Heart of the City (Center) pt 6

Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of speculation for what exactly caused the decline in City Center’s popularity, leading to its subsequent state. While popular thoughts point fingers at singular events like the emergence of rival shopping centers (Tuttle Crossing, Polaris Fashion Place and Easton Towne Center), the loss of the conventional anchor stores (Jacobson’s closed its doors nationwide in 2002, Marshall Fields in ‘03, Lazarus in ’04 and Kaufman's’s/Macy’s ‘07) or the presumed “hood element” that has replaced the shopping clientele, I find that the truth lies in an amalgam of all three theories.

In my opinion, City Center’s declination began May 27, 1994, when Raylynn Diamond, a fifteen year old black teen, was gunned down on the mall’s first floor, the apparent victim of gang violence. In this tragic event, the veil that was the fairytale spectacle of City Center was violently and forever shattered, replaced by the harsh reality that seemed to plague the mid 90s. An act that at the time, most had only fancied on the big screen was broadcast in Dolby Digital realism, uncaring and unyielding to the opulence City Center had built in its five year history. From there, the fuse was lit.

Our city has its share of affluent families and individuals and it’s the wealth of these people that truly interests the big name stores and investors to take root here in Columbus. Undoubtedly, this tragedy and the apparent tumultuous animosity (stereotypically, but not atypically) carried by urban youth at the time, ruffled a few feathers, but not to the point that they would refuse to shop the big department chains Downtown…that is, until they had somewhere else to go.

The opening of Tuttle Crossing in 1997 (built by the Taubman Co., who incidentally also owned City Center at the time) offered the affluent the ability to continue their big budget shopping, without so much intermingling with the urban community. On the outskirts of the city, Tuttle catered mostly to the communities of Hilliard and Dublin, both already known for having people of some assumed wealth. Next came Easton Towne Center in 1999, which drew crowds from the dying Northland Mall and residents from north Columbus, Westerville and the growing township of New Albany, until Polaris Fashion Place opened in 2001, pulling in money from Worthington as well as Westerville and other parts of Delaware County. With each opening, the “need” to come to City Center grew less and less, dwindling the mall’s uniqueness in the chains they held (Tuttle also had a Marshall Field’s) or simply outmatched by a more prestigious brand (Saks Fifth Ave and Lord&Taylor at Polaris Fashion Place). At this point, City Center was reduced to an outlet mall, of sorts – where you go to take advantage of the surplus of sizes, unpicked over like the other mall locations, because the traffic was so infrequent.

With the closing of the anchor stores and the dwindling number of “brand name stores”, City Center’s relevance diminished quickly and that lack of stable commerce led to cut backs, which led to droves of urban youths using City Center as recreation center with an inept security force to “police” them…in my opinion (of course). While just looking for a place to hang, the new clientele unwittingly have rang the death knoll for City Center, with their penchant for lounging not turning over the necessary profits to keep stores like Express, American Eagle, Forever XXI, Wet Seal or Nu Source open for long after.

But how do we come back from all this? The answer, strangely enough is in front of everyone’s eyes in this age after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We commemorate and move on. Imagine if we, as a city, did as we, as a nation, have done in response to such a heinous act brought to our door step. Just as vile acts of terrorism weren’t new to us in ’01, nor was the reality of gang violence in ’94 and our lack of remembrance tells me that at the very least they (the gangs) won. Where multi-billion dollar armies failed to rattle our chains, local hoodlums took from us a monument of city of pride…

So, first things first, we must commemorate: I submit that the pitted auditorium be (re)named Diamond Amphitheatre, after the young man killed that day. And with this naming, we say that not only will he not be forgotten, but that acts of violence will no longer determine the course of city or its people. We will insure that the proper sense of community and civic pride be instilled in each and every one of us that no one could want to desecrate our city monuments like that, ever again.