Holiday Shopping Dead Today

Roosevelt Field, one of Long Island’s biggest shopping malls, was a ghost town today.  The streets and parking lots around it were barely plowed and the people were clearly staying away.

I was only there to take care of business at the Apple Store, which in Roosevelt Field has just moved into a ginormous space, taking over what once a Restoration Hardware.  While there are lines out the door to the Apple Store here on a regular basis (even in August), today the Geniuses were milling about without much to do, the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that.

The other stores were dead as well.  Some of the vacant stores were filled in with seasonal offerings and they were the definition of sad.  One example would be the fur coat store being run as a department store annex to discount away all the unsold furs, one would assume.  There were three people in it, 2 were salespeople and one was a DJ, complete with monster speakers and 2 turntables blasting Michael Jackson songs.  I had to look away to avoid that cringing feeling one gets when one encounters something really embarrassing, like when Uncle Joey and Uncle Jesse used to perform rap songs to put the girls to bed on Full House.

Not a good year for holiday retailing, especially in the Northeast.