Canadians…Canadians everywhere!

Moment of truth, flock.
I don’t remember the Rainbow Centre.

I’ll give you time to pick your jaw off the floor.

Let me explain: I was in the mall. I was definitely in the mall. But I was born in the 90s. Pretty much anything pre-9/11 is a crayon-colored blur to me.

That being said, I love the Rainbow Centre. It’s secondhand nostalgia for me: knowing that something so cool existed in the city excites me. One of the reasons I want Wonder Falls to happen is just so I can get inside.

Also…I was never in the Wintergarden. By the time I would have gone it was Smokin’ Joe’s, and I have a terrible fear of heights, so slides were off the table.

The Summit Park Mall is far more nostalgic for me. I grew up making trips to the Summit. It was the best mall to walk: straight across, no turns, fantastic. I particularly remember this one gumball machine that you would try to bounce the gumball on a mini trampoline and make a basket to get another free gumball. That was my life.

Of course, that’s also closed. My primary Google Alerts is “Summit Mall Wheatfield”, so you know I’m following Cocov’s plans like a hawk.

The third and last mall in the immediate Niagara area is the Factory-turned-Prime-turned-Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls, USA. The name is funny since it’s in Town of Niagara, but none of you came here to discuss geographic cutoffs (although that might be a good article for later…)

I walked the Outlet mall as a kid for years. This was back in the era when it was completely dead. When Linens and Things went under, we thought the mall was sure to close.

Even back then, the mall was a spiderweb. It’s terrible is you want to find a store, but a surefire way to make a fortune on impulse buyers.

When the Canadian traffic started picking up, I stopped walking it. I missed the expansion and the overhaul of the mall.

Last year, one of my friends talked me into going to the mall.

I was hooked.

Now, I’m not as hooked as I am on as my rose-tinted view of the Summit Park mall, or my entirely made up of commercials and photos view of the Rainbow Centre. I couldn’t be. Nobody is ever excited over something that isn’t going anywhere. You don’t know what you have until its gone, right?

Still, I do love the Outlets. It’s sleek, it’s clean, and the new section is just awesome. They put one of those knock-off dollar stores in there recently (there was one when I was a kid) so my life is now complete.

Don’t try to find me there, though. Cartoon sheep.