You know that feeling when you walk into a shopping mall and are so overwhelmed by all the distractions you lose track of what you came there for? That’s the Gruen Transfer or Gruen Effect, named for Victor Gruen, the architect who designed...
Tommy in Lexington, Kentucky, recalls that when he was a youngster, a sightseeing trip to Washington, D.C., led to a hilarious misunderstanding about exactly what might be on offer at the National Mall. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
The word mall, as in shopping mall, has traveled a long and winding path, beginning with the Italian game of pallamaglio, which was played with a ball and a mallet. The name of the game found its way into French as pallemaille, which in turn became...
Shopping malls take their name from the fashionable street now known as Pall Mall in London’s St. James area. The game of pall-mall, which involves hitting a ball with a wooden mallet, was once played there. This is part of a complete episode...
underperforming asphalt n.— «In auto-dependent suburbs that were built without a traditional center, shopping malls offer the chance to create downtowns without destroying existing infrastructure, by recycling what’s known as...