The Jenkins Arcade, early prototype mall in Pittsburgh

[TheFugitive]

The Jenkins Arcade was an early proto-mall in downtown Pittsburgh that was located on Stanwix Street next to what was then the Joseph Horne Department Store.  Opened in 1911 it's bottom three stories were a long, thin, open public area with shops located all along both sides.  There was a ground floor below two mezzanine levels which looked down below.  The interior looked very much like a latter day mall (though skinny, with just the single direction layout running the length of the building).

https://brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/Jenkins.html

The Jenkins Arcade was still around when I was a kid.  I remember buying Steelers paraphernalia from one of the shops in the arcade back when they were winning all of those Super Bowls.  It contained a barber shop, a couple of jewelers, a ladies' undergarment store, a well-remembered store that sold buttons and sewing notions, a news stand, and various other shops and restaurants.  It's upper floors were filled with office space that was primarily occupied by dentists. (My grandmother worked here as a dental assistant during the Depression, and the dentist who had employed her was still in practice there in the 70's.  I also had some very unfortunate oral surgery in this building as a teenager).

The Jenkins Arcade was demolished in 1984 over howls of protests from historic preservationists.  It was replaced by Fifth Avenue Place, which is the headquarters building for Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  They added a couple of floors of retail space in this building to try and recapture the spirit of the old arcade, but it just wasn't the same.  It does not have anything close to that floor traffic, I think mainly because the long and skinny design of the old arcade allowed you to escape the weather for more than a city block if you were waking your way from Hornes back towards Gimbels and Kaufmanns. I'm sure that those shops on the ground floor sold more than a few items to people who were just looking to escape the rain or winter cold while roaming about downtown.

When you look at old pictures you can see how the design of this place previewed what you were going to see in malls five or six decades later.

[TheFugitive]

A picture I found of the entrance to the Jenkins Arcade during the Great St. Patrick's Day Flood of 1936.