February 26, 2019

Build…That…Mall!

After 16 years, the American Dream is finally coming to East Rutherford, New Jersey.
A few miles before the Lincoln Tunnel, the bones of a waterpark have emerged 
through a pitched glass roof. Inside, a jigsaw of rollercoaster tracks and the faint outline
of what seems, this side of Route 3, to be a ski slope. Maybe the $5 billion price tag
will have been worth it once the highway ferries eager shoppers to spin
the golden roulette wheel of capitalism’s crowning achievement. But from here, with bulldozers
scattered like a stunned army, it’s hard to see anything but the cataclysm of excess,
a crash site posing as a carnival. How much entertainment do we really need, and will
450 additional retail opportunities be enough to keep the ice caps from melting?
I see boys in the sandbox, fists on their gears. I’m not buying what they’re selling.