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I mentioned in my first blog entry, that as a true native of Baton Rouge, I like to call the Mall of Louisiana, the new mall. And, as a true Baton Rougean, my visits to the old mall, Cortana, are few and far between, but last week I took a stroll down memory lane with my mom and sister and experienced what can only be compared to an elephant graveyard. Cortana does have its unique stores and a few things to put in the plus column—local specialty stores, better prices (due to lower rent), and smaller crowds—but I couldn’t help but wonder how long this place could sustain itself.

The first sign of Cortana’s impending demise was the abandonment of Express, a very popular clothing store, with a predominant location in the old mall. The space had been emptied and in its place was a temporary exhibit celebrating 100 years of Coca-Cola in Baton Rouge. The bored, hunched over docents offered me a sampler of Coke products from around the world while they twirled their lanyard nametags.

As I headed down the corridor, I noticed the Limited Too had turned into Aeropostale and The Disney Store, a huge attraction when it first opened, had been converted into a Pac Sun. As I trekked further down, I discovered, to my horror, that not only had the Gap abandoned its spot, but so did nearly every other store at the end of that wing. The wing of darkened windows was like an amputated limb. As Hootie and the Blowfish played over the PA system, one cinematic scene came to mind: when Marty returns to the present in “Back to the Future Part II,” only to discover that while the town is still there, everything has changed. Now, I’m not saying that Cortana is seedy like Marty’s old/new/old Hill Valley, I’m just saying that I felt like I was back in the mid-nineties, but it was a little more disappointing than I remember. Back then, when talk of a new mall began to buzz, everyone worried that Cortana would become the next Bon Marche. And, after last week I’d say the outlook is pretty grim.