A couple months ago Nordstrom's announced it would be closing its Canadian stores, including its most successful Canadian store at Granville and Robson in Vancouver. People were shocked, saddened, outraged. I was among the saddened because I love the original Seattle store, and though Vancouver's store never matched it (mine was a 1970s and 80s love affair, for what it's worth), it drew from other influences, like Berlin's KaDaWe, mostly notably in the presentation of its second floor lounge.
I hadn't been in Nordstrom's Vancouver store since the start of its "everything must go" sale, but there I was last week after my visit to the VAG across the street. Saw lots of $1500 shoes for $750 -- a much larger reduction than the initial 10% discounts that were originally being offered. Of course a number of items were things that were never intended for sale, but were too valuable to send to Habitat for Humanity or the landfill. My beloved lounge housed some of these items, which included armatures and mini plinths, devices in the service of sales.
So is this the future? No more quasi-glamorous department stores in our downtowns? No more movie theatres but cafeteria style multi-screen feeding rooms? No more bookstores carrying dead authors like Hannah Arendt or bell hooks but cases for the devices you're expected to read them on? No more record stores, bowling alleys, penny arcades? Yes, yes -- no more 1970s, 80s, 90s, 00s -- I get that; times change. But what of cities? A glue trap for the homeless? A penitentiary? Something to escape from? Like that movie from the 1970s? Or is it the 1980s?
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