Ophelia Street


In the year 2000, a group of friends at the University of Pittsburgh decided to rent a house together. There were eight of them — two aspiring writers, one filmmaker, four thespians and an ROTC mathematician. Their house, located on the edge of Ophelia Street, hadn’t been legally inhabited for eight years, and the promised renovations were still incomplete when the friends started moving in.

The house on Ophelia Street saw several generations of college bohemians. Someone set up a baby-pool on the roof. Someone threw a TV set out a second-story window. Each room was outfitted with its own cable and Internet connection, and each resident had a personal cell-phone (the house was jokingly dubbed “Technophelia”). Screenplays were written here, parties were thrown, college fellowships were exploited to the last penny. Years later, the denizens of Ophelia Street are still friends.

In honor of that exciting, chaotic era, we offer opheliastreet.com, an online magazine that we hope will reflect the energy and curiosity of those formative years.