Greensboro plaques will serve dual purpose
GREENSBORO – New stained-glass street address plaques depicting the Greensboro’s history of pottery making are intended to do more than simply spruce up the community. Purchased through the borough’s Elm Street program grant, the locally produced artistic plaques rectify discrepancies between property owners’ mailing addresses and their addresses in the Greene County emergency management agency’s 911 dispatch system.
About $7,000 in grant money was used to the buy plaques for all 157 homes and buildings in the borough, Elm Street manager Darlene Urban Garrett said.
A handful of residents attended Tuesday’s borough council meeting, when the plaques were unveiled, to claim their new house numbers.
“They really are pieces of art,” Garrett said.
The plaques are made of iridescent glass that glows when light is shined on them at night, she said.
Each number in a home’s address appears on a crock, which was among the many household items produced in Greensboro’s pottery-making heyday in the 1800s, Garrett said.
“The crocks on our plaques represent our history,” she said.
Crocks on the plaques mimic the gray salt-glazed pottery that was produced in the borough, she said.
The borough owns the design of the plaques and awarded a contract to make the plaques to Our Glass Creations of Waynesburg.
“Greensboro owns this design, so you won’t see it anywhere else,” Garrett said.
During the council meeting, Garrett thanked residents Candi Loring and Brenda Martin for going door-to-door to ask property owners whether they wanted vertical or horizontal plaques.
The plaques are framed in metal and come with mounting screws.
The Pennsylvania Downtown Center, which oversees the state Elm Street program, is considering the plaque project for one of the annual awards it will present at its convention next year, Garrett said.
The plaques, which are valued at $50, are free and must be left in place if their homes or buildings are sold. Plaques for all homes and buildings were not completed by Tuesday.
All of them are supposed to be finished by Labor Day, she said.