I was just having a chat with some co-workers about Scottsdale Fashion Square, and it brought back some interesting memories. Neither of my co-workers has lived here as long as I have, so I gave them a few of my best revelations about the mall. And now I’m passing them to you:
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| How many of these add up to $11,000? More than 700! From the I Still Rise blog |
1. Fashion Square wasn’t always the Botoxed behemoth that you see today. At one point, it was actually two malls, one of which was open-air. That began changing in the late 80s with some enormous construction projects. Scottsdale Fashion Square as we know it began to disappear. For years, the only vestige remaining was the Circles Records store. Even that’s gone, now. It’s amazing, but what is now a Dillard’s one the west end of the mall was once its own mall, called Camelview Plaza. I really dug this one as a kid because Camelview had a Magic Pan crepe restaurant, just like the one I liked back in Chicago (I ate anything I could get my hands on).
2. Back in 1999, well after Fashion Square was well into its Violet Beauregarde-like expansion, I was covering the Scottsdale police beat for The East Valley Tribune (which was still in its heyday – in other words, it was a fully staffed daily that was actually able to sell paper copies). One fine day, I was leafing through the booking reports and other assorted cop paperwork when I found an awesome bit of info: The Victoria Secret store has filed a report with the Scottsdale Police that it was missing $11,000 worth of thong underwear, and a lesser value of bathrobes.
Of course, I was delighted. My editors were cackling, and the police spokesman at the time was struggling to keep a straight face. Victoria’s Secret wouldn’t talk to me at all, so I had to make due with the contents of the police report and a few innocuous quotes from the police spokesman. I also crunched some numbers – $11K in thongs equals more than 700 bits of undies priced at about $15 each. My theory? Inside job, or a good number of women sporting fake baby bumps were snatching the items piecemeal (more likely the former).
Of course, I wasn’t allowed to use a cheeky lead I proposed: Scottsdale police are trying to crack the case of the missing thongs.
American newspapers are so boring. That would totally fly in England or Australia.
