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This week's column

To everything there is a season, and a blog to every purpose under heaven.

Consider the case of a new Web log devoted entirely to Carolina Circle Mall.

Carolina Circle is no more, pounded into so much rubble and scraped away to make room for a new Wal-Mart. All that's left is red clay, clumps of uprooted trees and brush and scattered stacks of rusty steel girders.

Coming soon: another temple to low prices and low wages. Hoo-rah.

But the loving new blog keeps the memories alive and sees life through the shops and promenades of what used to be one of the most pleasant places to shop in Greensboro.

Titled "Carolina Circle City," and authored by a self-described 15-year-old Sagittarian named "Billy," the site covers any and everything you'd want to know about The Mall that Time Forgot -- and more.

Billy Coore of McLeansville is a ninth-grader at Pendle Hill Christian School. "A lot of my childhood was there," he says of the old mall. "I have many, many memories there." Back when he was young.

Adds his dad, John Coore: "He's been crazy about that mall ever since he was a baby."

So it was no surprise when Billy prodded his dad to take him out to the old mall to shoot photos and video recently as dozers and excavators picked it apart.

In a Q&A with himself about Carolina Circle, the young blogger makes clear his affection. For instance:

Q. What was your favorite version of the mall? Ice Rink Version or Carousel Version?
A. Carousel Version. I grew up going to the Carolina Circle with ... a carousel. Even though I was born after the ice rink years, if it wasn't for the carousel, I wouldn't care about the mall as much.
Q. What was your favorite store?
A. Montgomery Ward. It had everything from your electronics to your apparel. I remember that smell it always had outside and inside. It's too unique to describe. During the demolition, I could still smell it.

I can't say that I still smell the old mall. Some say I didn't smell the coffee, either, about its inevitable demise.

I still believe to this day that Guilford County could have saved the sprawling building if only it had followed through with a plan to place court space and county offices there and to locate a branch of GTCC there.

The plan was rational and eminently practical (which, of course, probably sealed its fate; the commissioners aren't exactly known for being rational or practical). The deal never happened.

Then Dr. Don Linder came along and attempted a sports complex called Pyramids Village. I was more skeptical about that one, but still hopeful. Linder had gobs of cash and cachet. During one interview he produced slick brochures and marketing studies about projected residential growth in the area. Already, his new soccer fields on part of the old mall's parking lots were booked with youth and adult soccer teams. Next, he assured me, he'd attract retail shops. Heck, he might even build a ballpark.

The rest, as they say, is misery. Linder's grand plan never fully played out. He sold part of the complex to the city. The rest he now plans to develop as a shopping center with Wal-Mart as the anchor.
One thing you can say for sure: Carolina Circle had the right name. Round and round it went, always stopping precisely where it had begun: nowhere.

But I think I've finally pinpointed its special appeal. Like Billy, I grew up with it, and I remember its brief heyday in the 1970s and early '80s, when there were shops and people and the famous ice skating rink (unlike Billy, I preferred the rink to the carousel that replaced it).

And I preferred Carolina Circle to Four Seasons because it was smaller, friendlier and more intimate. It had many of the same stores, but you could shop there during Christmas season and not feel overwhelmed. There were big stores and little ones. There was Montgomery Ward, which remained until the bitter end. There was a vision that still lives of a little brown-skinned girl, pirouetting on the ice rink, in a world all her own. There were the crackerbox movie theaters, where teen boys tried to impress teen girls, and where one of my friends took his future wife on their first date.

Now, shopping seems to be going back to the future. Malls are passe and old-fashioned shopping centers, where you actually have to walk outside in fresh air, are in vogue again. A new retail development, the Village at North Elm, takes the concept a step further, affecting the look and feel of a little self-contained town, complete with streets and alleys. It looks promising.

Still, I'll miss the dingy old concrete hulk off U.S. 29. Though probably not half as much as Billy Coore.

Posted by Allen Johnson on October 23, 2005 4:06 AM | Permalink

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Thinking Out Loud

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This week's column

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