Lincoln Road’s Urban Outfitters Store Now Being Outfitted

In mid-range, youth-oriented, mass-market shopping news, the new Urban Outfitters store on Lincoln Road is currently under construction. It will be located just off Jefferson Avenue on the 800 block of Lincoln, across from the News Cafe, and next to one of Lincoln’s two Sunglass Huts. This was the scene out front today, with construction noises whirring and grinding inside and guys loafing around outside.

You may complain that Lincoln Road, which was one of the first outdoor pedestrian malls in the country ‘used to be cool’ and is ‘now just an overcrowded suburban mall’—and you might be right—but consider this: when Morris Lapidus pedestrianized Lincoln Road in 1960 in an effort to stop its decline he modeled the new Lincoln Road after the typical shopping mall out in the burbs, down to the lighting, the landscaping, and the way the parking was organized. It may have taken 50 years, but Lincoln Road is exactly what it was supposed to be. Whether ‘what it was supposed to be’ is cool or not is up for debate, the mall is indubitably a roaring urban success.