Monroeville Mall Trivia Quiz

Answer: Harper's Mine

Harper's Mine was a strip mine. In the Thirties, people who worked on the land mined, not shop like we do in the Twenty-First Century. They could have built Three Rivers Stadium where the mall is.

Answer: Oxford Development Company

That company is a real estate firm based in Pittsburgh, and construction lasted from 1967 to 1969. The mine was demolished so that they could build the mall on a 110-acre lot.

Answer: 1969

When the building opened, it was the largest indoor mall in the United States at 1.13 million square feet.

Answer: All of these

Eventually, Lazarus would replace Horne's after Federated Department Stores terminated Horne's in 1994. In 1986, many of the Gimbel's locations in the Pittsburgh area were sold to Kaufmann's.

Answer: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

The film was directed by George Romero, who was born in New York City. At the time of filming, the mall housed 143 stores on two levels, including the East Coast's first ever ice skating rink in a mall called the Monroeville Ice Palace as well as a parking lot that had 6500 spaces.

There was a three-week hiatus from filming in December because Romero didn't want his crew to remove the decorations for filming and put them back up every night.

Once filming continued, the crew began work at 11:00 P.M. and ended when the automated music came on at 7:00 A.M. Pretty much all of the 143 tenants allowed full use of their stores, except for the bank and the jewelry store (which required supervision by security.) Only thirteen tenants refused to let the crew include their stores in the motion picture.

You will see Roger slide down the middle of the escalator inside Penneys. Definitely DO NOT (repeat, DO NOT) try this when you visit the mall. There are gut-eating scenes, and there is no escaping the zombies. Roger also climbed from inside the elevator to the top of it.

Answer: Gimbels

It happened in the Pittsburgh area. Even the Century III Mall in Pittsburgh did this, and the same happened at South Hills Village in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

Gimbels wasn't replaced by Kaufmann's at Century III Mall because that department store was already there.

Answer: Joseph Horne Company

Horne's had the mall's largest space from 1969 to 1994. On the opposite side in front of the clock tower was Gimbels. JCPenney is in the rear of the building, and its doors face the annex.

Gimbels faced William Penn Highway, but Horne's had the space that faces the steep hill.

Answer: All of the above

From 2003 to 2005, the Lazarus space was occupied by Lazarus-Macy's. The building that has housed Horne's, Lazarus, Lazarus-Macy's, and Macy's had a three-floor store.

Answer: Food Court

In 1984, the Ice Palace was removed so that it could have a food court, which still exists today. The Ice Palace was the first ice skating rink inside an enclosed shopping mall in the East Coast of the United States.

Answer: All of the choices

From 2003 to 2005, the Lazarus space was occupied by Lazarus-Macy's, and then Macy's took over the mall's biggest store.

Macy's (240,526 square feet) Formerly Horne's, Lazarus, Lazarus-Macy's
Boscov's (234,538 square feet) Formerly Gimbels and Kaufmann's
JCPenney (210,467 square feet) Came from Miracle Mile Shopping Center

In 2006, Boscov's replaced Kaufmann's. On the opposite side, the mall took the water fountain out of the mall to be replaced by a play area for children called Mister Rogers' Neighborhood Playspace, which opened for the children under forty-six inches tall in 2004.

Two years earlier, CBL Associates & Properties, Inc., decided to buy the ownership of the mall for $232 million. They also own Westmoreland Mall in Greensburg, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Shortly after CBL bought the Monroeville Mall, the renovation began, adding an open-air courtyard of stores. The renovation allowed the mall to compete against the newer, more luxurious shopping malls in the Pittsburgh area.