Mallternative

As the "over-the-counterculture'" has grown, as once cutting-edge alternative styles and products have become "mallternative," Newbury Comics has benefited from the market moving in its direction. Black leather biker jackets, body piercings, tattoos, and jarring hairstyles, which once could shock the counterculturally challenged, today are part of a lifestyle choice that barely raises eyebrows.

Although several energy-depleting surface parking lots remain, Mass Avenue's interesting mix of business and people is quickly turning it into a full-fledged window shopper's mallternative, full of energy.