Who knew there were dead malls even younger than us…

The biggest issue with malls in pittsburgh- and this is an issue everywhere- there’s too many of them. Pittsburgh Mills should have never been built- even when it was better, it was one of those malls that just didn’t make sense.

1:56 The Highland Park Bridge was designed by Sidney A. Shubin, chief bridge design engineer of Allegheny County, who also designed the South Tenth Street Bridge and Homestead High Level Bridge. Construction of it began in November 1937 and was completed in June 1939. The bridge cost $2.5 million to construct (over 55 million in 2023 money), and two workers were killed during the construction in October 1938 when a 68-ton crane fell from the bridge. 3:08 The C. L. Schmitt is named after Chester Ludwig Schmitt of New Kensington who served in the Pennsylvania State Legislature for sixteen years, serving the 54th District. In PA, he was known for working to establish the Pennsylvania Consumer Credit Act, which served as the model for the Federal Truth In Lending Law. Making him the father of consumer protection laws in PA. New Kensington was once part of Burrell (and later Lower Burrell) Township and was first called just Kensington in 1891. However, this was later changed to "New Kensington" for postal reasons, to avoid confusion with the Philadelphia neighborhood.

An example of a pretty good mall that isn't dead is Newport Centre mall in downtown Jersey City. The location is quite accessible thanks to dollar vans/jitneys, the PATH, and the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. The area was once home to the Erie Railroad's Pavonia Terminal, this is why there is an E on the pillars of the Newport PATH station. When the terminal shut down, the area was redeveloped as Newport by real-estate tycoon Samuel J. LeFrak. The mall opened in the 1980s, and the area around it flourished and became more urban because of it. The problem with its design? Even in an urban environment surrounded by transit, it STILL has a parking garage. Newport is the most popular stop on the HBLR, and the majority of Jersey City doesn't own a car. So having a big garage is pointless, and it's better to use the land to expand the mall's number of stores, or perhaps for housing as well (since there's booming demand for housing in Jersey City).

@IVR02

10 ай бұрын

The one caveat I can give Newport's massive garage is that it's kinda useful as a park & ride for the PATH station. I have a friend who lives in JC but is pretty far from the light rail, and I don't have any convenient transit options for getting down to visit her, so if we hang out and want to go into New York, we'll drive to Newport, park there, and take the PATH across the river. Still, the times we've done that, the garage was pretty much empty, so yeah, it's definitely overkill in terms of parking.

@johnsamoilis6379

10 ай бұрын

It also helps there is no sales tax on clothing in NJ while there is in NY. So the PATH train servicing the mall is what is saving the mall. Because people from NY shop there and save on taxes.

@AverytheCubanAmerican

10 ай бұрын

@@johnsamoilis6379True! On top of the fact it’s part of an Urban Enterprise Zone so the sales tax is slashed in half at businesses that participate.

"We were more of a Barnes & Noble family" in my case the Barnes & Noble I grew up going to (to play with their Thomas trains of course) when I lived by the Tappan Zee in Westchester was AT the mall, Palisades Center mall, so it was the best of both worlds. Palisades Center mall in West Nyack, Rockland County is one of the largest in the US, with four floors, an ice rink, a climbing course, an indoor Ferris wheel, and there's even a post office. Kid me also loved going to the Lego store there as well as riding a 1907 carousel. This carousel was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and it was there from 1998 until 2009 when they disassembled and removed it. It was then replaced by a Venetian double-decker one. Here on Long Island, there has been an infamous dead mall called the Sun Vet Mall which has pretty much been cursed. To start, they lost their first anchor store Pathmark in 2015 after A&P filed for Chapter 11. Then Toys R Us closed in 2018. Finally, they lost both AC Moore and Payless in 2019 after they too filed for bankruptcy. A place called Aegean Pizza was the last business inside the mall to close as they held on until the developer who bought the mall forced them to close. The space is being completely redeveloped as a Whole Foods and an open-air shopping center

@ClassyWhale

10 ай бұрын

Barnes and Noble Thomas is the best

@joelfreak

10 ай бұрын

I live right by there.

George A. Romero we need you to come back and film a new Dawn of the dead 2024 version. Since you already filmed at Monroeville mall in 1978 here's a new mall where you can make movie magic one more time.

Saw a video awhile back on why European malls still thrive while US malls die. They concluded that it was because European malls are generally easily accessible by transit and on foot rather than being surrounded by a parking moat.

@moon993

10 ай бұрын

Was it Adam Something's video because that was a point he brought up in one of his videos?

@tonywalters7298

10 ай бұрын

@@moon993 I think so

@drdewott9154

9 ай бұрын

I mean I kinda see it, I'm in Denmark and my town has a mall from the 90's right in the centre of town that links up directly to the pedestrianised main street next door. The mall basically serves as another pedestrianised street just indoors, while linking both up better to the local buses since the main road is leading through the heart of it. But on another note this is kinda the exception here. In many other cities the pedestrianised downtowns are dying and the suburban cardependent shopping malls and strip malls are thriving, with many claiming that the lack of parking downtown is to blame, combined with decreasing transit service.

Wait until you see the megamalls built in Asia! In Tehran, there is a mall called the Iran Mall that has SEVEN floors and a total retail floor area of over TWENTY MILLION square feet! The world's largest IKEA isn't even in North America nor Europe, it's in the Philippines at Metro Manila's Mall of Asia! Their IKEA is over 700,000 square feet! Mall of Asia is served by the EDSA Carousel BRT, a feeder service to the Manila LRT. The Philippines has multiple huge malls besides Mall of Asia like SM Megamall in Mandaluyong and SM North EDSA in Quezon City. Compared to American malls, Asian malls are absolutely thriving! Why? Because there, malls are designed like fifteen-minute cities with office buildings, residential buildings, and plenty of transit. They aren't a place for special shopping, it's a place for all your necessities, you're do everything in one place. Asian mall planners understand that they aren't just creating malls, they're creating communities. Government offices, banks, churches, even schools are in Asian malls! Big community events are held at those malls. It's not just the shopping or convenience, it's the unique experience.

@AssBlasster

9 ай бұрын

The malls that I lived near in rural and very suburban areas of the US were fairly active because they had multiple massive grocery stores as "anchors" to attract more people. Like the Palouse Mall in small town Idaho that revitalized the dead end with the addition of a Target. I would definitely visit the mall as a part of my grocery trip due to close proximity and I hate malls...

@micosstar

9 ай бұрын

interesting@@AssBlasster

@tennyho3236

8 ай бұрын

@@AssBlasster Yea, grocery store like AEON, Walmart and Sam's, usually on lower levels. But Asian malls are often a byproduct of 33-stoery residential blocks, which is unlikely to exist in much of the North America and is overall unacceptable by US people.

@tennyho3236

8 ай бұрын

Actually most American malls are not the same as Asian. Successful examples like American Dream in NJ, Florida Mall, and those in LA are also not more than two levels. In the US, there's no need to build many floors on vast suburban land, and people won't climb higher without a reason. That's why Asian malls usually put the main groceries store on ground level and even basement (connected to transit), and some Asian operators put outlets stores and gaming area on the top. Also, it's easy to explain why Hudson Yards put the entrance to its viewing deck balcony elevators to somewhere L4/L5 (IIRC) - getting more customers to climb for a reason. btw IKEA in Asian Pacific also favors surbaban lands to put everything within two levels (higher for home-liked settings and lower level for retail and inventory) rather than fit themselves in a multi-level one-stop mall.

Interesting how many big malls in the USA are dying while the ones in the Toronto area aren't and are often redeveloping their parking lots.

@rkniner

10 ай бұрын

I've seen a few that have died/are dying (one was demolished and replaced with a Shoppers and townhouses, for example, and another is in the process of turning the former Sears location into condos)

@tonywalters7298

10 ай бұрын

Private equity aka vulture capitalism is a big reason why the retail apocalypse has happened. Basically retail chains are bought by private equity firms by leveraging debt on the acquired firm, they buy the real estate and lease it back until the store goes bankrupt. This all started when the CEO of sears determined the real estate the stores sat on was more valuable than the stores themselves

@rkniner

10 ай бұрын

@@tonywalters7298 Reminds me how Sears was actually more successful in Canada until the US side started increasing the dividend they took to cover their own losses.

@mrxman581

9 ай бұрын

Maybe in Canada, it's colder overall, so people prefer more indoor places to socialize.

@rkniner

9 ай бұрын

@@mrxman581 Toronto and Pittsburgh's climates are actually pretty similar most of the year, though I see there is a 5C (9F) difference in March's and April's highs

The inside of the mall looked familiar (the finishes and layout, not the being-dead part). I'm guessing it was designed and built by the same developer as Vaughan Mills up here?

Pittsburgh mills. Create senior living spaces. Great walking space. Some food areas close by. Great parking,

Classy Whale explores future Amazon warehouse site...

The final Mills Mall built in America (also the last mall built by The Mills Corporation). I might do a documentary about that company too

I literally watched City Nerds very funny video on Spirit Halloween stores just before yours 😂. These sort of places make the film Mallrats seem so old now.

Dick's Sporting Goods probably closed that door to reduce the numbers of escape routes for shoplifters....but judging by the place,what shoplifters!

I love these random transit videos!

In my childhood, I went to all three of those malls, Allegheny Center, Parkway Center, and Century III. Someone should be arrested for what happened to the last one. For some reason, I think Monroeville might be next.

@1:16 If you understand how certain developers think and certain politicians think, you'll realize this is by design and was approved and built in an odd location on purpose. Some facilities are placed outside the reach of less wealthy citizens who may not drive and/or may not live in central cities. I lived in Pittsburgh on and off between 2006-2009 and I had a feeling that Pittsburgh Mills was exactly this type of development: one to keep out "undesirables" and segregate it away, yet its as successful as Century 3 mall is today. I know some people get offended, but you cannot talk about this issue without talking about the classism, racism, and segregation that a lot of developers and politicians have used to propel various out-of-reach developments. Century 3 has an interesting history, its been dying for 20 years. Was surprised to see it still cling on until COVID times! I would say Century 3 had about 20 halfway decent years, I got to see it at the end of its "good" 20 years as I first visited Pittsburgh over 20 years ago now (geez, saying this makes me realize how time flies!). But opening so many individual box stores outside like Best Buy and Walmart didn't help the mall itself, after the year 2000 Century 3 was in constant decline, especially as strip malls around it kept popping up. Those stores probably should have been located within the mall if it were to have a chance. There is no real reason why Best Buy or Walmart couldn't have taken up one of the store fronts in the mall itself and saved the local ecology from the damage of shaving off that large hill next to the mall. All for a Walmart? LOL Walmart was built approximately 20 years ago, when the mall itself started its decline, so it all makes sense that the shopping in the strip malls around the mall are where all the action went. So far as Pgh Mills? It was always a failure. They placed it way too remotely for their own good. I didn't realize it was this bad off, but thanks for the update! P.S. If I were able to 25 years ago, I would have basically said no to Walmart, no to Giant Iggle, no to Home Depot, and no to Best Buy. Not getting the approvals to build (amongst others). I would have promoted converting some of the dying store brands at that time into becoming the Walmart and Best Buy and a Giant Iggle (and others) within the mall and giving the mall enough traffic and revenues to keep it up and rebuild it. Could have reduced some sprawl and broken space today. The truth is the same in health care: ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case, not allowing the over-development of strip malls and big box buildings and integrating into Century 3 could have saved the mall. Rebuilding the mall instead of allowing these other reductive developments could have made it work. And it could have been redesigned and taken some of the parking out. Now, since its demise is here, its going to take more money and more effort to clean up the problem with all the big box retail around it, and those stores have no interest in paying to keep up this empty lot. It'll sit dead for years or decades.

Very interesting topic for this mall to survive why not turn it into a Transit hub. Examples in the NYC area Jersey Gardens Mall 111 115 NJ Transit Buses 65 114 Bridgewater Commons Westfield Paramus 163 171 175 NJ Transit Buses Newport Mall Jersey City NYC Bound 119 126 NJ Transit buses local 1 10 85 & 87. That mall has a Tram Stop HBLR and PATH Train to 34th Street Herald Square station transfer is required at Grove St for World Trade Center when Green Line is not running due to JSQ Herald Square is combined with HOB Herald Square service

The reason The Mills failed is, in part, because it was owned and managed by Zamias. Everything Zamias touches turns to garbage. Read their Wiki page, it is quite interesting. One reason why is because they allowed other stores, such as Walmart, Sam's Club, and PetSmart and a bunch of restaurants to build stand-alone stores, as well as two strip malls, to the immediate south west of the main mall. These more car-friendly shopping places soon sucked the life out of the pedestrian-friendly mall. Uncoincidently, these businesses are still thriving.

The ....cabin...was where the easter bunny...🐰🐇 sat to take pics with the kids.....saw it on Dan Bell's video...lol

I really need to visit Pittsburgh one day, it looks so cool. (Except for the creepy "celebrate" letters that sorta spelled your name). It's also Interesting how you kept getting distracted by rings, then randomly a pop-up shows up for a video with Kalkidan, does that imply something? (Sorry if I butchered the spelling of her name). On another note, I like how you ended the video by "And thus, the sun sets over yet another downfall of shallow consumerism." Amazing quote.

As always an interesting look at this mall and how it reflects our culture and values. We have a well known dead mall near me in the Hudson Valley the Hudson Valley Mall near Kingston, N.Y.. It was bustling from when it opened around 1980 until the late 2000s then the bottom just fell out. The old storefronts of the nearly empty halls are ironically plastered with photos from the early 20th century of Kingston, N.Y. when it was a canal hub for anthracite coal going from near Carbondale down the gravity railroad, the D&H Canal and to the Hudson River along with bluestone, burick and cement manufacturing interests. It was also a major steamboat port and a little later quite the small town railhub with the New York Central "West Shore" Ulster and Delaware into the Catskills and O&W into the Borscht Belt. The automoible would desimate Kingston in the mid 20th century . In terms of rail Kingston saw the closure of all but the NYC West Shore Line that is now part of CSX's core NYC to Chicago mainline and the end of passenger rail service in 1954 and also steamboat service. Unlike steamboat and train passengers, drivers on highways like the Thruway had not need to stop in Kingston to travel to the Catskills. This era would also see hundreds of beutiful historic buildings along the Rondout Creek torn down to make way for an arterial in what was New York state's first capital in 1777. The part of city known as Uptown which still its colonial era street grid and some buildings that date to that era saw lesser destruction often to create parking lots. The demolition of the Beuax arts post office for a drive-thru in the small city's Midtown in the late 60s would galvanize the preservation movement here and kick off more adaptive reuse of industrial buildings in this once industrial neighborhood near the former diamond of the West Shore and U&D. IBM arrived in a mid-century car-centric office park in the once rural town of Ulster to dominate the local economy until they left in 1994 leaving the office park which is now in ruins and mid-century subdivisions sprinkled throughout the area. It was also during this era when the Hudson Valley Mall opened and reached its peak. Auto-centric design dominates in and around the dead mall and office park with big box stores and chain eateries with oceans of parking sorrounded by mid-century subdivisions dating back to the IBM boom.

And that's a pretty big mall for such a small population in the town, I'm sure that they thought that the town was going to grow more than it did. Obviously with this particular mall it's more than just the mall itself. The small downtown area is also suffering. It would have had to rely a lot on anybody outside of the town to be the customers. Even before online shopping was a major thing. I can see why it's dying out. Let's put it this way, the town I live nearby has an outlet mall in the population is at least 30k plus. And it's smaller.

I thought North American Malls were declining due to bad urbanism, not a rise in online shopping

@tonywalters7298

10 ай бұрын

And the scourge that is private equity

@jayo1212

7 ай бұрын

@@tonywalters7298 it's a combination of the 3...

Disappointing, a mall built in 2005 that is already dying. Sheesh. It seems like these "Mills" are all crumbling, but I do notice Arizona Mills...in Arizona....has been doing great. Same concept, neighborhoods, and crazy transit connections, lol..

@tonywalters7298

10 ай бұрын

Same thing with St. Louis mills.

I recently visited Pittsburgh and there are lots of shopping centers so it appears it’s enclosed malls that are dying. In Norfolk Virginia it’s the downtown McArthur Mall that is wasting away. Great start in the 90’s but all the anchors are gone. May be redeveloped into office space or housing.

This video has something to do with buses or bus rapid transit

15 minute Cities! Or detriment centers!

There is one mall, Concord Mills, in Concord NC, still a viable mall. There is a Lionel Trains Retail store there.

Oh man… I used to hang here when it first opened. Played a LOT of In The Groove 2 here.. 😢

So much ring content...I wonder what it means. ;-p

@ClassyWhale

10 ай бұрын

I was wondering if someone would notice!

@joelfreak

10 ай бұрын

@@ClassyWhale it was pretty obvious.

2005 means that it was open for two Thanksgiving/Christmas seasons before the 08 crash. Malls have their place but there are simply too many of these large ones. If it's just a small department store, grocery store and some support shops plus a food court, surrounded by residential, then malls can definitely work!

Shallow consumerism is all we have anywhere, the only big drawback of suburban malls is that you have to drive to them (yes I know your whole thing is about going there by transit but I mean the typical intended use case). The sterility isn't from the fact you're being a consumer, it's from the fact you took a half hour each way, burned fuel, literally put your life at a bit of risk just to consume. Even the dying malls are still nice places to be, just not nice places to go. Better transit connectivity (not just a bus, and directly to the building, not to the edge of a billion acre parking lot!) would probably make a big impact. I wonder if it would've been harder to get planners to cooperate on transit at the turn of the century because the malls "are clearly doing fine with just cars" or in the present day because the malls "are not worth the investment" to try to save. It's sad because even though they're profit oriented ventures, they can still have benefits for the community.

Nice diamond reference. The real question is how long till the “ I now qualify for a joint tax return in most states” video.😂

The mall in my area that died is being turned into an amazon fulfillment center. I'd rather it have turned into an 80 acre vacant lot.

Caleb ate \m/

I really like this. Recently was out on vacation and decided to stop at a few maybe not dead but very slow malls. It’s a weird vibe seeing the malls with no people but still having some businesses. One of the malls even had made a public high school out of one of the vacant anchor stores. The weirdest was the food court which had no vacancies but I was the only patron there. Weird vibes but very thought provoking

There's a few decent malls in Ohio. Belden Village and South Park are massive

Yes, more housing/mixed use would do good, but we keep the Walmart and Sam's Club-but what's going to attract people to greater Pittsburgh besides cheaper housing (even if not classed as "affordable") than average, graduate school, and maybe Kennywood being a good home park and 2 others within 2hrs, Cedar Point is around 3hrs away, Hersheypark 3.5, and Kings Island 4.5 (well that's by car but if you hate Six Flags or a schill for Cedar Fair, don' want to live in Ohio, and want to have an urbanism fix-why not?)

That has to be the most highly maintained deal mall I have ever seen. Fascinating how it remains open despite so few stores!

it's sad how it's quite a new mall and already dead

@MK-of7qw

Ай бұрын

It was dead on arrival actually. There was a lot of vacant locations. A few were planned but never opened as well (like that racing one).

Yes, that's a Mills mall. Looks exactly like the one in Ontario, California, but that one is approximately 101% occupied and just as busy.

Backrooms vibes in these malls

I live in new ken. Why didn't you just take the 1 to new ken then hop on the 14 from there. I work and live here.

Patron changed their logos

#deviationfest

Shout out to Park City Mall in Lancaster, PA. It still appears to be well attended by store owners and shoppers. It’s probably one of the few malls in the USA that seems to still be operating with positive margins. But I can’t be too sure of that.

Mail kid

Sure you can go into those buildings. Just ask the Proper People!

Why such a short video? Why didn’t you just walk through and show us the whole mall?

@ClassyWhale

5 ай бұрын

They asked me to stop filming 😂