Page 1 Roundup (01/12)

The Daily News: Donald takes a dump on the American dream

Venus Williams's 'private' new boyfriend, Nicholas Hammond, is the talk of the Australian Open

John Mellencamp's son Speck sentenced to community service after public intoxication arrest

The New York Post: Jet-setting law student nearly crushed under subway car

Page Six: CNN uses pic of unknown woman to promote Patty Hearst docuseries

Deadline: Patty Hearst biopic based on 'American Heiress' canceled by Fox after she blasts it

The New York Times: Outrage over teacher's arrest leads to death threats for superintendent

'Media Men' list creator outs herself, fearing she would be named

The Wall Street Journal: Please visit our collection of stores under one roof, which totally isn’t a mall

Funny they should write this story about the death of (actual) malls seeing as I was just up the other night researching what happened to my childhood home-away-from-home, Fiesta Mall, which residents once rated as their favorite place to shop. (My first job was at the nearby (and later-condemned) Fiesta Village AMC movie theater.) Coming from a mall mecca like suburban Detroit -- where everyone identifies where they live based on one's home's proximity to a mall ("near Oakland Mall") -- the bar was pretty high when we arrived in the Valley of the Sun. 

But when it opened the fall after we moved to Mesa, what 12-year-old queen could resist the allure of anchor stores like Goldwater's (founded by the storied politician's grandfather), Diamond's (owned by the familiar-to-us people behind Hudson's) and The Broadway Southwest (founded by the man who developed Holmby Hills)? All of that glamour, plus an Orange Julius, Spencer Gifts, Fiesta Travel (where I booked my first ticket to NYC in 1985), Musicland (where I bought "She's So Unusual"), Wherehouse Records (where I cut class to buy the "Island of Lost Souls" 45 the Tuesday it was released) and, of course, Judy's, where all the New Wave kids bought their clothes. But as you've undoubtedly heard, tastes and shopping habits have changed over the years. And after watching Diamond's become Dillard's, Goldwater's become Robinson's (later Robinson's-May) and everything becoming Macy's, Fiesta Mall is now one of the country's most notorious (and saddest) "dead malls." RIP.

Lots of great mall history over at the Department Store Museum HERE.

Kids in America

With Sears and Macy's in dire straits, this slideshow of mall photos taken in 1989 really took me back. So many memories were made "at the mall," like skipping school to buy Blondie's "Island of Lost Souls" single at Wherehouse Records, debating between "She's So Unusual" and "Madonna" with Greg outside Musicland downstairs and buying my plane ticket at the travel agency for my first trip to New York City. Also reminded me of a roll of film my friend Yuki and I took at Fiesta Mall back in '85 ... pretty remarkable how different being a kid is today from just 25 years ago.