‘BROKEN PROMISES’
Once iconic and one of the first of its kind in the nation, some now hope for revival at rundown Baltimore shopping center where five teens were shot
Not far from where blood dried on the pavement and police marked the fallen shell casings, Lashelle Bynum pointed to a vacant lot in West Baltimore. That was the toy store where they bought Slinkys and PlayDoh. Nearby was the ice cream shop her mother patronized every year for Bynum’s birthday party. Then there was the massive Hochschild Kohn department store. Past the broken pavement, rusting poles, and abandoned storefronts was the movie theater where she saw her first horror flick, and below it was the bowling alley.
Edmondson Village Shopping Center had everything her community needed. Bynum, now 63, spent hours as a child riding bikes in the parking lot with other kids. Neighbors became friends there, she said, and everybody called it “The Village.”
Of course she remembers the shoe store at the end of the shopping center, a store that famously featured pet monkeys behind its windows. Now it’s a Popeyes fast-food restaurant, outside of which five teens were shot in a hail of gunfire Wednesday morning. Deanta Dorsey, a 16-year-old student at Edmondson-Westside High School across the street, died.
The shooting was one of the lowest points in the 76-year history of Edmondson Village Shopping Center, considered one of the country’s oldest suburban shopping centers. Bynum believes there’s no way a deadly shooting could have taken place at The Village of her childhood.
“I can relive it all in my head,” Bynum said on Friday. “To see it now, it’s upsetting, especially if you’re somebody who cares about the history and cares about what it used to be.”