If we could resurrect poor Victor Gruen and bring him to the corner of Central Avenue and Wolf Road, he’d presumably be appalled and even heartsick.
Colonie Center, the mall that dominates the intersection, is nothing like what he envisioned.
Gruen, you see, is the inventor of the modern, inward-looking, climate-controlled shopping mall. The architect designed the first real mall in America, Southdale, outside Minneapolis…