Now Trending at Hallandale Beach Blog: Nobody -anywhere- is saying, "I miss seeing Katie Couric on TV"; 163rd Street Shopping Center

WTVJ-TV (Miami) video: 1984 Katie Couric report for the-then WTVJ/Channel 4 on increase in crime at South Florida shopping malls, reporting from the-then extant 163rd Street Mall in North Miami Beach,FL, which no longer exists as shown. Above, Couric is standing in the eastern-side mall parking garage next to what was once the Jordan Marsh Dept. store, near the N.E. 15th Avenue entrance to the complex.
http://youtu.be/rbpHgMvM918



In the background above -thru the garage and across the street- is the location of my favorite job as a teen in NMB, Record Shack, on NE 164th Street, the BEST record store in all of northeast Dade County, which I've previously mentioned in a July 9th, 2009 post, viz a viz some news re Benny Andersson of ABBA.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/abba-geniuses-at-it-again-story-of.html


Now Trending at Hallandale Beach Blog: Nobody -anywhere- is saying, "I miss seeing Katie Couric on TV."
Who's going to watch her upcoming daytime talk show on ABC-TV?

I grew-up in North Miami Beach in the 1970's just four blocks from there -on N.E. 159th Street & 14th Avenue- and worked at a couple of retail shops there while in high school at NMB Senior High, including the Burdine's in the middle of the three-block long facility when it was an outdoor pedestrian complex called the 163rd Street Shopping Center, a name that many people in South Florida recall fondly.

NMB Sr. High and JFK Jr. High were just across the street from the shopping center on the north side, which made it a huge social hang-out, back before the Aventura Mall -or the City of Aventura- existed, something I mentioned a few years back on my 2007 Wikipedia entry for NMB HS and the shopping center, both of which were eventually shorn of their color and context by the Wiki editing police, who only want name, rank and serial number.
I'll post that information full of facts and anecdotes here soon, so people can benefit from my under-appreciated effort then as a griot.


Meanwhile, up in Canada, our neighbor to the north, which lends Hallandale Beach savvy former MP from Ontario Don Boudria for a few months every year...



Robin Sparkles - "Let's Go To The Mall" (full version, from CBS-TV's 'How I Met Your Mother')
http://youtu.be/GF1b1pf9DRY

Cobie Smulders, above, is easily one of the ten most attractive actresses on American TV today, even when she plays a Canadian newscaster -like Peter Jennings.
But then she's not from fashionable Westmount like my smart, savvy, chic and super-cute friend and NMB classmate Tracey was, so I know a thing or two about very attractive Canadian teenagers, in or out of the Mall.

Real Canadians Elisha Cuthbert and Kari Matchett, whom I've mentioned here before, are also on that carefully thought-out short list.
Another win for Canada, eh?


Trust me, you can spend an entire day looking at these old South Florida photos!
Main webpage http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/memories

I'm going to be adding some memories here in the next few months:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mall_at_163rd_Street

http://www.deadmalls.com/malls/mall_at_163rd_st.html

http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/memories_shopping

a. -1960 - Artist's rendition of the proposed Wometco 163rd Street Theatres,
http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/image/80670007

b. -1960's/70's? - a night time view looking west in the 163rd Street Shopping Center
http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/image/125600809

See also, this Facebook page titled, "Teenager's jobs in the '70's in NMB" as for some blog readers finding this site, it will be a blast to the past -like a night out having Figaro's pizza and garlic rolls with Coach Pete Saponaro and the NMB Mens and Womens gymnastics team after a home meet.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=46380987521&topic=9655

TMZ.com 'unknown' Adrianne Palicki cast as 'Wonder Woman' in David E. Kelley's upcoming NBC-TV show

Screenshot of TMZ.com at 12:40 p.m. today.

I did this search this afternoon on a whim after getting a frantic phone call from a well-connected Left Coast friend about this big entertainment news:
NBC Casts Wonder Woman, Prime Suspect. Good Actress = Good Show?
Posted by James Poniewozik Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 10:45 am
http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2011/02/17/nbc-casts-wonder-woman-prime-suspect-good-actress-good-show/

Naturally, given her years on TV, even the recent critically-lauded but ratings-challenged Fox-TV show, Lone Star, which I just loved, I expected that TMZ would at least have something up about our Tyra, even if just something in the archives.
Maybe some fetching photo of her at a film premiere or a charity bash.
Nope!

Instead, as you can see above, it read simply, "Your search did not return any results."



I fully expect this cloak of secrecy about Adrianne on one of the most-popular entertainment websites in the world will change in a big way soon, as the casting news about this iconic role, so much-discussed on Internet chat sites and forums, in myriad languages around the world, percolates in the blogosphere, and the curiosity about this talented young actress escalates.

Adrianne's comments in a special segment after the Friday Night Lights series finale aired recently on DirecTV, were very accurate and heartfelt, and could well have been spoken by any of its many devoted fans, of which I am but one.

For those of you who will watch the series final season on NBC-TV soon, that last episode could NOT have been more perfectly written or acted, too!

Friday Night Lights final season on NBC-TV begins on April 15th.
http://www.nbc.com/friday-night-lights/

Sorry Eliza Dushku and Cobie Smulders, I was rooting for ya, but Adrianne will do a great job, I'm sure.

I'm really happy to see our Tyra finally get this big break in her show biz career, a chance to be THE star of her own show.

Adrianne has been one of the most compelling parts of FNL, one of its moral compasses, and it's great news that David E. Kelley & Co. saw her potential and decided to reward her for her hard work and excellent acting.
Given our feelings for the show and her, we're rooting for her in a very big way!

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1597316/

USA Today commercial from mid-1980's reminds me of the girl who got away: How I (Almost) Met Your Mother -and she was a newspaper industry executive

La Bilson is very definitely the Gold standard with me... Rachel Bilson



USA Today commercial from mid-1980's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3LiURnoFzk

I was living in Evanston Illinois, just a few blocks from Northwestern University and Lake Michigan when this USA Today commercial was heavily promoted on TV.

A few years later, after I moved to the Washington, D.C. area and was living in Arlington County, VA, where I remained for 15 years, I constantly lived within three miles -and often eyesight of- the twin towers in Rosslyn at 1100 Wilson Boulevard, formerly called the Gannett/USA Today building, with its great views of D.C. and the Potomac River.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosslyn,_Arlington,_Virginia

That is, until they foolishly moved away from being only one block SE of an underground D.C. Metro train station, which was incredibly convenient for employees and people needing to go over there, and headed west to auto-centric Tyson's Corner in Fairfax County.

http://www.gannett.com/http://www.usatoday.com/
http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/
After doing some research projects for the paper starting with a 1988 election project, I eventually fell in love with a Gannett middle-manager whom I constantly kept running into in the morning and at lunch at one of the many little stores and restaurants located in the lobbies adjoining the huge escalators.
These stores made the building feel more like a small city, unlike so many of the bland office buildings with atriums I've seen in South Florida that are SO uninviting and have a bad retail mix.

The object of my affection bore a striking resemblance to an actress I particularly liked, and had a very friendly and endearing voice on the few occasions I'd heard it, so my radar was finely tuned whenever she was nearby.
I was absolutely convinced I could recognize her laugh from across a crowded room!
Plus, she loved college basketball!
Like the way an IU or UK fan loves college basketball, but she didn't go to a big sports school, which made it all the more endearing.
One fall morning I swung by one of the small stores in the building I frequented on my way to the area I worked out of when I was there and the owner noticed me subtly looking around while I had some newspapers under my arm, and was trying to decide what sort of drink to buy -cold or hot.
Yes, Mr. Obvious!

He looked at me and said, "I think I know who you are looking for."

Then, like he'd been rehearsing it for hours, he handed me a business card with her contact info on it, with a note in an envelope attached by a small black metal binder clip, like the millions of them I had in my desk drawer and would toy with while talking on the phone.

On the note she had written that she'd been doing some detective work on me and heard some very good things about me from people she trusted, would be going out-of-town for about a week for some newspaper industry-related shindig, then would be visiting her family... and, oh by the way, would I be interested in going with her to the big Eagles-Redskins game at RFK in two weeks time?
You could have knocked me over with a feather!

And the rest is history... well, at least for a few years anyway.
Yes kids, that's how many great romance stories start in Washington -with an educated and calculated move- he said, sounding like Ted Mosby doing the voice-over narration from an episode of "How I Met Your Mother."

That doesn't seem to be the style down here, which is a pity for all concerned.
Fickle fate is nobody's friend.
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/





The "How I Met Your Mother" season premiere is Monday, September 20th at 8 p.m. Eastern. (The ESPN Monday Night Football game that night is Saints at 49ers.)
I genuinely hope there's much more Rachel Bilson in the show's future other than a few minutes here-and-there, as Hallandale Beach Blog loves, loves, loves La Bilson!

First Look: Rachel Bilson Heads Back to HIMYM For Season 6http://www.buzzsugar.com/Rachel-Bilson-Pictures-From-How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Season-6-Premiere-10528284
New York Post's Page Six Magazine
The Fashion Issue starring Rachel Bilson

By Amy Spencer
Rachel Bilson's Divine Inspiration

On The O.C. and in real life, Rachel Bilson launched a million fashion crushes with her unique but subtle sex-bomb style. Now the actress—who talks to Page Six Magazine about everything from Coco Chanel to Hayden Christensen—is making it easy for copycats to steal her look, in her new role as a designer.

Read the rest of the story at:

http://www.nypost.com/pagesixmag/issues/20080907/Rachel+Bilsons+Divine+Inspiration

The photos are great, oui?
ooh la la la Bislson