomb.
— Remember when, prior to the mall’s expansion, you could enter the Gap from either end? Consequently, the one-way Gap has always felt claustrophobic to me.
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Are there any NorthPark stores you particularly miss? Comments are on.
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