The first weekend

ARISE STORIES
(photo by Brenda Battad)

The open process of working, which is the most exciting part of Salvage/Salvation, brings a plethora of unexpected encounters and surprising stories.

On our first Saturday open work day we had two notable encounters. Our first visitor was a man who ran a salvage business. He had purchased and then sold a good portion of the church's contents, including the giant rolling doors between the main sanctuary space and the back section of the church and all the pews (both of which are now at Construction Junction), all the stained glass windows (gradually, over the past 20 years), and even the bell from the belfry. Seeing that the church was occupied, he had come by to claim the remainder of his purchases (the top stained glass widnows) from the owner. The owner! Nobody had heard from the owner for years, but this man had seen him in the last eight months! However, even he had lost track of the owner. This salvage expert then told us amazing stories of his forty years of salvaging in the Pittsburgh area, and a few trade secrets (which I will never divulge).

Some questions from this encounter: What do we think of those who salvage the beautiful bits of old buildings? Are they opportunistic despoilers or intelligent preservationists? Or is it a slippery combination of the two? Our salvage expert told a story of a beautiful scale-model mansion in the yard of an old mansion set to be demolished. it was too big for him to move, and it broke his heart to see it destroyed. What is our attitude towards scavengers in general, animal and human? Do we sometimes view them with distaste, without thinking why? They perform a vital function cleaning up the dead and utilizing every scrap of discard. When does functionality shade into depredation?