Category: default || By jt3y

(*—"Thus passes the glory of North Versailles Township")



Let's not mince words: Eastland Mall was a dump.

It was built as an open-air shopping center, and constructed cheaply in 1963 and '64 of dun-colored bricks and plain cement blocks --- so cheaply that (as recounted elsewhere on Tube City Online) the walls of the Gimbels store fell over while it was being built.

The "architecture" was boring to the point of being non-existent. A sawtooth roof over the third floor of Gimbels was the sole attempt at visual "interest." The rest of the mall was as charming as a juvenile detention center --- plain brick walls, flat metal awnings, and single-pane windows with flimsy aluminum trim that quickly pitted and turned gray.

They put a roof over Eastland after it burned in 1973. And the architect who oversaw the renovations, Ira Rubin, tried like hell to give the interior some visual interest by lining the ceiling with corrugated steel and leaving the support trusses exposed. The steel was painted in bright, bold shades of green and orange and the signs were redone in industrial-style stencil lettering.

Instead of making the newly-enclosed shopping concourse more playful and colorful, it looked like a damned bus garage. The metal ceiling made everything echo, and as it aged, it leaked. When they put tar on the roof, it dripped inside, leaving long black streaks on the metal panels.

. . .

After the big anchor stores left, the decline accelerated. Yes, when Benderson Development stopped performing any substantial maintenance a decade ago, things got much worse --- a building that isn't good to begin with falls apart in a hurry when you stop heating it in the wintertime, and when you let the water pour through the ceiling.

But trust me: Even when Penney's, Gimbels, Gee Bee and Woolworth were open, and the mall was at 90 percent capacity, it was a dump. I was there.

The sad truth about malls is there's not much you can do with them after they outlive their usefulness. There's nothing to "restore" and there's little to which they can be adapted. In fact, the proposed reuses for Eastland ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. At one point, I'm told some genius wanted to store old tires in the basement. Thank God the North Versailles fire marshal squelched that idea.

I get a little bit sick to my stomach every time some politician gets excited over a retail development, because no matter how nice it is, I can envision it looking like Eastland someday. Shopping centers: What a waste of money. What a waste of resources. Phooey.

. . .

Anyway, nobody should feel nostalgic for Eastland Mall.

So how come I felt so bad when I took that picture on Saturday afternoon?

Maybe I'm nostalgic for the shopping trips I took with my grandparents when I was a little kid. Grandma didn't walk very well, and even after Century III Mall opened, she preferred Eastland --- it was smaller and easier to get around.

Maybe I'm nostalgic for all of the movies I saw (practically the entire Walt Disney animated oeuvre, including Song of the South, up until 1984 or so) at the Eastland Theater, which actually was kind of a snazzy place. Eastland main auditorium was built at the tail-end of the 1960s vogue for super-wide screens, and the screen in Theater No. 1 was huge. (Theater No. 2, added later, wasn't quite as impressive, but the screen was still a darn sight larger than any modern multiplex's.)

Maybe I'm nostalgic for the Saturday and Sunday afternoons I whiled away as a teen-ager, when I'd hang out at the flea market with friends. We had a lot of fun picking through other people's junk and, frankly, making fun of the weirdos. (You know, I love the Mon Valley, but we are in no danger of running out of weirdos.)

. . .

Actually, I do kind of miss the theaters. The usher (a nice fellow who later worked up at Southland's multiplex) told us once that Eastland's were the largest operating movie screens in Western Pennsylvania, and I believe him --- outside of a drive-in, I've never seen movie screens as big as Eastland's.

Yeah, the seats were gross at the end, when they were holding the armrests together with duct tape, and the carpets smelled like old dogs and cigarette smoke, but the big screen in Theater No. 1 was still beautiful.

And the Eastland Theater set up one my best jokes (he said, humbly). Long after the theater closed, vandals got in and trashed the place, and one weekend when we walked around the parking lot we found the plastic letters from the marquee strewn everywhere. I slipped one of them into my jacket and took it home, the prank already germinating in my mind.

On Monday morning, I reported to work at the Daily News and was just waiting for my opening. Finally, Marie Havrilla, the wire editor, spoke up. "What did you do this weekend?" she asked me.

"I took a pee behind Eastland Mall," I said.

. . .

Marie didn't shock easily, but her mouth fell open. "Why the hell would you tell me that?" she said.

"Because you asked," I said. "In fact, I brought the pee with me to work. I want to show it to someone, because it's red." I thought she'd fall over.

And then I pulled the red plastic letter "P" from the Eastland marquee out of my briefcase, and I really thought she'd fall over.

Marie will be dead eight years next month, and I still miss her. My granddad has been dead more than a decade, and I miss him, too. I miss a lot of people, but I guess I'm lucky to have the memories, and I have a few tangible things, too. Like my red "P."

. . .

But I'm not going to get nostalgic for Eastland Mall. Good riddance, you festering pile of crud.

I only regret that your landlord waited so long to knock your vermin-infested, water-logged, rotten old walls down. Thanks, Benderson, for leaving your garbage pile on our community doorstep for so long. Property values in Crestas Terrace and Green Valley instantly tripled when the bulldozers tore apart the mall's last facade.

More pictures after the jump.

Eastland Mall parking lot, looking toward site of former Thorofare store and Woolworth



Former site of Eastland Theatre



Looking toward former site of J.C. Penney store



Overview of Eastland Mall site, with foundation of former Gimbels store in the center