Back
Bay
Back
Bay’s changing
storefronts
By Will Albright
Back Bay residents have watched a trend develop in the last decade
that has transformed Newbury Street into what feels to some like
one big open mall of corporate-owned chain stores.
Some
even refer to it as “mallification.”
Duck Tour buses frequently zoom down Newbury Street past a Banana
Republic, Cartier, Starbucks after Starbucks, Diesel, Brooks Brothers,
The Puma Store, Sonsie, Emporio Armani, Nike and what seems to
be an endless chain shopping street.
“
We have been worried that the whole thing is going to turn into
one outdoor mall,” said Shirley Kressel, a resident of
Back Bay for more than 10 years. “There are a lot of fancy
restaurants here and more chain stores, but a lot of other local
services have disappeared.”
Mallification has taken away basic businesses like bakeries,
shoe repair shops and cheap, privately owned eateries.
The
former chair of the Neighborhood Associations of Back Bay, Fred
Mauet, said that he has seen a considerable
change in the
more than 25 years he’s lived in the neighborhood.
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Residents
feel that having commercial storefronts on the lower-levels
of buildings and keeping residents on the upper-level
is essential to holding onto and sense of neighborhood.
|
“
There’s no longer any deli style restaurants where people
can get a cheap bite and hang out,” said Mauet. “In
1978 there was a still about four or five of them, now there’s
not one.”
Residents point out that there is not even a bakery in the Back
Bay or a place to buy good bread.
Kressel
even asks friends coming from other neighborhoods to bring bread
from their local bakeries. “A bakery is
an everyday, low-end kind of thing. Now you can only have fancy
restaurants
or chain stores.”
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2 In Every City- |
