– It's business as usual at the beloved Discount Mall in Little Village. The lease was set to expire at midnight, until another extension was issued.
If you take a stroll down West 26th Street in Little Village, you can feel the culture. It's that feeling of community and tradition that has allowed people here, mostly made up of Mexican immigrants, to have a sense of belonging.For nearly four decades, the shopping plaza has housed more than 200 vendors who sell everything from dresses, to boots, to electronics.
Zarrate said in Spanish,"They keep saying that they are going to close us down. It makes me uncomfortable. I don't know what to believe.""We are living in fear because we don't know what's going to happen," Miguel said."We don't know if we're gonna get kicked out of this mall." After mounting pressure, Novak Construction responded to the outcry from vendors concerned about being displaced, finally agreeing to meet with them.