Rural Ramblings: 3 Shopping Places that Don't Exist Anymore

1. The Saddest Strip Mall That Ever Existed: This doesn't physically exist, there's a Lowe's superstore there now. However, from 2001ish to 2008, when that moved in, this was a decaying, mostly empty strip mall. In the late 90s, there was an Ames Department Store, a Grand Union grocery store, a Fashion Bug, and a Chittenden Bank (a local bank chain now owned by People's United). The bank moved across the parking lot to it's own building, and the Ames and Grand Union closed within a year of each other. For about seven years, then, all there was was the Fashion Bug. They were lucky if they got two or three people in the parking lot at once. I went in there with my mom to buy something once, it wasn't that great.

2. Champlain Mill: This one still physically exists, and I think it's trying to be a commercial space again, but apart from the new Waterworks restaurant, all the places that used to be there are gone. It's a building by the Winooski River that's mostly offices, but before they put a huge roundabout in downtown Winooski, there were a couple of floors of stores in it, too. There was the official store for the minor league baseball team (then the Vermont Expos), a sock store, and a stationary store (called the Paper Peddler), among others. The one I went to most was the Book Rack and Children's Pages, an independent bookstore that moved to Essex after the shops closed, before closing in 2008 or so. Brian Jacques, the author of the Redwall books did a reading and signing there that I went to, and got my copy of Legend of Luke signed.

3. Burlington Square Mall/Burlington City Center: This place only recently ceased to physically exist and is supposedly under redevelopment, though that's taking a while. When I went down to Church Street in Burlington, I'd spend at least some of the time here. It was a small mall, with a Filene's/Macy's at one end and the entrance to Church Street at the other. There were two restaurants as a "food court", a Chinese restaurant and a pizza place. The first Hot Topic I ever went to was there, as well as a Walden Books before that chain went out of business. There was an fye store, PacSun, a Spencer's, a Payless shoes, and I think there was a Claire's there, too, though that may have been at the University Mall. There was also a place called Tradewinds, that sold imported crafts and home goods. There were also a few other stores I don't remember.