Educational Media Reviews Online

The Pyramid Company, the northeast’s largest mall builder, first proposed building Palisades Center in the mid-1980s. It took ten years to get permission to build a new megamall just 18 miles north of the George Washington Bridge on a superfund cleanup site. The construction itself only took three years; big box buildings are easy to put up. By the end of the documentary, the filmmakers report that Pyramid had the mall up for sale. The citizens of the local communities had fought to control the destiny of the area, but big promises, the threat of lawsuits, and money distributed behind the scenes won the day.

Pyramid’s mall could offer better shopping, new restaurants and entertainment, jobs, and increased tax revenues. The local residents feared traffic, crime, the influx of strangers drawn to the mall, and the end of small town life as they knew it. As they fought the mall at planning board meetings, Pyramid was contributing to the campaigns of supportive board members and paying consulting fees to the Democratic county chair. Activists ran for office, handed out leaflets at groceries, and took the planning board to court. Only after the mall was opened did residents have some success in controlling its further development. Meanwhile, area businesses that could not complete were forced to close, the promised “good jobs” were primarily part-time retail positions, and Pyramid fought paying their assessed taxes while local sales taxes fell with business closures.

This story is told through video shot at planning board meetings, at the construction site, and at gatherings of activists. There are interviews and other clips of Pyramid officers, local government officials, and anti-mall activists. There is also context setting commentary from authors who have written on the “malling” of America and from local journalists and historians. This all gives the video a sense of immediacy and keeps the viewer involved to a greater extent than if the story were simply being reported at a distance. The filmmakers have done a wonderful job of editing film taken over many years into a coherent production. The sound and video quality are remarkably even.

Struggles like the one portrayed here continue across the country. The documentary provides a glimpse of what may lie behind newspaper and television accounts of new development. It points out the price we pay for our obsession with consumerism. For students who feel less at stake in the loss of their communities, this film points out the dangers of short-term thinking; malls are designed to last only 30 years. For courses covering local government, corporate influence on government, citizen activism, and the transformation of small town America, this documentary offers a real story that will bring textbook studies to life.