Comments on: Photo Essay: Pittsburgh’s Carrie Blast Furnace

By: Special K

Special K — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:06:42 +0000

The Rivers of Steel heritage group will soon be offering tours of this amazing site:

http://www.riversofsteel.com/things-to-do/event/carrie-furnace-hard-hat-tours/

By: Special K

Special K — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:16:21 +0000

David, this is the only one I know of. I believe the site is now owned by the county and you aren’t supposed to be on it without permission. There are old auto factories in Detroit, if you are interested in exploring that. Anyone else know of any other old blast furnaces?

By: David Nereson

David Nereson — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:26:56 +0000

Have been meaning to seek out remains of steel mills in the rust belt for 20 years now but always had other priorities. It’s too late now for most of them, but are there places where one can still legally, without trespassing, poke around old blast furnaces and mills that are still standing, either in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Baltimore, or anywhere else?

By: Rick Rowlands

Rick Rowlands — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:36:25 +0000

Sean,

Carrie furnaces are now the property of Allegheny County and are slated for inclusion in a future steel industry heritage center. The steelmark was created not for US Steel but for the American Iron and Steel Institute. It is an industry mark, meant to identify American made steel regardless of manufacturer. But you are right more people know it as the Steelers logo than as the steelmark.

You should accompany me the next time I go down to Wheeling Pitt’s Steubenville blast furnace plant. There is some equipment there that we are pulling out for preservation, but haven’t been able to do it yet since the plant has been on shutdown. Contact me if interested.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:04:44 +0000

You can thank the government for high taxes and the EPA for “clean air and water” for the demise of the domestic steel industry. These people created a bad buisiness enviroment in the form of high operating costs and American steel can no longer compete with foreign steel which has no restrictions. Lets get the money grabbers out of Washington and turn this train around before it wrecks.

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:37:02 +0000

I canoed past all of this from McKeesport to the Point this last weekend. It was amazing and more than a bit eerie to see the layers and layers of decaying infrastructure.

Steve, three words: Super Fund Site. This is why it costs so much to put a new plant of any sort on a brownfield site. All owners of a parcel of land, past, present, and future are responsible for any EPA infractions. Thus it takes a lot to convince someone to develop on an inevitably polluted former mill site. Pittsburgh has had a few ‘successes’ with rehabilitating these sites; The Southside Works, the Waterfront, a few more, but it is still a massive undertaking.

By: LINDA from Each Little World

LINDA from Each Little World — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:15:15 +0000

I thought at first these were pastel drawings; really beautiful. And yes, also very reminiscent of underwater shots of the Titanic. I was never in a steel mill but many times went by on the bus (in Buffalo) and you could see smoke and fire. It was always a scary but amazing moment. And the mills went on and on for blocks. I have clipped some interesting news stories (and there must be web sites) about industrial sites in Germany that have been turned into public parks with much of the buildings and infrastructure incorporated. Surprisingly lovely and a wonderful reuse and way to preserve history.

By: GLUEspace » Blog Archive » Rust Wire News Round-up

GLUEspace » Blog Archive » Rust Wire News Round-up — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:12:34 +0000

[...] from the Rust Wire bloggers: If you only look at one post on Rust Wire this week, make sure it is Sean Posey’s amazing and beautiful photos of the now defunct Carrie Blast Furnace in what remains of U.S. Steel’s Homestead [...]

By: tonyg

tonyg — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:15:26 +0000

spend an afternoon once in 1974 at an live operating blast furnace in Buffalo, New York. When I say “live” it was. It breathed, smoked and had rivers of iron running about it’s clay tapping deck. One yelled at the workmen over the sounds of the hot blast, attempting to have a conversation about it’s operation. Believe me when these mountians of iron ore and coke where running they seemed so much larger. In the first years of Cariege Steel these furnaces were all named after women, and the labor gangs competed with each other to break production records. They were dangerous places to work. Those furnaces were dyanited down in 81′ or 82′ as part of the great de-industrialization. Look on the bright side: Hey, the air is better these days!

By: Richard Rezek

Richard Rezek — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:28:20 +0000

This are very intersting photos and have a “beauty” that is unexpected. It reminds me of looking at photos of a ship wreck. Thanks for doing this work and posting the photos.