Yellow Dog Village is what remains of housing built by a mining company for its workers a little over a century ago, in the rolling farmlands northeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The last of the residents movied out a decade ago after the water supply became contaminated, with some houses standing vacant much longer. There remain a few single family homes, but most are duplexes. Time has exposed the plaster and lath construction, as well as peeled back multiple layers of paint and wallpaper, like pages in a history book. Beyond the antiquated construction materials and floor plans, what I found fascinating were some of the things left behind.
These colors don’t run, but they do disintegrate.
Front room of the boarding house
Utility shutoff notice
Upstairs in the boarding house
I was fascinated by this crockpot, the one lone implement remaining in the kitchen, lying on the floor as if spilling the sunlight from its innards. Why did it stay, when everything else left?
Looking down from the attic
The floor plans of each side of the duplexes were identical, mirroring the other half. And while the interiors differed in details of carpeting, paneling, finish carpentry and the like, after being through a few, I knew my way around each house the first time I entered. Where they differed, though, were the attics. While each dwelling was either the left half or right half of the building, the attic for each was either the front half or the rear half of the building.
A spot of sunlight burns into an attic storage area
While the duplexes had straight flights of steps into the basement, the single-family houses had a landing with an exterior side door, just off the kitchen. This door had apparently been nailed shut at one point, now forced open.
In the basement
A number of basements had partially-caved-in walls. Each step I took in these houses was one of caution.
A child’s shoe and purse on a mattress