Old is not Scary

Meghan Leinbach and Ashley Noia are interns with YPA this summer. They were asked to write their impressions of historic preservation for YPA's blog. In the photo at left, Ashley (far right) and Meghan meet with the Mayor of Braddock, John Fetterman.

Meghan's blog entry is below.

The first time I went to Homestead was by mistake. A freshman at Pitt, just trying to get to Target to buy some easy mac, I took the 61C and just never got off. I ended up somewhere on Eighth Avenue and was left to wander the streets in attempts to find a way back to the Waterfront. Too scared to ask for help, I followed the train tracks back. At the time, all I wanted to do was get away from the abandoned buildings and forgotten empty lots and back to the safe space of the Waterfront. My eighteen-year-old self just wanted to be near the familiar chain stores that I was raised on and escape the streets that I was warned to stay away from.

Homestead did not make a good first impression on me. And why would it? As a non-native to Pittsburgh, I knew nothing about the decline of the steel industry and the destruction of communities that the mill closings caused. The formerly thriving neighborhood was now abandoned due in part to the opening of the stores that I visited in the Waterfront. I did not see the worth in historic Eight Avenue; all I saw were abandoned buildings.

Since my freshman experience in Homestead, I’ve visited all the neighborhoods I was warned to stay away from. I’ve realized since then, that exploring the gritty places, which we are warned to leave alone, is way more exciting and worthwhile than frequenting the industrialized mall-parks we have come to accept as a society.

It’s in Nancy B’s Bakery where you can eat the world’s best chocolate chip cookies, not in Costco. It’s in the antiques stores along Eighth Avenue, not Target, where you can find the unique lamp you’ve been dreaming of that pulls your living room décor together perfectly. In the Tin Front Café you can have an Americano made by hand, not by the push of a button like in Starbucks. Now I travel to Homestead intentionally. I’ve learned that there’s nothing generic about Homestead, there’s nothing sterile about Homestead and there is definitely nothing scary about Homestead.

Meghan Leinbach will be a senior at the University of Pittsburgh in the fall. She is a double major in History of Art and Architecture and German, minor in Philosophy.