It was 1987, and Worcester was perhaps at its apex as a regional shopping destination. The Greendale Mall was opening, joining the Galleria mall downtown and completing a long conversion of the city from a place once drawing shoppers to downtown storefronts – like Denholm’s and Woolworth – to one attracting people to indoor malls in a new era of retail. Worcester may have improbably managed to keep shoppers coming into the city in the age of new highways and suburbanization, but it didn’t last. In the past decade or two, Worcester has seemed to lose its place as the shopping heart of Worcester County.