"I paint and I live in Braddock. I just got a studio in the church, left of the altar. I came here four years ago to visit a friend and I heard they were reviving it. I have a daughter. I want to say to her, 'I was there. I saw it before it came back.' All the destruction. You can teach this generation that you need to take care of what's out there instead of ruining it." -- Ethelin Ekwa
	"A place this raw, you kind of want to experiment with it. Which is why artists are a good fit. An intolerable situation is just fodder for them. I believe in the system when you have a functional society, but Braddock is hanging so far off the edge, it's like the wild west. Braddock is an experiment. The contrast is what's exciting. It's what's so attractive about Pittsburgh. Its ghosts are everywhere." -- Kyra Straussman

How many places could be like this: post-apocalyptic and happening at the same time?

All over town, vacant buildings are gaping open at the windows, at the roofs. Whole walls have fallen, revealing all the stuff of a household, strewn as if a tornado or hurricane chased it around before depositing it in huge piles and wrong places. Approximately one in four buildings in Braddock is vacant.

"I've always been taken with Braddock's malignant beauty and its history," says Mayor John Fetterman, who came to Braddock several years ago with AmeriCorps. He is equipped with a master's degree in public policy and economics from Harvard. His paying job is about $30,000 directing the Out-Of-School-Youth program. He makes $110.22 a month as mayor.

"Braddock still resonates deeply with people. There's a visceral connection."

Elected in 2005, he won the Democratic primary by exactly one vote. Nevertheless, he says, "I have a mandate to try something. It will be an experiment."

"He's gonna make a difference," says Anthony Price, 20, part of group cleaning up a building for the Flux art event last month. "He's makin' one right now," says Lawrence Davis, also 20. "It's about him being out there. He puts himself out there."

Braddock Council President Jesse Brown, however, is not a fan. Fetterman rarely attends council meetings and when he does "he seems to be aloof," complains Brown, "in a world of his own."

But Rich Reynolds, and his wife, Maria, who own one of the town's last remaining stores, Jimmie's Donut Shop, say council is one of the biggest obstacles to progress. "You need to clean up the blight," Reynolds says. "But in order to do that, you need to have certain elected officials who aren't living in the past."

Fetterman convinced the managers of a former furniture store, Ohringers, to let him initiate use of the seven floors as studios. Five floors of the "O" building are now full of artists, musicians and photographers.

The Elks Club gained 30 new members in March, a free-membership initiative that attracted 20- and 30-somethings. Mayor Fetterman belongs. Kyra Straussman, who is in her 40s, joined. She's a co-founder of Cool Space Locator.

Jeb Feldman is deputy mayor. It's a volunteer position. "We're trying to pioneer a home reclamation project, something realistically attainable," he says. "Someone needs to be handy, needy enough and intrepid enough."

Fetterman bought the warehouse he lives in for $2,000, the church beside it for $50,000, saving it from demolition. Today, he helps orchestrate large art events and youth activities in it. "We have already lost a tragic number of our buildings."

-- John Allison thenextpage@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1915)