YS&T worker housing gets new lease on life

By EMMALEE TORISK

TheNewsOutlet.org

CAMPBELL

Chuck Schell stood in a freshly cut patch of grass. Behind him, the boarded-up entrance of an aluminum-sided rental unit, one of several in the row, warned in orange spray paint: “Keep Out!”

A sheet of plywood with the bar code sticker still attached replaced a shattered window. From the ceiling spilled a jumble of wires. Triangles of glass rested on the terra cotta roof and, directly below, just a faint imprint of the house number that had long ago fallen off.

Schell glanced back.

“It looks better than it did,” he said.

Schell is a resident of Campbell’s Blackburn Plat, a complex of prefabricated concrete housing units constructed by the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co.’s Buckeye Land Co. nearly one century ago, following a strike, for laborers and their families. At one time, the amount of units numbered solidly in the 200s.

Today, despite fewer residences and decades of neglect, several Blackburn Plat residents like Schell are working to clean up and maintain the units, as well as the neighborhood.

“It’s not the buildings that are the problem. It’s the people that are making it a bad place to be,” Schell said. “I’d really like to see the place come back to life with decent people involved. It’s not as bad as people think.”

When constructed, Blackburn Plat’s one- and two-bedroom rental units were equipped with the era’s modern conveniences, including indoor plumbing, central heating and electricity. They were the first of their kind: one of the earliest uses of concrete for domestic architecture.

Many units have since been stripped of their utilities, used as a dumping ground or a haven for squatters, and even set on fire. Although designed to be fire and vermin proof, several units’ original wooden staircases, woodwork and other fixtures have been damaged or decimated.

Still, the buildings remain. They’re so sturdy, Schell said, that it would be a shame to tear them down.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com