I lived in Memphis for 18 months during 1986-88. I bought a house close to Rhodes college, and worked nearby at the zoo. My house was robbed/broken into 9 nine times during this period....Until I bought a Rottweiler and then it stopped. I did sometimes hear someone running across my backyard during the early hours on occasion but I didn't get robbed again. I used to love the Mall of Memphis. I enjoyed the skating, and the food mall. I now live in Athens, not far from Atlanta and work out of my home..(believe me Atlanta has a lot more crime than Memphis, but there seems to be a more educated black community here that take care and responsibility of their communities. ) I still have a Rottie, and have never had a break-in from the first day I owned this breed.

said antwackie 2007.09.25 at 11:11:33 PDT

The Mall Of Memphis is an excellent example of how the blacks in Memphis have destoyed the city. I grew up there. I remember the Joy a kid would feel aproaching the mall. I remember when it was safe there. The city of Memphis is a sad tragedy.As the whites move farther east, the blacks destoy everything left in that wake.Thank you Mayor Herrington for destroying my home town !!!

said Elvis30328 2006.12.06 at 06:26:21 PST

Everyone was so quick to blame Wolfechase Galleria as the reason for the fall of the Mall of Memphis, but it was a combination of bad press and a radical shift in demographics. (How many murders/muggings does any one mall want associated with it?) In the end, it was a beautiful and well-maintained building that did not have to be demolished as it could have been a great location for a combination of state/county/local government offices with some medical clinics thrown in that would have benefited many people in an area with amazingly easy access. Let's just hope that what is built in its place makes destroying a building worth the taxpayers money...

said debduncan26 2005.12.06 at 16:57:08 PST

The Mall of Memphis always competed with the nearby Hickory Ridge Mall but that mall was in a newer more affluent yet harder to reach area. It may not be far from suffering the same fate as the Mall of Memphis, but with a few new perspectives it could be saved. A little further away is a nice but more expensive mall called Oak Court Mall with mostly specialty shops on a highly congested street people like to avoid when possible. Then all three malls were hurt by the newest mall Wolfchase Galleria built in the new center of Memphis a few years ago. But that is on the northeast loop of Memphis, Cordova, and Bartlett. But this is not all about another mall on the newest edge of the city. People are too busy and poor to drive across town to shop all the time for no good reason but Southaven MS, Whitehaven, and the southern loop of Memphis still have no replacement mall. So they are obviously shopping somewhere besides the malls. I feel like it is only fair to look deeper at why it is gone. For instance, Federal Express moved a huge amount of its offices out to Collierville. All those thousands of people used to shop at the mall daily on lunch breaks. And it seems like the interstate that used to bring people to the Mall has been congested for years now with construction that has seemed to take way too many years to complete so people have avoided trying to get on or off that exit for a long time. So perhaps it wasn't just a mall or heavy crime that bled the Mall of Memphis dry, but a migration...residential, commercial, medical, and traffic. I also believe the whole mall shopping concept is fading from central Memphis because so many Memphians cannot afford to shop in the stores typically found there. Average folks really hate traffic too and long walks from overextended parking lots in rising crime areas of town with little security. So if the area surrounding the mall is full of alternate strip malls and discount stores like Walmart, Kmart, and Target, especially with all the SUPER versions now, and don't forget Costco and Sam's Wholesale Clubs. Memphis has a long history of large numbers of average to low income residents but the thousands falling below the poverty line is increasing every year, especially since the wars and 9/11 attack. National statistics show that Memphis has become one of the poorest major cities and the least healthy metropolitan area in the nation and we have also become the least inviting city for creative and inventive people to consider moving to. But the good news is that we have become aware of this at the leadership level, not all the way down yet, but Memphis leaders are listening and responding with marketing ideas and re-thinking development cause and effect issues. For the last several years, to offset the northeast migration, the city obtained and distributed grants to encourage downtown revitalization. There has been major rennovation going on downtown to draw people back down there - mostly for tourism and business though. So while Downtown and Wolfchase were battling for residents and retailers, the centralized Mall of Memphis lost to both and the ongoing road construction surrounding them, which destroyed its one remaining strength. Extensive market research done in the late eighties revealed this migration taking flight and forecasted that the central hub of the Greater Memphis Area would shift from Midtown and East Memphis to the I-40/I-240 interchange by 1995 which indeed was true. There was an explosion of residential development throughout east Bartlett and Cordova and sure enough the study's findings rang true. The entire north leg of Germantown Parkway also bloomed with commercial development from the city of Germantown itself to Highway 64 (Stage Rd). And the apex shopping haven for the whole area is right there from the Wolfchase Mall to all the many plazas, strip malls, restaurants, and Walmart, Sam's, hotels, and two movie theatres landed, as well as Guitar Center, home of the Musician's Friend (world's largest musical equipment catalog). Even the historical Baptist Memorial Hospital took up its downtown roots and moved completely to Walnut Grove at I-240 where it is practically its own city now. So there is far more than a mall out east and bad crime to blame for the loss of the Mall of Memphis. Having provided all this background and viewpoint, I am spearheading a new campaign to convert the Mall of Memphis into the Memphis Dream Center. We have launched a new faith-based 501(c)3 non-profit organization called Rebourne Strategies, Inc. which would organize the gathering together of like-minded individuals, non-profit hunger, disaster, crisis relief organizations, churches, businesses, community compassion, recreational, and entertainment programs, and a vocational technical training center for reform into one location for one purpose, to serve, feed, house, educate, and reform those in need, in transition, in the streets, in crisis, in addictions, and in prison release or welfare to work programs. We invite your participation, support, and comments. You may post them here, or on these public forums, http://forums.gomemphis.com/index.cfm?frmid=35&tpcid=1077&s=81 http://www.seememphis.com/challenge.htm http://deadmalls.com/malls/mall_of_memphis.html or contact me directly per the information below. Thank you, Holly Simmers Director/CEO Rebourne Strategies, Inc. 1102 Llano Cove Memphis, TN 38134-7908 (901)388-2988 holly@rebourne.net http://www.rebournestrategies.org http://www.seememphis.com http://www.rebourne.net http://www.itdconcerts.org http://www.thunderinternet.com http://www.communitybreadbasket.org

said tgiweb 2003.12.17 at 20:26:07 PST

I was facasinated by the empty mall.It looks new. The same thing happened in Chattanooga,TN. when they built a bigger mall . Now they have converted it to a community center with some stores and offices. What's the story rdhdrummer@yahoo.com

said rdhdrummer 2003.12.14 at 11:29:45 PST