After a 30-day engagement and marriage in 1974, I was about to meet the relatives. The wife’s aunts and uncles were siting around the kitchen table mired in a heated discussion. They glanced up and greeted me and returned to the subject matter at hand: “We don’t need no damned Frazer Mall.”

Coming from the South Hills, where the Century III Mall was under construction, South Hills Village was a go-to place and Southland Shopping Center was where I went on dates to sample a variety of stores, I was surprised at the emotions displayed. Weren’t malls the way of the future?

These people were correct. It wasn’t needed or wanted. Stores opened and closed in rapid fashion. The parking lots — “pave and they will come” — went into disrepair. Restaurants of the periphery flourished but the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills proper floundered.

I always thought the Mills needed a second level or a layout like West View Park, a way of funneling people into a common meeting area. The Mills patrons were left to wander about without a place to gather. Now it’s just a place to walk for exercise.

Will it be razed and reclaimed by all the displaced animals? The relatives were seers: “We don’t need no damned Frazer Mall.”

Rob Trappen

Arnold

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