First off let me say that when I plan on doing an article I come prepared and get all the shots at the exact same angles shot in the film. This has been the quality I'm sure you have all come to expect from me. Well this time is a bit different. I didn't exactly plan on doing a Dawn of the Dead article just yet but I was asked to for this issue. I have visited the mall three times, first in 1992, then in 2002 and most recently during HorrorHound Weekend in July 2008. I felt that with the photos I had taken during all three trips I had enough to make this article happen. I did but I will say it was the most frustrating article yet. I literally had to watch the film and match up my photos as best I could with scenes from the movie. This was a lot harder than I expected and ultimately we end up with an article that doesn't live up to my normal standards. However I still feel it works well enough to do the job but don't worry HHG faithful, Sean hasn't started slacking. So let's get to it.
In 1974 writer/director George A. Romero was invited to visit the Monroeville Mall by Mark Mason a friend and former classmate at Carnegie Mellon. Mason worked for The Oxford Development Company who at the time managed the mall. Romero was given a full tour of the mall during which Mason jokingly suggested that it would be a great place to hold up during an emergency because they had everything they could possibly need. This comment immediately got George thinking and soon after began writing the script for Dawn of the Dead.
Romero and his producing partner, Richard P. Rubinstein, were unable to procure any domestic investors for the new project. By chance, word of the sequel reached Italian horror director Dario Argento. A fan of Night of the Living Dead, Argento was eager to invest in a sequel. Argento raised the funds to produce the film in exchange for international distribution rights as well as final cut of the European version of the film.
Romero was able to secure the availability of Monroeville Mall as well as additional financing through his connections with the mall's owners at Oxford Development. Principal photography began in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 13, 1977 and ended in February of 1978.
We begin at the television station that Fran is working at WGON-TV. Which in reality is Fox 53 WPGH / WB22 WBWC located at 750 Ivory Avenue in Pittsburgh, PA. I have seen recent interior photos of the studio taken by a fan and it doesn't look the same at all. After seeing those pictures I didn't feel it was worth the effort to try and get in to take new photos.
The apartment building where the S.W.A.T. team fights off the zombie outbreak.
The building is located at 247 Fort Pitt Boulevard in downtown Pittsburgh, PA. This was the home of Latent Image, George's old company. The interior of the elevator shaft in JC Penny's was actually shot in the elevator shaft of this building.
The room Fran, Peter, Roger and Flyboy hold up in above the mall was a set built in on one of the upper floors at this building.
I was unable to get into the building myself when I was in town but a friend of mine did and sent me photos of the rooftop that looked exactly the same as it did during the shootout scene in the opening of the film. What else was shot there I am not 100% clear on. An interesting note is that the basement of this building was used as the basement of the house in the original Night of the Living Dead. He also sent me pictures of this and it looked almost exactly the same. Thanks to Travis Davidson for this information.
The docks where they meet up with Roger and Peter was filmed at the end of South 6th Street off of Bingham Street near the Liberty Bridge in Pittsburgh, PA. There isn't much to see there anymore since the docks are gone and the shore has eroded away. The entire area is now overgrown with brush.
At the corner of Logan's Ferry Road and Airport Road in Monroeville, PA. is where all the military were parked along the road.
Just down Logan's Ferry Road is a little dirt road turn off that leads to the Harold W. Brown Memorial Airfield. This little dirt road doesn't have a name but you can't miss the big sign for the airfield.
As you can see the gas pumps are no longer there but the concrete slab where the helicopter landed is.
One of the rows of hangers is no longer there.
The building Peter enters hasn't changed much at all in 30+ years. I wasn't able to get into the building myself but a friend of mine did and sent me a couple of photos to use for this article. I'd like to thank Andrew Santiago for the interior photos.
The door the zombie children played by Tom Savini's nephew and niece appeared from.
Next we head over to the meat and potatoes of this article, the mall! The Monroeville Mall is located at 200 Monroeville Mall, Monroeville, PA. Visit www.monroevillemall.com for more info. There is a current map of the mall featured on this website that lists store locations by number. I will be referencing some of those numbers in this article. I have also included an original map from 1978.
When I first visited the mall back in 1993 it pretty much looked exactly like it did in 1978. The clock tower was gone as was the ice skating rink but other wise it had all of the iconic fountains and such that once gave this mall it's personality. Sadly sometime between 2002 and 2008 they build a bunch of new stores outside the front main entrance of the mall. This new section can be seen on the upper level mall map stores 701, 703, 704, 705, 706, 707, 709, 713 and the Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
Sadly with this new construction we lost one of the entrances they used in the film to block with the trucks. This was the first entrance they block that was out in front of the former Equibank.
The location where Peter and Roger get the trucks was the old B & P Motor Express which stands for Baltimore and Pittsburgh Motor Express. B & P was a local transportation company in the 1970's. The company went bankrupt in the early 1980's. Located at 75 Billot Avenue, Irwin PA. the old B&P terminal is now occupied by two separate businesses the Goodwill Auto Auction and Laidlaw.
Now back to the mall. The helicopter lands on the roof of the Monroeville Mall. This is an area that is off limits to the public but I was lucky enough to get to check it out during my trip in 2008. The pyramid shaped sky lights have been replaced with a rounded version that looks like one long window rather than several pyramid shaped ones.
One thing I give Monroeville Mall a lot of credit for is embracing the fact that Dawn of the Dead was filmed there. When you visit 99% of practical filming locations there is never anything letting the casual passer by know its history. Well just across from store #283 there is a little section with a plaque and pictures from the film.
It wasn't opened when I was last there in July of 2008 but as of October 2008 the guys who run Time and Space Toys have opened a Dawn of the Dead museum at the mall. Check out their website for more details. http://www.monroevillezombies.com/ Who knows, maybe this article will get framed and displayed in there... nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Come on guys throw me a bone!
In the film they made it appear that the gun shop was inside the mall. Unfortunately the mall didn't have a gun shop and still today most malls don't. So they filmed it at a store called Firearms Unlimited located in the East Liberty district of Pittsburgh. Today there is still a Firearms Unlimited in business located at 1190 Washington Pike, Bridgeville, PA 15017 but I have no idea if this is the same location or not. I was told the original location was long gone.
On the lower level inside the mall in front of the entrance to what is now Boscov's is where the clock tower was once located. The department store was called Kaufman's when I visited in 1993 and it was Gimbel's during filming in 1978.
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This is also where the screening of Dawn of the Dead was shown during HorrorHound weekend in 2008. Right near there was one of two sets of stairs that were in the exact same spot on each end of the mall and prominently featured in the film. Sadly today those stairs have been replaced with new escalators as seen in the 2008 picture above. I'm not exactly sure when they were added but the stairs were still there when I visited in 2002.
If you head over to the left of the main entrance to Boscov's on the lower level you will see the hallway and glass doors where the bikers broke into the mall.
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Also on this side of the mall is one of the only remaining pieces from the 1978 mall design and that is a little bridge and coy pond. It has changed a bit since 1978. They made the area surrounding the bridge smaller but at least it's still there.
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Later Michael "Hare Krishna Zombie" Christopher and I meditated on the bridge for a while.
The road that the bikers come down is still there and located behind the mall.
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On the complete opposite end of the mall is the Macy's department store. It was Lazarus in 2002 and Horne's in 1993 as it was during filming in 1978. It was inside the mall on the lower level in front of this department store where the Fountain Court was located. When I first visited in 1993 the fountain was there but it was covered with a temporary stage. When I returned in 2002 it was there but someone was sitting in it working on it. Today it is gone.
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On this side of the mall there is another hallway that was used in the film where they were driving the car to lock the doors.
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Just like the other side of the mall the stairs were removed and an escalator installed. There was also another bridge and coy pond but this one has since been removed. In the film this is where the car was parked that they used to drive through the mall.
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Now we head to the center of the mall. On the lower level just across from the main entrance to JC Penny's is where the ice skating rink once stood. Today it is the location of the food court. I'm not exactly sure what year the ice rink was removed but the food court was already in it's place when I first visited back in 1993.
Right here in the center of the mall is where the two escalators have always been located right in front of JC Penny's. There also used to be a fountain next to one of them.
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On the upper level in front of JC Penny's is where Peter delivers his famous speech, "When there's no more room in Hell the dead will walk the Earth."
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Just across from there on the upper level was the location of the bank that in 1978 was known as Equibank. In 1993 it was Integra Bank. Stores 227 & 225 on the modern map it where it used to be. It still has the same pillars inside the store.
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Next we head inside JC Penny's. For the most part the people that run Monroeville Mall are very cool to fans that visit the mall and take photos and such. The only real exception is JC Penny's. They are their own department store and don't seem to welcome the fans quite as much so try and be discrete when taking picture inside the store. On the upper level is the elevator entrance where Flyboy first appears in zombie form.
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The interior of the elevator was used in the film. When my friends and I first visited the mall in 1993 we reenacted scenes pretending to be zombies attacking Flyboy and the JC Penny's employees yelled at us for it. I'm sorry but it was worth it!
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On the lower level is where the zombie's entered the elevator an attacked Flyboy. The lower level has a hall way that leads to the elevator.
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The escalator inside JC Penny's is famous for the scene where Roger slides down the center of it. On one of the audio commentaries someone mentions this and says because of that they installed bumps down the center so you can't do it anymore. Well that isn't true. As of July 2008 there still isn't anything to prevent you from taking the ride yourself, however you might get asked to leave the store immediately afterwards.
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In between Macy's and JC Penny's on the upper level is the hallway that led to their hideout. On the modern map it is in between store #215 & 217. Just in front of this hallway is where Peter shoots Blades and he falls off the top level and down into the fountain below. The fountain was still present when I was there in 2002 but was removed sometime after. You can see in the 2008 picture below the different tiles surrounding the kiosk where the fountain once stood.
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You head down the hall in between stores #215 & 217 on the upper level and just after the Men's restroom on the right hand side there is a double door that leads behind the stores. Just past that on the left hand side is the nursery that the crew used as their wardrobe and make-up department during filming.
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In this particular hallway behind the stores they only lead into those specific stores. In the film one door appeared to lead to a staircase that led up to the room they lived in. As stated before that room was at an entirely different location, however the staircase is located in the mall in an off limits area.
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From the door looking down the hallway in the other direction.
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In the film they also made it appear that one of those doors led into the boiler room which it does not. The boiler room is located in an off limits section of the mall.
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The office inside of the boiler room has barely changed over the years.
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Romero says that the people roaming the malls are much like the zombies portrayed in the film. That we are creatures of habit and drawn to consumerism. But why do WE go there? Why do fans of this film travel from all over the world to visit this place? I say it's nostalgia even though we may had never actually been there. Seeing the film at a certain time in our lives made it a big part of our lives. I leave you with this quote from the film. "They're after the place. They don't know why, they just remember... remember that they want to be in here." -
Sean Clark
