JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

Sights from a week back home... Christmas morning in downtown Amherstburg. I assumed everyone else in town was still busy opening presents. We opened ours on Christmas Eve and Santa was in a good mood this year. I'll be watching DVDs for months, Amy will be merrily making cookies with her KitchenAid, Gavin will relax with a Simpsons throw, Charlie will be chasing toys and Mom will go on a shopping spree. To work off Mom's turkey feast, Amy and I checked out River Lights in Navy Yard Park. This was the town's first major illuminated display (usually the extent of public lighting is Christmas trees on light poles) and the organizers pulled it off. Figures were strewn through the north end of the park. Some, like the three wise man, were formed in lines... ...while other, like these see-sawing gingerbread men, were animated (even if the camera caught the moment the lights switched). Boxing Day saw Amy and I go for our annual dim sum feast at Wah Court . We may ...

And there you have it - White Woods Mall is no more. The piles of rubble and half-demolished sections of the west wing were gone, with only the fitness centre and a dollar store remaining. From its ashes, outlots in the back signal the property's next incarnation. The old southwest entrance, now all by itself. Note the orange signs - the building, construction fence and parking lot were plastered with signs indicating the dollar store was still in business. One can debate whether these large stones in the back parking lot were randomly placed, stand as a memorial, protect the fire hydrant from errant shovel operators or function as art. Previous entries . Full set of pictures . All photos taken July 2, 2007

I spent most of Victoria Day weekend back home in Amherstburg, which meant another opportunity to trace the ongoing demolition of White Woods Mall. It looked like someone decided to bring a chair for a front-row view. The pace had quickened since my last visit - the east wing and A&P were history, though rubble in the lot may have belonged to either. Left: Bundles of twisted metal occupied the area around the old northeast entrance. Right: Clearing away the rest of the lot for the Bentonville Behemoth was well underway. Have not checked on the number of calls Crimestoppers has received in relation to this site. Years ago, Crimestoppers ran weekly ads before SCTV reruns on Windsor's CBC affiliate. The last one I remember, regarding an incident at a Burger King at Tecumseh and Lauzon Rd, ran for months. The narrator was more dramatic than usual, placing slow, heavy emphasis on "SUS-PECT NUM-BER ONE". Left: Anyone need an air conditioning unit? Note ...

Before driving back to TO last weekend, I decided to check out the progress on the ongoing demolition of White Woods Mall . Quite a bit had changed since Christmas ... In the back, two new rows of retail are nearing completion. A couple of businesses, such as First Choice and Eye on Video, have already moved into the north set, even if their storefronts are incomplete. The white storefront on the right will be the new home of the Royal Bank. The northwest mall entrance still stands, though you can see there's little to its left, as the old movie theatre/bingo space has been cleared. On the right is the west row of new stores. My grandmother lived in the brown apartment building in the rear in the late 1980s - she was on the top floor, with a great view of town and Boblo Island. A sign of businesses still in the mall cleaning up. Over on the front side of the mall, a sign indicating that a few businesses are still operating. Note the "Road Closed" sign....

An update to a post awhile back about the ongoing demolition of my hometown's shopping mall . While walking around Amherstburg on Christmas Day, I noticed the construction gate by the old A&P was left open, so I wandered into the remnants of the store. A pile of tangled wires gave me a rusty greeting. About two-thirds of the store is still standing - it appears demolition stopped at a point where construction of a new RBC branch could start. Other than dangling materials and the odd leak from the roof, the inside is in reasonable shape. No graffiti was evident, even though I had noticed the gate open the day before. Parts of the floor were intact, as was the manager's office. Yes, you can earn Air Miles with plywood. The full set of photos can be found here .

Amherstburg can join the list of towns across North America that have a dead mall. After 30 years, most of them known as Fort Malden Mall, White Woods Mall will breathe its last within the next few months, to be replaced with a power centre anchored by the Bentonville Behemoth. For most of its life, the mall was filled with small local businesses and Windsor-based chains. Few national retailers passed through its doors over the first half of its life. The original portion of the mall, the east corridor, opened in 1976, with A&P and The Met (Metropolitan stores) as its anchors. The Met was a second-tier discount chain owned by Gendis, who later converted it to a SAAN store. For several years, both chains operated across the street from each other. Don't really remember much about the Met, other than Dad used to pick up cutout records there and Amy and I had childhood portraits taken there. It was considered ultra-low-end shopping by late childhood. The only other Met locat...