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February 7, 2006
home lost
At a glance, my old Columbus neighborhood is largely as I left it. The people all look the same and drive the same cars. Literally. But since I left, affluent neighborhoods have popped up 10 miles to the east, and the drain on businesses is jarring. A mall the size of Bel-Square is a dirt lot now. It was the affluent mall. Gone. Homes and apartments sit empty, unadvertised. The huge strip mall (think North Bend outlet mall) near my apartment, which was thriving to the point where parking was a challenge, contains just an Asian market and pizza place now, with 25 empty stores in between. Iconic local businesses older than my parents have long closed, and since nothing replaced them, their ghostly, neglected exteriors remain to haunt survivors. Massive grocery stores are empty. Gas stations sit abandoned. I couldn't help but think this is phase one: all the businesses pull out. There aren't any homeless folks, squatters, rubble, graffiti or the like yet, but it seems inescapable. It's just a matter of time.
A week ago tonight, I ordered dinner from the pizza place, my old pizza place, the one whose phone number I still have memorized 14 years later. When I saw all the empty stores, I gasped and stared. I still haven't processed what's happened to my old neighborhood, what's still happening to it right now. The pace of deterioration is unfathomable. When I went inside to get my pizza, I was greeted (just as I would be at my old White Castle the next day) by a wall of bullet-proof glass. They slid my pizza to me using a huge extendable tray, just like at the bank. The guy saw me fighting tears. Somehow, he knew. "Isn't it sad what we have to do now?"
Sad. Horrible. Words aren't sufficient. Seeing all that, knowing what's to come...a part of my insides died last week. One of the few remaining good parts, too.
posted by john at 4:22 PM • permalink