Wilkinsburg Pennsylvania Archives

Update 9/24 – Just 24 hours left til the Kickstarter deadline and the artist needs to raise $12,000. Click here to go directly to the Kickstarter page for the House of Gold.

I learned about the House of Gold project over the summer and I wanted to share this Kicstarter project that only has a few more days to reach the funding goal. Artist Dee Briggs lives next door to this house on Swissvale avanue. Last year, Dee was able to purchase the house thanks to the Allegheny County Vacant Property Recovery program. This Kickstart project will help Dee deconstruct the house and re-imagine this site as a space for the community.

I think it is an important project for Wilkinsburg and Pittsburgh in general as it sparks a conversation about abandoned buildings. At one point in its history The House of Gold was a corner store – and hopefully will be replaced with a community space and coffee shop in the near future. This Kickstarter is a great way to help a motivated community member help to transform an abandoned property.

Here are a few of the reasons why I like this project and I think you should consider making a contribution to the House of Gold Kickstarter project…

A Gold House? Which is the perfect color for a building in a city that loves the color scheme of black and gold. I like the idea of using gold paint to show this abandoned house in a new light.
Telling the history of the house – take a few moments to check out the House of Gold website. The artist has put together an incredible history of the house and the people who used to live here.
Wilkinsburg – I have been driving down Penn Avenue for my entire life and most recently found myself wondering what would become of the Penn Lincoln Hotel. What once was a meeting place of people had been abandoned and in the past few weeks was torn down. How did a historic building, that was a thriving hub become a forgotten neighborhood? Check out some of these photos from AbadonedOnline.net of the Penn-Lincoln Hotel before it was demolished.
Gently demolition – take a moment to watch the Kickstarter video – it is worth the two minutes of your time, and Dee does a much better job of telling the story than I could here in a blog post. I really like the idea of gently and carefully dismantling this house. As much as I would love to save every old building in Allegheny county, some really do have to come down and the idea of carefully taking apart the building and separating out the historic pieces for reuse elsewhere, while reducing what would need to go into a landfill makes sense to me.