This Place Matters: 100 Students Clean up the Opera House
Posted On: September 27, 2010
One hundred students from five different colleges and a city high school went to work on the National Opera House grounds, producing more than 50 bags of trash, and filling a dumpster within 10 minutes on a temperate, sun-filled Saturday, October 16th.
YPA coordinated the cleanup with the property owner, Jonnet Solomon-Nowlin and her board of directors, along with Operation Better Block, Renew Pittsburgh, and others to prepare the grounds of this historic house for winter. YPA is grateful for Anthony Phillips, Jr. Hauling Co., Inc., for donating the Dumpster, and to the city for their efforts to remove the debris-filled bags.
Students came from Pitt, Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper School and the Heinz College), Chatham, Duquesne, and California University of Pennsylvania, and were joined with a group from Westinghouse High School. A teacher with the city schools’ Gifted Center also joined in. Several YPA members also participated. YPA A group photo was taken of the students holding the sign, “This Place Matters,” a campaign by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to recognize important historic sites across the country.
See photos from the cleanup here:
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| National Opera House Cleanup, Oct. 16, 2010 |
The National Opera House is located at 7101 Apple Street, in Homewood. Built in 1894, this City-designated Historic Landmark was home to Woogie Harris (brother of famed photographer Teenie Harris), who rented the house to a number of notables, including Roberto Clemente, Lena Horne, and several Steelers. Among the most famous occupants of the house was Mary Cardwell Dawson, who started the nation’s first black opera company, the National Negro Opera Company, in 1941. She ran her music school out of the house, as well.
Today, “Mystery Manor,” as it was sometimes called, is vacant and in need of repair. The students’ help was essential in sprucing up the grounds around the house, which were meticulously kept in the 1940s and ’50s. Their efforts directly support long-term plans to care for the house and work toward its eventual restoration (http://www.nationaloperahouse.org/).
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