Jaison's department store once anchored one end of McKeesport's main street, Fifth Avenue.

It's an empty lot now, some yellow dirt bordered by the ragged brick and mortar of the building next door. "No trespassing," reads the banner in front. "Violators will be prosecuted."

The building was demolished in January — its "J" sent to the local historical society, and the 15-block stretch of what once was a bustling shopping destination now filled mostly by empty storefronts, vacant lots and a handful of small businesses.

This is the story of ghosts — the ghosts of a city's main street.

McKeesport is the second largest city in Allegheny County and sits at the confluence of two rivers, making it ripe for renewal. Revival has unfolded along the city's perimeter, but redevelopment along McKeesport’s Fifth Avenue has been slow to come. Activity is beginning to sprout in the 300 block, led chiefly by Murrysville real estate developer Jonathan Stark working with city and county officials.

"There's already some small activity going on — people walking around," Mayor Michael E. Cherepko said. "That, to me, was unbelievably satisfying."

McKeesport suffers from the same problems as other Monongahela Valley communities — the collapse of the steel industry that was the linchpin of the local economy, leading to a massive exodus of people and subsequent poverty. In McKeesport, the economic base was built on its steel tube and pipe manufacturing plant, the world's largest producer of tubular goods at one time, employing more than 9,000 workers at its height and giving its hometown the nickname of “Tube City.” The plant closed in 1987.

The population fell from a high of 55,355 in 1940 to an estimated 17,493 in 2021, according to the U.S. Census. The people who remain are disproportionately poor. McKeesport has a median household income of $28,881, compared to Pittsburgh's $50,536, and 30.3% of its residents live in poverty, according to the census bureau.

As with main streets nationwide, Fifth Avenue also suffered from the shift of the population to the suburbs, the rise of regional malls and the closing of family-run businesses when their owners retired.

But Mr. Stark and Mr. Cherepko point to other factors that also sapped Fifth Avenue of energy:

• The construction of Lysle Boulevard in 1938, which runs parallel to Fifth and is closer to the Monongahela River, created potent competition for the older street. Now, businesses that might once have faced Fifth, like Rite Aid and Dollar General, face Lysle. Some businesses on Lysle demolished parts of Fifth to make parking lots. And Lysle, with its high-speed five lanes of traffic, discourages pedestrian traffic.
• Many property owners along Fifth allowed their buildings to remain unoccupied and deteriorating until they were unsalvageable. The city is trying to raze these, leaving spots like the north side of the 500 block almost entirely leveled.

The beginning of the end for Fifth Avenue as a shopping destination dates to 1976. In that year, a spark ignited on the roof of The Famous department store at Fifth Avenue and Market Street. Fifty-mile-an-hour winds swept the blaze to neighboring structures, incinerating seven buildings.

The conflagration only emphasized the beginning of McKeesport's decline — The Famous was already out of business when the fire started.

More Fifth Avenue retail closings followed:

• Henry B. Klein men's clothing, 1111 Fifth Ave., circa 1981
• Cox's department store, 300 block of Fifth Ave., 1982
• S & S Shoe Store, Gene's Beauty World, Gene's Hallmark Shop and Jaison's, 200 block of Fifth, 1985
• G.C. Murphy Co., 531-535 Fifth Ave., 1985
• David Israel men's clothing, 507 Fifth Ave., 1991
• Helmstadter Bros. clothing, 519 Fifth Ave., 1995
• Kadar Men's and Young Men's Apparel, 320 Fifth Ave., and Rubenstein Shoes, 316 Fifth Ave., 2001

Commercial activity moved to the city's edges along Eden Park Boulevard, Lysle Boulevard and Walnut Street.

Today, the structure with arguably the best-maintained exterior and landscaping is occupied by the Social Security Administration. 

A look back a hundred years shows how drastically Fifth Avenue has changed.

Jaison's department store and Green's variety store took up much of the 200 block. A hundred years ago, tens of small businesses and the Dreamland Theater also called the 200 block home.

The parking lot at the corner of Fifth and Walnut used to be the flagship Cox's department store, a beloved city landmark. Its facade was made of blue tile with chrome trim except for the first level, which was entirely made up of showcase windows, and two windowed display boxes cut into the corner that faced Fifth and Walnut. Cox's started as an 1884 seamstress shop on Fifth and developed into a department store in 1955. At one time, the retailer had six mall locations. The Fifth Avenue building was demolished in 1994.

Two other local clothing stores rounded out the 300 block of Fifth Avenue: Immel's at 318 and Kadar's at 320.

This block retains some of its former liveliness with several small shops, some of them new, especially in the Executive Building: Marva Jo's Sea & Soulfood, Guilty Pleasure Nutrition protein smoothies, Cafe Hibiscus teas, Daneb's House of Styles and CynCityCutz barber shop. Building owner Jonathan Stark has leased all the space in the Executive Building's first floor and expects an Inferno Pizza shop to open later this year. He is charging tenants $11 per square foot, utilities included, he said.

Several Allegheny County offices also attract people to the street.

The ill-fated Midtown Plaza mall was built in 1976 along both sides of Fifth Avenue to revive retail along Fifth Avenue by putting a mall on the main street. A parking lot deck crossed over the street, joining the buildings. After rain water in 1981 leaked from the parking garage into the shops' ceilings, ruining their stock, and the utility company shut off the gas to the mall from August to October 1990, many tenants left. Shop owners also complained that poor lighting at the mall entrance attracted loiterers and made shoppers feel unsafe.

The present owner of the first floor of the Midtown Plaza buildings and the parking garage, Pittsburgh-based developer Barry L. Stein, bought the property at a sheriff's sale in 2003 and had the parking lot deck removed. The shops are still vacant and have not been renovated, but he said he continues to try to get tenants and will renovate once he gets them. "I’m working very hard on leasing," he said. He and the mayor described their relationship in adversarial terms.

Balsamo's market, the city's first supermarket, stood at the corner of Fifth and Sinclair. It closed in 1974, according to "Images of America: McKeesport," a 2007 book by McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center volunteers.

The 500 block of Fifth Avenue once contained five cinemas — the Liberty, the Lyric, the Globe, the Capitol and the Victor theaters.

George C. Murphy opened his first eponymous variety store on this block in 1906 at Fifth Avenue and Sheridan Street in McKeesport. By 1976, the chain had expanded to a high of 545 stores nationwide. It was sold to Ames in 1985 and the Fifth Avenue store closed Christmas Eve of that year.

Helmstadter's department store, 519 Fifth Ave., once boasted, "If you can't find it, go to Helmstadter's." Two brothers founded the store in 1905, and the sons of one of the founders ran it until 1995, when they closed the store.

The David Israel men's clothing store, 507 Fifth Ave., closed in 1991 after 72 years in business when one of the owners wanted to retire.

Most of the block, except the former G.C. Murphy's headquarters, is slated for demolition, and some of the block came down on June 23.

The buildings on these two blocks on the south side of the street were demolished sometime between 1959 and 1969 and the site was then used for parking. Along with the buildings, Wylie Way, which used to intersect Fifth Avenue between the 600 and 700 blocks, and Ryan Alley, which used to intersect Fifth just west of Coursin Street, have also disappeared.

A Sheraton Inn hotel replaced the original buildings on the north side of the 600 block of Fifth, but the hotel had its back to Fifth and faced Lysle, as does the Dollar General next door. The hotel is now the Senior Care Plaza.

A hundred years ago, these blocks comprised a mix of small businesses.

The Shop 'n Save grocery has replaced the original buildings in the 800 block on Fifth. The store takes up the 800 block with Fifth to the south, Lysle to the north and Coursin Street on the west and faces Coursin.

Lico Inc., at 929 Fifth, a janitorial supply company, is one of the few stores that has lasted 100 years. Sam and Stanley Lichtenstein, the grandson and son of the founder, respectively, now run the business.

The Minerva Bakery at 927 Fifth opened in 1923, so it is coming up on its centennial.

These blocks used to consist mostly of small, one-person businesses, but one major retailer made this stretch of the street its home — Henry B. Klein clothing, 1111 Fifth Ave. "McKeesport's Finest Store for Men," ads boasted. "Nothing but the best for you." The store opened in 1910 and closed around 1981.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., known as A&P later, started in 1859 and was the largest grocery retailer by 1975. In 1922, it had three stores along Fifth Avenue, at 226, 734 and 1327.

These blocks, like the previous ones, had a mix of small businesses in 1922. Now they are mostly health-care related businesses and offices.

This block has been the location of the McKeesport Hospital, now UPMC McKeesport, for more than a century. In 1922, the hospital complex included a nurses' training school and a tuberculosis "dispensary," which provided the little help that medical science could offer TB sufferers at the time — a spittoon, instruction on how to prevent the spread of the disease, and sometimes bedding and laundry service. TB is an airborne bacterial infection that generally attacks the lungs and, if untreated, kills about half of those people who contract it.

Through McKeesport Rising, a public-private partnership, Mayor Cherepko hopes to bulldoze blighted structures and make parcels along Fifth ready for redevelopment. To that end, the city is fining and suing property owners whose buildings have long stood vacant.

"Who wants to be next to a dilapidated building?" he asked rhetorically. "It's not appealing. That shows you ... the city is dying. ... Blight is like a cancer that slowly demoralizes people."

He said he's encouraged by the expansion of Quincy, Fla.-based Trulieve Cannabis Corp., a medical marijuana manufacturer and seller, in the RIDC Industrial Center where National Tube used to stand along the Monongahela River. He also pointed to the opening of a refurbished McKeesport Transportation Center for public buses along Lysle Boulevard. The center was rededicated in March.

The city plans to rehabilitate a parking garage on Lysle and in 2017 bought the old McKeesport Daily News building for $1 from Trib Total Media.

Even local historian and journalist Jason Togyer agrees that demolition is necessary. "It literally is cheaper to tear it (a dilapidated building) down" than to rehab it, he said, enumerating the many upgrades that old buildings require to meet current standards. These include installing air conditioning, Wi-Fi and disability accommodations as well as getting rid of asbestos, lead and mold.

He described going through a former G.C. Murphy office building in the 500 block of Fifth and seeing a cardboard cross that an employee had made with the words "God save G.C. Murphy Co." written on it in marker.

"I just wanted to cry," he said. "It had been hanging there for 40 years."

He also saw a store planning calendar on the wall with all of 1986 empty of promotional plans. Ames Department Stores bought Murphy's in 1985 and almost immediately sold or closed more than 100 stores including the one in McKeesport.

"Windows were broken and the ceiling was down, but the store planning calendar was still there," he said. "All these ghosts. I really was hoping to save something, but it was so far gone. There comes a point where you just can't save it."

Developer Jonathan Stark's plans for the former People's Bank of McKeesport building at 301 Fifth Ave. could also bring more people to the former main street. Mr. Stark is renovating the building, which has retained 16 of its 32 silver teller stations, its white Carrara and green Italian marble floors and walls, original mahogany doors and brass fixtures, and an ornate original safe in the basement. Mr. Stark has applied to have the building designated a National Historic Landmark.

Reviving Fifth Avenue depends on having destinations that attract people, Mr. Stark said. Once those destinations are in place, other retail with follow.

"You're not going to see a big shopping district" on Fifth, Mr. Cherepko said. "That part is gone. But it's going to flourish in a different way."

Laura Malt Schneiderman, lschneiderman@post-gazette.com

Correction, posted July 18, 2022: The Famous department store building was being renovated, not being demolished, when it caught fire.

Correction, posted July 22, 2022: John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon were congressmen, not senators, when they debated in McKeesport in 1947.

Correction, posted July 22, 2022: The spelling of Jason Togyer's name has been corrected.