Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Tag: death of

  • The death of dead malls

    Back in 2016, I wrote a giant eulogy for Concord Mall in Elkhart, when they planned on bulldozing the place to put in a strip mall. And I wrote a part two in 2018 when those plans didn’t happen. So now, a few owners and many vacancies later, there is a plan to “reimagine” the…

  • Death of the Tanforan Mall

    So, another one bites the dust. Tanforan Mall (aka “The Shops at Tanforan”) in San Bruno got bought for $328M recently, and will be razed to build a mixed-use biotech research campus and housing. Tanforan has a weird history. It was a horse racing track at the start of the 20th century, and Seabiscuit used…

  • Death of the Astor Place Kmart

    So the Kmart at Astor Place in Manhattan finally closed. I honestly did not know it was still open. I think Kmart only has a couple dozen locations still remaining in the US, and none of them are anywhere near me. I haven’t been back to New York since 2013, and probably won’t be returning…

  • Bourdain

    Usually, these things don’t get to me. But for some reason, this one has. So Anthony Bourdain is dead. Suicide, hotel room, 61. I feel some need to extrapolate on this, front-loading this with a lede of what he accomplished or why this is so tragic, etc etc. I have no energy for that. You…