History & local legend
Main Street Antiques occupies the Victorian house at 800 West Main Street in Monongahela. Inez Gilotty bought the twelve-room house for her antiques business in 1991 and operated the shop with her son Bob. By the time the local historical society featured it on a 2006 ghost walk, customers and owners had contributed several stories about the building.
Customer Joanne Phillips told Gilotty that she had seen a little girl wearing a pinafore on the back stairs. The girl beckoned for her to come down. Another story associated a front window with a gentleman seated at a table, looking out toward the street.
Gilotty’s own experience concerned an upstairs door. She repeatedly found it open and assumed Bob had left it that way. When she asked him, he said he had closed it. Neither owner reported seeing the figures described by customers, but both were puzzled by the door that would not stay as they remembered leaving it.
Sources
- Lynda Guydon Taylor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 8, 2006, owner Inez Gilotty on Joanne Phillips and the upstairs door; caption locates gentleman at 800 West Main
- Wendy Duchene, Keystone Edge, September 11, 2017, interview with Bobby Gilotty, house bought in 1991 and twelve-room layout
- ExplorePAHistory, Main Street Antiques, Victorian house built in 1867 at 800 West Main Street
- Esri World Geocoding, 800 West Main point address
- KartaView, 2017 street-level photograph of the antiques shop on the corner
