Last modified: Sunday, June 21, 2009 2:19 AM EDT KIRBY: North's mall, 20 years later Here's an example of how much things can change in 20 years: A front page story in this newspaper in June 1989 told about hiring at Emerald Square, the mall that would open later that summer in North Attleboro. The key to the story? Jobs were so plentiful that stores were having a tough time getting enough workers. A state labor analyst said the mall was actually lucky. The labor shortage was so severe two years earlier that there would be no way to staff the mall. "There's enough of a labor pool out there, provided you're willing to pay the price," he said. The price back then? Starting wages were $4.50 an hour and top-level salespeople and supervisors could earn $30,000 a year. That story had a sidebar identifying stores going in the mall. Some are still there. Others - like Thom McAn, Kinney's Shoes and Anderson Little, all retail mainstays of my youth - are long gone. Yes, times have changed considerably in the two decades since Emerald Square opened, so it's easy to forget how exciting the opening was for local shoppers. A marketing survey showed that this area was one of the most underserved retail regions in the country. Remember, most of us drove well into Rhode Island to get to a mall. There were no Wal-Marts, no Targets. Going to the mall was something you planned and set aside time to do. You just didn't stop off on your way home from work. And what a mall was promised. 150 stores. One million square feet of shopping space. Only the second three-level mall on the East Coast. Now, we have a huge outlet mall in Wrentham and an ever bigger mall a short drive away in Providence. Emerald Square doesn't seem quite so big and dazzling in comparison. The pent-up demand manifested itself at 10:15 a.m. on Friday, July 21, 1989, when the doors were unlocked at G.Fox, the department store which became Filene's and is now Macy's. More than 100 shoppers were lined up to get inside. "I've been waiting 20 years for a mall to come," said a Norton woman. "I was dying to see the mall," a North Attleboro woman said. At 10:12 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 10, the ribbon was officially cut and the mall opened. A troupe of "Wizard of Oz" performers, in the middle of a national tour to promote the movie's 50th anniversary, put on shows at the mall, which had a grand-opening theme of "There's No Place Like Emerald Square." On the first day, an estimated 75,000 people visited. You'd think they were giving away Sox-Yankee tickets. By the time the weekend ended, police said roughly 300,000 visitors had been to the mall. Several miles up I-95 on the night before the ribbon-cutting, a hot new singing group, New Kids on the Block, wowed screaming young females at Great Woods, the amphitheater which became the Tweeter Center and is now the Comcast Center. Emerald Square is no longer the new kid on the block. And 75,000 shoppers aren't lining up to get in. But seeing that it has survived increased competition and the current recession, it looks like the mall will be around for a while - maybe even through the next labor shortage. MIKE KIRBY is editor of The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0344 or at mkirby@thesunchronicle.com.