Homestead celebrates new senior apartments
  By ERIC SLAGLE Daily News Staff Writer
 eslagle@dailynewsemail.com
  Elijah Miller just moved to new apartment, but don’t go calling him a new kid in town.
  “I’ve been around here a long time,” Miller remarked during a grand opening celebration for the Second Baptist Senior Apartments in Homestead, where he now lives. He really wasn’t kidding.
  The 101-year-old man has a long and historic history in Homestead. Between 1926 and 1945 he was the Homestead Grays bat boy, a job that allowed him to meet some of the most legendary players in Negro League Baseball.
  On Friday, he was recalling players like Satchel Paige and William “Judy” Johnson.
  “That guy could run so fast, if he hit a single, he could run to second base,” Miller said of the latter.
  Miller, who was the first resident of the senior home that opened this past February, received two honorary baseball bats from the home’s planners.
  The new apartment house features 35 units for low-income seniors and was built through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, ACTION-Housing Inc. and the Second Baptist Church of Homestead. Located along W. Twelfth Street, the $3.5 million complex is a quarter-mile from the Waterfront.
  So far, 11 people have signed leases to move into the new apartment house.
  Also present at the event was Sean L. Gibson, the grandson of Josh Gibson, the former Homestead Grays catcher. Sean Gibson is the executive director of a foundation bearing his grandfather’s name that is working to develop youth athletic fields in Allegheny County.
  Planners credited borough officials with helping them get the necessary approvals for the project and paving an alley that runs behind the building.
  Mayor Betty Esper said the borough was glad to help.
  “It’s like everything else we’re trying to do in Homestead: It’s an improvement,” Esper said. “This is a dream of Second Baptist Church. It goes very well with new housing we have up on Thirteenth Street. This is a good thing. I know the Rev. (Donald) Turner (from Second Baptist Church) is very proud.” ACTION-Housing Executive Director Larry Swanson said the building gradually will become a great part of the neighborhood.
  “It’s the residents who’ll bring the life into the building that is so precious,” he said.
  ACTION-Housing operates 98 housing facilities all over the county and assists 12,000 highly vulnerable people each year.

— Photo by Eric Slagle/Daily News
 Sean Gibson, the grandson of the former Homestead Grays catcher Josh Gibson, presented an honorary bat to Elijah Miller on Friday at the grand opening of a new apartment complex for seniors in Homestead.