![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot_20260913_123010.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOnce upon a time, Exton Square Mall had a newsstand.<\/p>\n
The newsstand was on the lower level of the mall, as my Electronics Boutique store was, on the other side of the level. The easiest way to get there was to go straight through Strawbridge’s — women’s intimates was at my entrance, I think<\/i> furniture was at the opposite entrance — and hang a right.<\/p>\n
This hall of Exton had a dentist’s office, Kirkland’s, Payless Shoes, and a newsstand. In the screenshot of a walkthrough video below, the dentist’s office would be behind and to the left of the camera, Kirkland’s would have the glass front at left, Payless was on the left beyond it, and the newsstand was along the right side, with the Strawbridge’s entrance lurking in the dark behind the elevators.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I do not remember precisely where the newsstand stood; I don’t think it was the corner, but it might’ve been one storefront down. Point is, there was a newsstand. I can picture it in my mind — the walls were painted stark white, the space was about the size of my living room — but I can’t quite picture who worked there anymore.<\/p>\n
I generally did not buy the newspaper from him, but I did buy The Writer<\/i> or Writer’s Digest<\/i> every now and then, which I could have bought upstairs at Waldenbooks, but the newsstand was easier to deal with it. He carried all the major newspapers — the Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i>, obviously, but also the New York Times<\/i>, the Washington Post<\/i>, the Wall Street Journal<\/i>, the Baltimore Sun<\/i> and several more. <\/p>\n
On September 12th, mall walkers stole his entire newspaper delivery.<\/p>\n
As I understand it, the newspapers would be delivered by his distributor to the shop gate about 6 o’clock in the morning, pretty much as soon as some the access doors were unlocked. He would come in between 8 or 8:30 and open his shop because mall workers would begin arriving between then and 9:30 for a mall opening at 10.<\/p>\n
Mall walkers would begin arriving at the mall at 6:30 to get in their laps when the mall was empty and quiet.<\/p>\n
On September 12th, the mall walkers — most all of them over 50, many over 60 — saw unattended newspapers with above-the-fold articles about the 9-11 attacks the day before.<\/p>\n
And they took them. They helped themselves.<\/p>\n
I was back at work in Exton on the 13th after two days opening a new store at King of Prussia<\/a>. I can’t say with certainty that I went by the newsstand on the 13th, it could have been Friday, the 14th, but I do know that I learned about the newspaper thefts. You work in a mall, you hear gossip.<\/p>\n Walkers stole them. He couldn’t sell them, but he still had to pay for them.<\/p>\n I was in the newsstand, buying a magazine. It might not have been a writing magazine. It might have been Analog<\/i> or Asimov’s Science Fiction<\/i>, which I also bought from time to time from the newsstand.<\/p>\n I said, “I heard what happened. Let me pay for a newspaper.”<\/p>\n I ultimately paid for two, a Post<\/i> and a Times<\/i>. Just a couple of bucks, just a little bit to help so he didn’t have to eat the selfishness of the mall walkers.<\/p>\n I don’t know if anyone else in the mall did this.<\/p>\n I’d like to think they did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once upon a time, Exton Square Mall had a newsstand. The newsstand was on the lower level of the mall, as my Electronics Boutique store was, on the other side of the level. The easiest way to get there was to go straight through Strawbridge’s — women’s intimates was at my entrance, I think furnitureContinue reading “The Stolen Newspapers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[5464,5481,5403],"class_list":["post-35509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-exton-square-mall","tag-september-11","tag-washington-post","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}