If you've never noticed, there's a new annoying trend sweeping the nation. It involves taking a crappy part of a city, and building what looks like a motion picture backlot on top of the toxic waste dump therein.
Okay, maybe not a toxic dump, but at least a former landfill site. It's generally about five city blocks by three city blocks with gaudy theme restaurants and opulent shops selling what my wife calls "big ass art."
These subdivisions have names like "CityPark" or "TownCentre" or "American Express Plutonium Card Welcome Here." In San Jose, it's "Santana Row." In Los Angeles, it's called "San Francisco."
Florida has jumped head-first into this wave with their own version of these irritating villages. Palm Beach, not being opulent enough, has TownPlace with 20 gelato shoppes, 13 coffee shoppes and for their most famous citizen, a gorgeous Oxycontin shoppe owned by a prominent divorce attorney. I'm talking of course about Rush Limbaugh whose recent exploits have him doing some public service to stay in the Palm Beach fraternity: ringing the TownPlace BellTower.
Boca Raton, not to be outdone, has its own VillageTownSpotAreaThing which remains about 16% occupied, thanks no doubt to the vigilant economic boon created by Governor Jeb "The Edukater" Bush whose name I will always invoke whenever I write of something horribly wrong with Florida. I went bananas when I encountered the International Museum of Animation Art located at the edge of BocaCityShopAndSpend. I snapped this picture...
...ran up to the door and found out they had packed up and moved out of Boca and back home to New York.
If you're ever stuck in South Florida, there's no better way to spend a 98 degree day with 130% humidity than at one of these fine TowneCityGrids. Stop in soon, because demolition starts in July to make room for the new Robitussin Ballpark - home of the Boca Raton Rabies. What else do you expect from a boca raton, amigo?
