Abandoned "Ghost Town" Neighborhood in Clairton, PA

[TheFugitive]

I have spent a good chunk of my life living in and around Pittsburgh, and never knew this place existed
until after a nephew of mine recently got busted poking around in there by the cops.

Lincoln Way is a street in Clairton, PA, an old steel town on the Monongahela River about fifteen miles
south of Pittsburgh.  For reasons that have never been fully explained the residents of this street appear
to have all abandoned their homes, mostly leaving all of their worldly possessions inside.

In some cases the residents may have been elderly people who died, and their children just never cared to claim the house or pick-up their belongings.  The appearance of this place today is post-apocalyptic.  It is drawing curiosity seekers from all over, which is a problem for the local police as these decaying houses not only pose a safety hazard, but they provide places for squatters and drug users to hang out.  Clairton at this point in its history is a very high-crime, low-income community, and they appear to have neither the resources to tear these homes down, nor enough police officers to deal with all of the related issues. 

There are of course wild stories about a monster who lives in the woods, or poison gas coming from the US Steel Clairton Coke Works (the town always does rank very low in local assessments of air quality).

But for whatever reason the place looks as if all of the residents just decided to pick-up and
leave forty years ago, and to not take any of their stuff with them.  Weird.

Some links:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pennsylvania-ghost-towns-mystery-clairtons-creepy-lincoln-granato/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccgyhY28q6o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7vxl1T4GmM


Clairton was the setting for the novel The Deer Hunter, which was made into a film in 1978.
Even at that time Clairton was looking so bad that the director took one look at the place and
decided he could not shoot his film there.  It was instead shot about 45 miles away in the town
of Mingo Junction, Ohio.

It is also known for the Clairton Bears, the local high-school football team, which despite the town's
poverty is always one of the most formidable teams in the state.  At one point they managed to win
66 games in a row over several seasons.  They have won many state championships and are nearly
always strong contenders in their classification.