The Big Apple Mall is one of those trading spaces in the capital, the creation of which coincided with the emergence of fresh waves of urban small businesses, for some of which the new Mall had provided more convivial trading spaces than the living rooms and streets from where they had been trading. The Mall served to lend a greater sense of authenticity to the ‘exotic’ trading names that these enterprises boasted. The Big Apple, situated on Robb Street (immediately east of the premises of the Guyana Publications Ltd or The Stabroek News) quickly attracted occupants that included hair dressers, cosmetologists and assorted traders in clothing and cosmetics.
These days, the Big Apple Mall has significantly increased its volumes of ‘foot traffic’, and in the process, raised the profiles of its occupants whose numbers reflect the accelerated growth of urban consumerism that has engulfed Georgetown in recent years. Seamstress Kendra Christian had left Kwakwani, along with her husband and two daughters, to seek out what Guyanese commonly refer to as ‘betterment,’ utilizing the ‘openings’ and opportunities considered to be more generously available in the capital. She had brought with her two sets of motivations – the first, to ‘see to’ the education of her children, and secondly, to probe the possibility of enhancing what had, from childhood, been an intense ambition to become a ‘first rate’ seamstress.