For yet another Holiday shopping season, FoCo’s oldest mall has paradoxically provided Focopolitans with a venue to hang out and not shop. With Old Town taken over not only by stressed-out shoppers, the usual rabble of hipsters, hippies and homeless, overwhelmed people are looking for some peace of mind and a warm place to just take a walk on a cold winter day. Enter the Foothills Fashion Mall.
Built back in the 1980s, the FFM used to be a place for people to hang out and shop, but ever since the revival of Old Town and the subsequent rise of online shopping websites like E-bay and Amazon, the mall lost its shopaholics appeal. Yet its usefulness still remains due to the one innovation that Old Town lacks: central heating.
Invented in the 19th Century, central heating consists of a large heat source- nowadays natural gas, but historically wood, coal or bunker crude oil- that is then relayed throughout an enclosure by means of radiators or ventilators. This simple technological evolution has given the FFM an edge over Old Town for best place to hang out and not shop.
Nearby resident Ralph Anderson attests to the appeal of central heating, “I’ll tell ya… this central heating thing here is pretty amazing. Ain’t no way I’m gonna go to Old Town to hang out and not shop anymore. Nothing beats the mall for going to a place and not shopping. It also is a great place to exercise in as I won’t run into ANYONE! Top that, Old Town!”