Zellars, who started his career in marketing for a financial advising firm before being laid off, said he was drawn to his more recent roles through a passion for preserving materials that are increasingly hard to find β or simply headed for oblivion.
I was going into abandoned houses β buildings that are falling down β and I viewed myself as more of a miner, because I believe that a lot of these materials are going away. There's also plenty of oddities, like an upright piano and a vintage, foot-pump Singer sewing machine. The latter was used as a prop in a Pitt Department of Theatre Arts production of "Intimate Apparel," whose main character, Esther, is a black seamstress living in a boarding house who makes her way by sewing intimate apparel for wealthy white patrons as well as poor prostitutes.
Zellars and his staff evaluate all the items for redistribution to new campus locales or resale to the public, via an online buying and auction site or in-person visits to the showroom.
That includes electronics, computer screens and software components. A lot of the screens are out of date. Macs by Apple Corp. COVID pandemic-era remnant items, including petri dishes, latex gloves and face masks, prove an even harder sell. Tuesdays through Fridays. A security guard admits customers downstairs, and Zellars or a Surplus employee will assist them in the showroom, where cash, checks and charge cards are accepted. On a recent afternoon, while seeking out a comfortable chair for her elderly father, she became enamored by a few large, framed landscape photographs on the showroom wall.
Some of the tables and larger pieces of furniture are stunning. While Pitt Surplus has an army of loyal customers, Zellars said he started noticing a demographic shift at play during his time at Construction Junction.
