As shoppers crowd other North Texas destinations, once-popular Valley View Mall has very few customers these days. A huge new redevelopment project called Dallas Midtown is soon to replace Valley View.
But, some people are stopping to pay their respects at the dying mall.
Mike Shapiro and his father, Dev, marveled Wednesday at the changes in the place where Dev Shapiro once worked at a jewelry store.
"It's a morgue," Mike Shapiro said. "And three or four days before Christmas, and odds and ends of stores, there's no one at the guest services counter, there's no Christmas tree, no Santa Claus, nothing."
Dev Shapiro said it was much different years ago.
"Hundreds and hundreds of people milling through the mall from the time we would open until 9 o'clock closing. It's sad," he said.
A wrecking crew was already working at the closed Macy's store Wednesday. The colorful mural over the entrance will not be saved at what was a Sanger Harris Store when it opened in 1973.
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"It's sort of an iconic piece of art that was part of Sanger Harris, back in the day," said visitor Jack Stephens. "That was several department stores ago, but it was nice."
Stephens brought his granddaughter to see the mall and take pictures. Operators of remaining stores have been told this will be their last Christmas.
"That's why we came today," Stephens said. "We don't know how much longer it's going to stand. It's a place that I've been many times back when it first opened."
At the place where the big mural will not survive, artists have been selling their work in vacant stores.
"It would have been a beautiful thing for them to save it, but from what I've read it doesn't look like that's going to happen," said artist Sara Miller. "I just picked up my last check, and it was not much. People aren't shopping here anymore. It's just a sad thing."
The Dallas Midtown project will include new stores, a new movie theater, high-rise homes and offices and a large park. The city of Dallas is providing support for the redevelopment that will put a dense new neighborhood on the site of the sprawling mall parking lots.
Dev Shapiro now lives near the Fire Wheel Town Center in Garland. It is an open air shopping center with parking closer to stores that today's customers seem to prefer to the closed malls of the 1970s and 80s. Shapiro said the Midtown plan seems appealing.
"I think people will start coming back," he said.
