Secret Pittsburgh

Address: 40 W. North Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15212

Hours: Tours available by appointment. Email contact@cityofasylumpittsburgh.org

Website: http://cityofasylum.org/

Transportation: Bus, car (street parking), bike (no onsite lock site), and walking

Access: Tours only available upon request

 

The Mexican War Streets show off the Victorian architecture of Pittsburgh’s North Side; the historical homes becom e and less frequent approaching Sampsonia Way. Instead, a home vibrant with beautiful shades of pinks and blues peeks out of the camouflage of Pittsburgh homes. This diamond in the rough is the Jazz House of the City of Asylum.

The City of Asylum is a community of writers, readers, and neighbors who provide sanctuary to their endangered artists. Selected authors from all over the world are offered a home away from persecution, to maintain their right to have their voices heard. Currently, the City of Asylum has five House Publications: Comma House, Jazz House, House Poem, Pittsburgh-Burma House, and Winged House. Additionally, community members and residents are provided opportunities to partake in cross-cultural exchanges with their fellow Pittsburghers.

After hearing Salman Rushdie deliver a moving speech, Henry Reese, a Pittsburgh businessman, and Diane Samuels, a digital artist, felt compelled to join the international community of asylum cities. This network is called ICORN, the International Cities of Refuge Network, an independent organization of cities and regions that offer refuge to writers and artists. Reese and Samuels wrote to and received approval from the European networks to allow them to build a Pittsburgh City of Asylum, rendering Pittsburgh the US headquarters for ICORN. The pair purchased and renovated a house on Sampsonia Way and, in 2004, the Pittsburgh City of Asylum was established.

The first writer who stayed in the house was Huang Xiang and his wife, Zhang Ling. Xiang, a Burmese man imprisoned without trial and regularly subjected to torture, painted the residence with Chinese characters. The building today is known as House Poem. A different artist decorates each house: highly respected jazz saxophonist and composer, Oliver Lake, painted the Jazz House, the Mattress Factory’s Community Art Lab and artists, Laura Jean McLaughlin and Bob Zillar, collaborated in the creation of Winged House based on a passage from Wole Soyinka’s memoir The Man Died, and Pittsburgh-Burma House was created by Khet Mar, the third exiled writer in the City of Asylum residency program. In the fall of November 2021, the new house publication, Comma House, by Tuhin Das, joined Sampsonia Way. Each house represents a different artist’s creativity and is a statement to the world that they are still here and will not be silenced.

Writers from China, El Salvador, Burma, Venezuela, and Iran have lived here. City of Asylum has had over 250 artists in for readings and concerts and has published the works of exiled writers in English translations through their online journal. 

Located in an old masonic temple, Alphabet City is a community center of writers, readers, and neighbors in the North Side area of Pittsburgh. The ground floor and basement acts as a bar, restaurant, bookstore, and venue to hold readings, screenings, and concerts. The upper floors has rental apartments of all incomes. Additionally, there is a Garden-to-Garden Trail that starts at Alphabet City and ends at the Alphabet Reading Garden on Monterey Street next to the Mattress Factory.

The City of Asylum commits itself to those who need a place to live, write, think, and breathe. Community is ever-changing, but even in the evolving atmosphere of Pittsburgh, these endangered writers can find solace in the City of Asylum.