California Hip-Hop Artist Behind Movement To Save 'The Outsiders' House

Friday, April 1st 2016, 10:37 pm

By: Emory Bryan

A hip-hop artist from California bought a house in Tulsa this week, but he doesn't plan to live there. Instead, he wants to make it a museum dedicated to the movie The Outsiders.

It’s known as the Curtis Brother's House and was a prominent location used for the movie.

Right now it's in terrible shape, but a founding member of the group House Of Pain, Danny Boy O’Connor was on tour through Tulsa, saw the place and fell in love.

"I felt if someone didn’t step in, why not me? So that's what I did," O’Connor said.

It's not much to look at, but that doesn't matter if you're a serious fan of The Outsiders, which has been a lifelong interest for O'Connor.

Now he, along with a growing group of supporters, is behind the effort to create an Outsiders museum.

On a stop in Tulsa and a tour of movie locations, he saw the house and had an idea.

“We started talking like ‘why don't we save this house?’ And at first it was idle talk, and then it got more serious, and so here we are,” he said.

O'Connor saw past the warped wood floors, the patched up ceiling, the off-kilter foundation and all the roaches.

He believes the back would be perfect for his Outsiders collection and the front rooms could be staged as they were in the movie, so he bought the house and is now raising money to restore it.

O'Connor said, "Just save it for the people of Tulsa and, in a bigger scope, for fans of not only of S.E. Hinton, Francis Ford Coppola, The Outsiders, but for local Tulsans."

He isn't sure how quickly the house can be turned into something new, but he's confident he saved it just in time.

If you'd like to help, a Go Fund Me page has been created to accept donations.