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The terror of Tarrytown: how an animal rights zealot ruined my favorite shopping center.

Article Excerpt
Before its current owner, Jeanne Crusemann Daniels, poisoned it by acting less like a landlord than the lord of the land, the TarryTown Shopping Center, in West Austin, was one of my favorite places to pass the time. Built in 1939 by Daniels's grandmother and great-uncle, it was the first of its kind in the city and one of the first in Texas; people drove from all over to marvel at this new concept in marketing. Nicely arranged on either side of Exposition Boulevard just north of Windsor--less than a ten-minute drive from the state capitol--it was an appealing cluster of one- and twostory shops and restaurants with red tile roofs and faux California-Spanish architecture, embedded within an upscale enclave of reasonably tolerant people and fine homes. But in 1999, after she inherited the property from her mother, Daniels--a loyal supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals--proceeded to wreck it with her loony crusade for animal rights and veganism. Merchants who did not obey her lifestyle edicts were sent packing. For some years now Daniels has lived in Houston, leaving the dirty work of tenant relations to her lawyers and property manager. Her flunkies insist that the center is "thriving" and point to its 93 percent occupancy rate, but there is no place to buy groceries, no place to eat lunch, no heart, no soul.

Its demise happened in the blink of an eye, or so it seems. I used to live on Exposition, less than a block away. Everything I needed was within walking distance. There was a bank, a branch library, a post office, a pharmacy, a grocery, three or four good places to eat, tree-lined sidewalks, and a reassuring sense that this was a neighborhood at peace with itself. Many of the businesses had been there for thirty or forty years, a few even longer. Ralph Moreland's Holiday House, which sold burgers and comfort food and anchored one corner of the center, evolved into an unofficial community...

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