My Visit to the Living Dead Museum at the Monroeville Mall

On my way home from the Scares That Care convention in Williamsburg, Virginia, I took a few days off to visit some of the locations associated with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. This post deals with The Living Dead Museum. You can see the photos from the Night of the Living Dead post here and the photos from Dawn of the Dead Part I here and Part II here. 

Living Dead Museum

The Living Dead Museum used to be located in Evans City and was moved to the Monroeville Mall a few years ago. As you can see in the photo, there's a gift shop up front (I bought two t-shirts). There's a museum in back that is well worth the money. I'm only going to post photos of a few of the items in the museum so you'll have to check out the full exhibit for yourself. For more information on the the museum, click here.

This is the ammo belt warn by Sheriff Conan McClelland (George Kosana) during the final scenes of Night of the Living Dead. Kosana donated it to the museum in 2007

When the mall was renovated, all the lighting systems were replaced with modern fixtures. This is one of the original lights that was donated to the museum.

 

 

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the original escalator used for filming the shambling zombies caught on it was replaced during the renovation. A portion of that escalator now resides in the museum.

 

 

I was surprised but happy to find this. This is the original elevator used during the scene when Stephen is bitten and turned by zombies. When JC Penny was removed from its 1978 location and the area turned into a court, there was no longer a need for an elevator at this spot. The builders ripped out the entire shaft. The car and walls now sit in the museum.

 

 

The Maul of Fame

This is a tiled wall inside the museum that contains the "bloody" hand prints and autographs of numerous people related to George Romero's Living Dead movies. I'm posting some of my favorites.  

Russ "Johnny" Streiner from Night of the Living Dead.

Tom "head of the biker gang" Savini from Dawn of the Dead.

Bill "Johnny" Moseley from Night of the Living Dead (1990).

Kyra "Karen Cooper" Schon from Night of the Living Dead.

Lori "Sarah" Cardille from Day of the Dead.

Jim "helicopter zombie" Krut from Dawn of the Dead.

Last but definitely not least, the king of the living dead.

My Visit to the Dawn of the Dead Location Sites (Part II)

On my way home from the Scares That Care convention in Williamsburg, Virginia, I took a few days off to visit some of the locations associated with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. This post is the second part of the location sites from The Dawn of the Dead with accompanying shots from the movie. The Living Dead Museum will be included in the fourth post. You can see the photos from the Night of the Living Dead post here and the photos of Dawn of the Dead (Part I) here.

 

Monroeville Mall (Savini's biker gang attack)

Once our intrepid heroes close the mall and clean it out of the living dead, and deal with Roger who was bit during the securing of the facility, they settle down into a relatively normal lifestyle... until they're discovered by Tom Savini's biker gang who launch a raid on the building, This road by the southeast corner of the mall is the one used by the motorcycle gang as they descend on the mall. Notice the fire hydrant in the corner of each photograph.

The motorcycle gang descends on the southeast entrance, the same one that appeared in so many earlier scenes in the movie. [NOTE: The reason the gang used this entrance in the movie is because it was the only one in which the doors slid open to allow vehicles inside, allowing Savini's gang to "break in."]

The first location the gang arrives at is the water fountain, which was located at the opposite end of the mall and not by the southeast entrance. Since the filming of the movie, the fountain has been replaced by the play area and the escalator added.

One of the iconic scenes in the movie is when a zombie pulls Savini off the back of his motorcycle and Savini responds by cleaving his machete through its head. This is where that scene took place.

I found this fact fascinating and would not have known it if not for a store employee who told me about it. Naturalizer is the only store in the Monroeville Mall there during the filming that is still there today. It stands two doors down from the administration hall discussed in the last photo series. You can see Naturaluzer in the gunfight scenes between Peter and members of the biker gang. [NOTE: Of the 143 stores in the mall in 1978, thirteen refused to allow their store fronts to appear in the movie.]

This is the spot in the movie where Savini gets into the gun fight with Peter, who is hiding in the rafters and kills him.

In one of the more comical moments, the biker in a sombrero is taking his blood pressure when he's attacked by zombies, with particularly gory results. That scene was filmed under this escalator -- the same escalator that appeared in the first movie (see previous post).

Stephen meets his end when, after he is shot by the biker gang, he is trapped inside the elevator climbing to safety when the doors open and zombies bite him several times. When the elevator doors open a second time, Stephen has joined the ranks of the living dead. The elevator was removed when JC Penny was later closed and renovated. The elevator was originally located down this space where JC Penny used to stand and right near the theater (see my previous post).

Once Stephen is turned, his primordial memory leads him back to their quarters. The double doors to the left in the first photo are the ones closed off by the fake wall in the third photo.

The last set of photos will be published in the next day or two. They will be on the Living Dead Museum located in the mall.

My Visit to the Dawn of the Dead Location Sites (Part I)

On my way home from the Scares That Care convention in Williamsburg, Virginia, I took a few days off to visit some of the locations associated with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. This post has the location sites from The Dawn of the Dead with accompanying shots from the movie. The Living Dead Museum will be included in the fourth post. You can see the photos from the Night of the Living Dead post here.

 

Harry W. Brown Memorial Airfield

Once Peter, Roger, Stephen, and Francine escape Pittsburgh, they fly their helicopter to an airfield to refuel. The location is Harry W. Brown Memorial Airfield in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, only a few miles from the Monroeville Mall. The first photo is where the helicopter lands. The fuel pumps are no longer there (the piping is still visible) but it's easy to spot the location by the landing light. 

 

Off to the right of the gas pumps along the edge of the cement landing pad is where the helicopter zombie attacks Peter while he's refueling and gets the top of its skull chopped off by the blades. This is where the scene was filmed. I could not line up the scene exactly because the fence was in the way.

As Roger dealt with the helicopter zombie, Peter checked out the airport office where he had to contend with two child zombies and the lumberjack zombie. The office is closed so all I could take photos of was the exterior of the building from the other side of the fence.

 

After refueling, Roger flies the helicopter over the nearby landscape where rednecks and National Guardsmen are hunting down the living dead. This house appears in the background of several of those scenes. This house is less than a mile from the airport. 

Monroeville Mall

 

The next and final stop for the helicopter is the Monroeville Mall where the rest of the movie takes place. A lot of changes have occurred, but many of the iconic locations remain.

Stephen lands the helicopter on the roof. To the left, behind the trees, are the air ventilation units. In the background of the first picture, just to the left of the Monroeville mall sign, you can see the tops of the pyramid-shaped skylights our heroes use to enter the mall.

Once in the mall, Peter and Roger follow a service corridor leading to the generator room. As they switch on the power, the mall comes to life. Among the various scenes of zombies roaming through the building are those stuck on the elevator when it begins moving and stumbling about and the living dead shambling by the clock tower, which no longer exists. This escalator is not the original although it stands at the exact location. The area that once contained the clock tower is now home to the memorial statue to George Romero. 

After restoring power, Peter and Roger make their way to a hall that leads to the main part of the mall where they run into the first of the zombies.

Peter and Roger make their way to JC Penny where they struggle to open the sliding glass doors to enter the store before they are overrun by zombies. Penny has since moved, most of the store space has been converted into the opening pictured below, and the sliding doors removed. The two supports on either side of the photo are the anchors for the front of the old store. You can see the right support in the third photo to Peter's left.

Several scenes in the movie take place on the skating rink. The rink is long gone and has been replaced by the food court and the short corridor extending to the mall. In the far background you can see H&M, which used to be the first floor of JC Penny during the filming of the movie. According to a mall security guard I chatted with, the rink was never torn up; instead, the food court was constructed over it.

The next step to securing the mall was retrieving the BP trucks from a nearby site, using them to block the doors, and then locking down the mall. Most of those scenes were filmed at the entrance near the southeast corner of the mall. This entrance would also be extensively used in the scenes where the biker gang raids the mall (which will be covered in Part II). The window on the lower right portion of the first photo, and the far right portion of the second photo, was where the topless chubby zombie was shoving his stomach against the glass.

Look for part two of this post in the next couple of days in which I show the sites related to the biker attack on the mall.