Landmark Memories, Landmark Changes

Special note: The photos in this post are not mine; they have been culled from a series of online searches. Although none of the photos carried copyright notices, if you are the creator of any of these images and want them removed, please contact me and I will comply.

Back in December of 2014, I wrote a post titled "Memories..."about how I'd accidentally rediscovered the receipt from the dinner at which AJ let me & Cousin E in on the little secret of her adoption plans.

I mentioned that dinner was in a Cheesecake Factory restaurant. That particular branch of the chain was in White Flint Mall, which was for a time the poshest, most advanced shopping venue in the area.

White Flint didn't have hallways; it had "neighborhoods" -- the most notable being one designed to resemble a seaside Mediterranean street, and another designed to look like a street in old Georgetown (very accurately depicted, complete with architectural features rescued from demolished buildings in that DC neighborhood). Even the "regular" shopping areas were posher and "classier" than other malls, and it had one of the first multiplex movie theaters in the area and the first dedicated food court that I can remember (the "Eatery") in any regional mall.

There was a two-story Borders bookstore (complete with its own coffee shop) where you could read or sample the huge stock of CDs for hours, a small theater for live performances, restaurants set up like outdoor cafes, a high-end art gallery, and some of the coolest shops you could hope to find (especially the one that was stocked exclusively with blacklight-activated merchandise).

Locals used to take out-of-town visitors there just to show it off (or take their dates there as an affordable alternative to clubbing in Georgetown) and have a bite to eat, maybe blow a few bucks in the arcade at Dave & Buster's, catch a flick, or just window shop while occasionally gasping at the price tags.  I think I even made a comment during that one particular meal that it would be a cool place to bring "the baby" after she'd come home.

Main entrance, ca. 2012: P.F. Chang's, Bertucci's, Dave & Buster's, and the Cheesecake Factory

Time was not kind to White Flint Mall; several other area malls successfully went equally upscale without chasing away most of their earlier clientele, a renovation of the eatery did not go over well (and seemed badly thought out), and after just a few years the parking garage had to be closed & reopened one section at a time while the beams & columns could be reinforced after the structure was found to be failing. (Dude, talk about parking problems...!)

The local economy went up and down, and with each "down" one or two of the specialty shops would close, and sometimes one of the larger high-end stores as well. Soon there were gaps inside where shops closed but no new tenants took their place, the bookstore went away, the theater went away, people got tired of the TV-size screens and thin walls of the multiplex... and with each "blip" in the economy, more shoppers stayed away. (You can read a detailed history on Wikipedia by clicking here.)

Well, it turns out that the Pipsqueak isn't going to get to sit down to a meal in the spot that marked the beginning of our adoption odyssey for me.  Reduced to just a shadow of its former self, White Flint closed late in 2015 and by the end of January 2016 the entire structure was torn down (except for the Lord & Taylor store that was busy suing the developer for breach of contract, a case since decided in L&T's favor).

Main entrance, ca. October 2015

Supposedly, over the next few years that large, rubble-strewn wasteland at the southern end of Rockville's "Golden Mile" will be replaced with a "town center" development complete with business and residential areas and (somewhat ironically) thousands of square feet of retail space.

White Flint Mall had become a white elephant, a victim of cut-rate engineering and lack of planning for downturns in the economy.  And now it's gone...


...but that mid-size round table about three-quarters of the way toward the back of the Cheesecake Factory, near the windows that looked out onto one of the busier hallways inside the mall itself with the people walking past oblivious to my sister's life-changing statement, remains as solid and real in my mind today as it was more than a decade ago, when White Flint Mall was still in its prime.

Besides, "the baby" now prefers CalTort or Mickey D's... <grin>