But thinking more about the "old days" in the 'Zoo, I recalled that a lot of things about them weren't so good. If much of the city, especially downtown, had more character, if it was grittier, quirkier, less homogenized, less managed, it had more troubles too. Two large malls had opened west of town in the late 60s-early 70s (one of which was the reason my family moved there: my father managed the Montgomery Ward store there. That mall, by the way, has its own page on Vanished Kalamazoo now...) which drew business away from downtown, putting many establishments there out of business, and leaving the survivors in a more or less continuous struggle to carry on.
And few people went there after dark. Some beautiful older neighborhoods turned seedy. Court ordered school integration flared racial tensions. And the shaky Michigan economy of the 70s and early 80s left many people wondering just when their job would disappear with the next plant or mill closing (that's one aspect of the old days that's reemerging).
Today, information and technology based businesses have revived the economy, and downtown buildings that stood empty during much of my childhood have been renovated to host office space or luxury condos. Some of the older neighborhoods have been polished up. Some of the rougher blocks around the central city have been leveled for an expansion of Bronson hospital. There's a new nightclub in the old Shakespeare fishing tackle plant. And people come downtown at night for festivals, clubs, restaurants. Chicago it isn't but it does have vigor it lacked when I lived there. Of course, strip malls and big boxes sprawl further and further beyond the borders of the city, but where don't they?
Across the Kalamazoo of 30 or so years ago fell some shadows that have retreated a long way. Reflecting on this brings to mind a story of when one unexpectedly fell across me. It involves dry flies and a prostitute. I'll tell it next week.
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