Crime of the Century Pt 1: The Beginning

Join me on a three part journey chronicling the history, downfall, and destruction of one of the pioneers of the shopping mall experiment.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ground zero for the United States steel industry. It is here, where one of America’s most prolific shopping centers would be built, and for a time, stake the claim of the third largest shopping center in the country. Today, that mall is virtually a wasteland, brought down by slumlords and ripped apart by vandals and wannabe UrbEx influencers. The end may finally be imminent, but first we want to rewind back to the beginning.

That mall would come to be known as Century III Mall. Developed by Youngstown, OH based Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation, the center was construction on a plot of land owned by United States Steel as a slag dump. Slag is a by-product of the smelting process of ores and recycled metals. It was here, in suburban West Mifflin, that the slag was dumped off by special rail cars coming from the steel mills. Over the years, the material piled up as a man-made mountainous feature overlooking the land. Known locally as Brown’s Dump, US Steel wanted to turn the land into something more productive for the community by the turn of the 70s. Starting in 1969, USS Realty Corporation, a subsidiary of US Steel, started clearing land and developments sprang up in the area.

Brown’s Dump, circa 1990. Century III Mall is just out of frame to the right. Photo courtesy of brooklineconnection.com

Slag is shown being dumped at Brown’s Dump by special ladle cars. Photo courtesy of brooklineconnection.com

By 1976, DeBartolo partnered with USS Realty in the development of a 1.6 million square foot shopping mall, that would cost around $100 million to build. The name, Century III was chosen to reflect the nation’s recent bicentennial, the dawn of America’s third century. Construction would proceed over the next three years.

C-III under construction. Photos courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The mall opened in two phases. The first, featuring 75 stores as well as anchors JCPenney and Kaufmann’s opened on Wednesday October 24th, 1979. The Kaufmann’s was the Pittsburgh based chain’s fourth location, and clocked in at 121,300 square feet. JCPenney was larger, at just over 173k square feet, featuring an on site automotive center. Phase Two, featuring the mall’s food court dubbed “The Courtyard”, the remainder of the tenant lineup, as well as anchor Montgomery Ward, opened March 12th, 1980. Final anchors Sears and Gimbels would open by October. Sears and Montgomery Ward both featured on site auto centers, along with a full range of merchandise. Sears was the largest anchor of the mall, at 231,000 square feet of space. A large parking deck was built along the eastern side of the mall, starting from Kaufmann’s and wrapping around Sears and Wards to just east of the Gimbels store. This allowed for ample parking on the side of the property jutting up against the slag hill to the east. The mall itself was two levels, with a third level at the Sears and Wards end of the mall. It was at this apex, where the mall’s architecture really came to shine, with ramps, staircases and fountains in place, as well as a full length zig-zag patterned mirror along the west wall of Level 3.

Full page ad showing the full floor plan and tenant list at the opening of Phase Two. Courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Century III was the new kid on the block, and packed a punch almost immediately. The 80s were the prime years for the new shopping center, which was the largest in the Pittsburgh area at the time. Many nearby businesses used the mall as a directional reference, and some touted their proximity to the shopping mecca.

Throughout the complex was the brutalist achitecture that DeBartolo was known for, as well as several 1970s features such as fountains, wooden handrails, conversational seating areas, lush trees, mirrors and disco style lighting. The central atrium of the mall featured a grand stage in the middle fronting Kaufmann’s, and a circular fountain on the end closest to the elevator. Finally, a sculpture adjacent to the escalators on the north end of the atrium rounded out the proceedings. This sculpture was called “Pittsburgh Reflections”, designed by local artist H. Douglas Pickering.

The center atrium of the mall, featuring Pittsburgh Reflections. Photo courtesy of The Westinghouse Corporation and shared by Pittsburgh Magazine.

The only change to the mall early on, was the closure of Montgomery Ward in 1986 after then owners Mobil Corporation decided to leave the Pittsburgh market. It was reoccupied, minus the auto center, as the newest location of Pittsburgh based Joseph Horne Company. 1988 saw the closure of Gimbels, whose owner, the American arm of BATUS(British American Tabacco) shut the chain down amid their bankruptcy. By the turn of the 90’s the story would turn grim, but I’ll save that part of the story for another day. In the meantime, enjoy the following photos of Century III in its prime, when malls ruled the scene and Pittsburgh was riding high before an inevitble economic shakeup would bring it all crumbling down.

Looking at the newly christened C-III. Photo courtesy of The Westinghouse Corporation, and featured by Pittsburgh Magazine.

Various black and white shots of the mall’s interior, courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Color photographs courtesy of C3 Nostalgia

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