Erie Labor Temple

05/27/2026

The Ethical Use of A.I. Lecture Brawl scheduled for tomorrow is being postponed until July 9, 2026. Bradley Ford needed to bow out for personal reasons, but the great news is that Thomas Laird has picked up the gauntlet. The July 9 date allows Tom to prepare his position and rebuttals, giving Sharon Smith a run for her money!

05/24/2026

Erie Labor Temple will be closed today (Sunday, May 24). Reading Room soft social is canceled for tonight.

ELT will be back on its regular schedule tomorrow.

05/23/2026

Hats off to The 10/20 Collective! Congratulations!

05/23/2026

Rain interfering with your plans? Make a new plan. Come see a great show at PACA.

Tickets paca1505.org

05/20/2026

Today: AGENDA FOR THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF WEDNESDAY, May 20, 2026, at 6:30 P.M.

A resolution that pursuant to Article 7 of the revised Zoning Ordinance No. 80-2005, and a public hearing held by Erie City Council on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at approximately 7:00 PM in Council Chambers, 626 State Street, Municipal Building, Erie, PA the request to designate the Former Erie Labor Temple, located at 17011707 State Street, Erie, PA as a Historic Building be hereby approved and the City Solicitor is authorized and directed to prepare an ordinance to amend the Zoning Map to reflect such designation.

05/18/2026

Something was hidden above the ceiling inside Erie Labor Temple.

This morning, FOUND IN BUILDING // ENTRY NO. 001 officially launched on Patreon.

What started as investigating a water leak above a drop ceiling turned into the discovery of buried union organizing cards tied directly to the original labor history of 1701 State Street in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Not nostalgia. Not staged history. Physical evidence.

FOUND IN BUILDING is a new ongoing archival documentary series from Erie Labor Temple and PH’KAKI Creative Works exploring the forgotten objects, hidden archives, industrial remnants, and material memory buried inside this historic building.

The archive is now open.

Watch the first entry now on Patreon.

Supporters directly help fund:
future FOUND IN BUILDING episodes
historical preservation/documentation
free Soft Social community art & cultural events
workshops, programming, and public creative infrastructure at ELT

The building remembers.

Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/found-in-entry-158246401

Erie Arts and Culture Erie Art Company FEED Media Art Center PACA Community Group The 10/20 Collective

Sharon Smith Metal Arts Sharon Smith Eld Nathr PH'KAKI Creative Works Bookforge Toni Sage Ren Richardson Mia Donna Maneer Bradley Ford Patti Mazurkiewicz

FOUND IN BUILDING // ENTRY NO. 001 by Erie Labor Temple: The Signal Room on Patreon. Join Erie Labor Temple: The Signal Room's community for exclusive content and updates.

05/18/2026

Erie artists and creative workers: this is your invitation to plug in.

Erie Labor Temple is being built as a public-facing creative and civic hub in downtown Erie: artist studios, workshops, classes, soft social gatherings, gallery programming, book arts, media art, public conversations, volunteer opportunities, and cultural infrastructure for the people who make this city more alive.

We are also forming Erie Local 814, a Creative Workers Union-style community for artists, makers, writers, musicians, performers, designers, instructors, cultural workers, small creative businesses, and the creatively curious.

The purpose is simple:

Create connection.
Build visibility.
Share resources.
Open doors.
Make space for creative work to happen in public.

Current and developing ELT offerings include:

Writer’s Night
Slow Make Night
Sketchbook Social
Listening Room
Reading Room
UNION Fine Art Gallery
Commonwealth Reading Room
BOOKFORGE
PH’KAKI Creative Works / Creative Studios
Workshops, classes, studios, pop-ups, media art, public forums, and more

This is still early. That means artists, volunteers, instructors, partners, and supporters can help shape what this becomes.

Join Erie Local 814. Come to an event. Volunteer. Teach a workshop. Rent a studio. Bring an idea. Tell another creative worker.

The building is waking up.

https://www.erielabortemple.com

Erie Labor Temple
Art Works Here.

05/18/2026

Rendering drop: Studio #105

Like Studio #102, this is best used as an add-on room rather than a standalone lease. Because it does not have direct hall access, it works best as an extension of Studios #103, #107, or #109 — ideal for storage, focused work, admin, equipment, or secondary use.

For the right tenant, an extra room like this can be the difference between cramped and functional.

Interested in bundling #105 with another ELT studio? Reach out.
Know someone expanding their practice and needing more room? Share this post.

05/18/2026

FOUND IN BUILDING // ENTRY NO. 001
Don’t Wait. Organize Now.

Tomorrow morning, Erie Labor Temple Patreon members get early access to the first entry in our new FOUND IN BUILDING series; part building archive, part historical treasure hunt, part “why are we crawling through here with a camera and spooky music?”

In this first video, we climb into a hidden crawlspace inside the Erie Labor Temple and discover a stash of old unionization cards being used, because of course, to help hold up a ventilation shaft. Historic labor ephemera. In the ceiling. Above our heads. Like the building itself was saying, “You want a mission statement? Check the ductwork.”

It has everything:

Dust.
Mystery.
Questionable lighting.
A working-ish old bulb.
Union history.
Crawlspace archaeology.
Mild tetanus concerns.

And just enough Blair Witch energy to make you wonder whether the Labor Temple is haunted by ghosts or simply by unfinished organizing business.

This is exactly why FOUND IN BUILDING exists.

Erie Labor Temple is not just a building. It is a record. The walls, floors, crawlspaces, rooms, old fixtures, forgotten papers, and strange little discoveries all carry evidence of work, labor, community, neglect, repair, and survival.

We are documenting that evidence as we find it.

Some entries will be historically important.
Some will be weird.
Some will be funny.
Some will be a little filthy.
Some may involve me crawling into places my knees strongly oppose.

But all of them are part of the story.

Patreon support helps make this work possible, not just the videos, but the larger mission of turning Erie Labor Temple into a public-facing creative and civic hub with free community events, soft socials, workshops, cultural programming, gallery activity, and space for artists, writers, makers, and working people to gather.

So come for the spooky crawlspace footage.
Stay for the labor history.

Subscribe to the Erie Labor Temple Patreon and help us keep digging; carefully, legally, and with slightly better gloves next time.

https://patreon.com/ErieLaborTemple

Watch FOUND IN BUILDING // ENTRY NO. 001 early tomorrow morning on Patreon.

Support the work. Keep the power on. Art Works Here.

05/16/2026

Something is hidden above the ceilings of Erie Labor Temple.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

For months, while repairing leaks, clearing debris, and exploring forgotten parts of the building, we began discovering objects buried inside the walls, ceilings, boiler rooms, and mechanical spaces of the historic Labor Temple at 1701 State Street in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Union organizing cards hidden above a drop ceiling.
Century-old fire extinguishers.
Industrial masonry older than the surrounding structure.
Labor law archives concealed above the Commonwealth Reading Room.
Fragments of Erie’s labor, industrial, and civic history.

So we started documenting everything.

FOUND IN BUILDING is a new ongoing archival video and essay series from Erie Labor Temple and PH’KAKI Creative Works dedicated to uncovering, documenting, preserving, and investigating the hidden physical history of the building.

Part historical archive.
Part urban archaeology.
Part civic memory project.
Part documentary field report.

ENTRY NO. 001 premieres Monday on Patreon and YouTube.

The building remembers more than we expected.

And we’re just getting started.

Follow along:
Patreon + YouTube +

05/16/2026

New Quip on the ELT Patreon page!

FOUND IN BUILDING The Archive Opens Monday. Something was hidden above the ceiling. What began as leak repair and exploratory work inside Er