I worked there for 26 years at the BOF & turned the lights out there.I was there for the last steel ever made at the bof & thought enough to have a test sample made so now I own the only & last piece of steel ever made there one of a kind. I also have pictures of all that were there at that time..I was a quality control leader there in the BOF Pit Office. I also have a complete video of the entire Coke Works i took..one of a kind
+robert deibert that's so awesome I have a question for you have you ever seen the movie Robocop at the end there in a pool of water what exactly did they keep in that area theres a crane that drops metal beams
They should have interviewed people like you (WORKERS) for this video but they didn’t. The Steel workers had backs disgracefully turned towards them yet again.
I have a rock I found on the side of a hill. It's one of a kind. I also have a bass guitar I accidently put a big scratch in the back. It's one of a kind. My Bike got ran over. One of a kind. I also have a big gnarly zit on the side of my bean bag and you guessed it. It's one of a kind.
It’s so awesome how they preserved the plant so you can walk along the trestle and touch history. Most places like this would have been demolished in a month and made into an “Amazon” or restaurant. I love going there
Gotta' paint the whole complex and maintain that paint coat much like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA (made of Bethlehem Steel) has its paint coat maintained.
Sad that this is whats left. Irony is they had a hard sourcing structural steel for the casino they built there. Perhaps keeping there as a reminder we were once an industrial country that made things, great things. Now we are an international joke.
Astonishment seeing lights on a building? What happens when you walk inside Walmart? Is that astonishing? It sure should be because it's 20 times more complex than this.
Dominic, I salute the history of the working men and women of America, particularly those in the Steel, coal and shipbuilding industries. Thank you for not allowing their generations of labor and lifetimes of contributions to American society, culture and strength to be forgotten. More important, is resurrecting our industrial capacity, in whatever trades those are and will become for ours and future generations. Doing that requires discussing the painful lessons learned that lead to their demise. that discourse has to occur nationally, openly, and with great courage and honesty. Two by two - two great mistakes and two great moves could be a starting place. One notion is some industrial ways and means are meant to be overcome, power generation for coal to oil, oil to gas, gas to nuclear, nuclear to alternatives, and how in these transitions to keep people working and keep our domestic industrial output and labor capacity strong. The second of this two, is proof we can do that, because it is done elsewhere in the world. no matter where one stands in terms of energy modernization, the facts are plain to see; We can generate our power here in America, in any of the ways I just mentioned, and especially in the most modern ends of the progression, but we are not. Why? The second pair of the two by two is to reinvent moral, political and entrepreneurial power and not repeat the mistakes of allowing greed (moral), corruption, (political) and centralized, top-down-first distribution of wealth (entrepreneurial power). The second half of this two distributes 85% of the earnings not to the owners, investors, and political campaigns but to the employees, driving political will in their favor, and bringing back to moral imperatives of the community, the neighborhood, the block, the family, ones own soul. I recently read 'The Posco Strategy' by Father William Hogan, S.J.. At the time of Posco's invention, rise and dominance, I lived in Korea as a defense contractor. As a Pennsylvanian and the grandson of coal miners (Pittston), ship builders (Chester) and refinery workers (Marcus Hook), I was haunted again again from the words in Father Hogan's book, the easy-to-see rise in world-leading steel, mining, shipbuilding from this tiny country, no bigger than New Jersey, that Americans like my father (Marine) fought and died and saved from slavery, while at the same time, the same industries i Pennsylvania are collapsing and dying. Where were the Industrial titans, the financiers, the politicians, to reinvent its industries, as Korea was inventing them? I hear all the time "not coming back"; "Cheap Labor" "no safety", when in other countries, "it keep on coming old industries reworked, and new industries begun" "the measurable quality of life, workers' benefits started low but continuously rise", and "through organization, labor strikes, and tough negotiations, worker safety increases". Two more facts are the number of politicians, even presidents, and billionaire industrial cronies, who end up in prison in those countries, form forsaking their people, and the increase and spread of catholic, christian, Buddhist and Muslim churches, even in China. I have never believed America cannot reinvent herself. We need this discourse, form the grass roots up, identity our objectives, define our moral boundaries, establish our timelines, line up the financing, get the political backing, and bypass everything that gets in the way through legal execution of our freedoms and liberties, including elections, civil disobedience, the traditional welcoming, churning, and amalgam of the American working class fellowship, and our buying power. Then, we will reignite Bethlehem steel.
Well you can kiss any of that goodbye with the traitorous corrupt evil bastard Joe Biden and his cohorts having stole the election right from under the American people. These people are going to make sure that this Nation and all the entities that made it once strong are erased forever.
@@LS-ti1rz Louis, why do you say that? The election aside, what or whom do you think is responsible for the initiation, rise, decline, and continued destruction of American Industrial capacity?
There are many many responsible for the decline of this nations strength. Its not one particular political party or another. There are many from both sides of the aisle throughout the years that have cozied up to lobbyist that represented foreign interest that wined and dined them. What I am saying is this particular bunch that have just took this election are very much in favor of this nation to continue in an even faster decline from its once glory days. This "party" is not the party of yesteryear, of John F. Kennedy and FDR. The ones that are behind all the degradation and outright election tampering that are actually pulling the strings have a vested interest in this Nation becoming as significant as a 3rd world country. ie: George Soros fingerprints are all over this mess and others of his ilk. What Im saying is people just like those that your inclining to are exactly those that have just undermined and corrupted our electoral process. The damage has just begun.
@@LS-ti1rz Do you believe and did you see the outgoing administration would do or have done anything to reverse or lessen the decline? I agree with your recollection of history (I'm 64), and agree that the democratic party is in large part a neoliberal travesty. I also feel the same way of the GOP, with their own brand of treachery. But I'd offer that we can not take sides, but lay out clearly the different terrible situations we are facing n so many areas of our country. And once we agree what the problems are we must decide the approaches we must take to solve them, how we will legislate those solutions, and how we will execute them. We are mislead when we pick sides; in fact the corrupt powers your refer to want us to be divided. In division, we expend all of our energy and shunt it to ground. When really we should be focused, and aimed at identifying and solving problems. So how to do this? How to begin. I'd offer that it should start locally. Bottoms up and inside out. Every time we tried to start form the top down and outside in, the guys on the top made out and the money stayed on the outside. Nothing on cold rainy day trickles down and seeps in that improves how we deal with the weather. I believe locally we know what our problems are, but we have a hard time knowing what to do about it. We want what we had, what our grandfathers had. Mine were all immigrants, all coal miners, all shipbuilders, and refinery workers. I believe two of those industries are all but dead - and probably should be. Shipbuilding has some hope, particularly in defense, LNG, CNG, and dry/reefer. Let me close with this. I have lived and worked all over the world. I saw the Asian tigers bleed us damn near dry. But more importantly, I saw them do the impossible, these counties small than New Jersey, to grow from devastation at the end of WWII and the Korean War, and lead the world in auto, ship, steel, chemical, electronics, and textile manufacturing. And now China is bleeding them, slowly at first -but it will get worse - much worse if history serves us. Why can't we take that back? Are they better than us? I think not. Not at all. Thank you for your time.
@@JoeCiliberto I can't say I disagree with you at all. Your absolutely right about the "outgoing" administration. They all are beholden to what I believe is perhaps one of if not the greatest enemy of this Nation, that being the Federal Reserve and the IRS. I especially feel that the "Red Shield" has put the world in "check" soon to finalize it all and call "mate" I look at these political figures that are suppose to represent We the People and I see how they are only beholden to the "corporation" The United States of America hasn't been a genuinely "free" country for quite some time now. I watch how there are always those that were either part of the Federal Reserve of associates of the Rothschilds all entangled in every administration the last decades. I thank you for taking the time to express your views...
First left the textile and shoe industry. Than furniture. After that the steel and auto industry. Ship building left same time. Electronic and high tech. included software left too now.
Worked for Bethlehem in the Cleveland sales office in the 70s. Best gotcha moment in my life was selling the H-Piling for the U.S. steel building in Pittsburg. Chairman of the board went crazy when the Bethlehem steel trucks showed up at his job site. U.S.Steel wouldn’t give the foundation company any credit for supplying the piling. I knew how to get the guy credit. Gotcha!!!
Its so weird to watch this, especially since I've spent my life in Bethlehem and I pass the stacks at least twice a week. I was their during the filming of one of the transformer movie.
A better tribute would be to bring it back to life producing steel but environmental regulations and Union concessions would be needed to allow the company to compete
But hey we can always export out pollution, even china is looking to build their new steel mills in countries like Indonesia instead of domestically. So what happens when they build mills in Africa, where do the mills get moved from there?
At the Industrial supply a couple of months ago, the brand new 4 inch galvanized pipe was marked made in Vietnam. Why has a full blown steel mill that is making one of the largest volume steel commodity products popped up in Vietnam? I don't know the real story, but it looks like it is more profitable to move a steel mill and tubing plant than it is to stay put and deal with workers that want a vested retirement, money to pay off their mortgage, and health care. The local community has exhausted it's ability to absorb the steelmaking slag and other waste, the local dump is full and the local river is dead. Suppose we think about the steel mill moving game as a global problem. One step would be to make a pension and retirement health care system where taxes on the fob sale price of steel are directly forwarded to the entire population of retired or fired steel workers. Lets see if we can think of something a little more modest. How about we change the steel mill design to much smaller tonnages and use solar reflectors and solar electric panel arrays. Wait wait, suppose we look at the Bethlehem shutdown as a case where thousands of people had their pensions greatly reduced and also many workers were laid off while they still had a mortgage to pay. The first fifteen years of Bethlehem steel were very profitable. The last fifteen years was a gradual collapse where eventually the pension system was underfunded. Suppose we look at putting the Social Security payroll tax system on a basis where industries and businesses and that are highly profitable pay more tax. When the same business slips into it's last 15 years of stalled profits, the employees can retire on a good pension even though the business is beginning to lose profitability.
Bethlehem steel plant just needs a remodel. Also check the consistency of the steel from years of heat. And go about doing a remodel this would open up jobs
And i wonder how long all that lighting lasted before it was all vandalized and/or taken down by scrappers. Unless the plant has since been demolished of course.
Good Lord. With all the “locals” and IB’s and “groups” involved this must have come in at quadruple the going rate. Everyone in this video looks like they got a cut.
A derelict hulk, slowly rusting away. That's not a monument, it's a memorial; a gravestone. To light it all up with colored lights is grotesque. Much better to tear it all down and make something useful out of the scrap steel and restore the land to a natural state, though there are likely some serious, and very expensive, brownfield issues to deal with in any demolition/restoration. A Google maps satellite image shows the site surrounded by unused parking lots. Unmentioned in the glorious history presented in the video is the condition of the Lehigh River while the plant was operating. I bet you wouldn't have wanted to go swimming in it, let alone drink it. If you're going to bring up "the good old days", it's best to remember all of it, not just the good parts. Even if you re-built the plant and produced steel at the rates of the 1950's or 60's, it would be so automated it would need only a handful of technicians sitting at computer touch-screens with joy-sticks to run the show, and advances in AI would one by one eliminate those jobs as well. We're post-industrial now, folks.
"Post industrial", not exactly. According to numbers from AISI, in the 50s and 60s the US made about 100Mt of steel per year (the peak was 1969 @ 141Mt). In 2017 the US made about 89.9Mt of steel. For comparison, in 1944, at the height of WW2, the US made 89.6Mt of steel. (Short tons of 2000lbs.) True we don't use as many blast furnaces to make liquid iron today as most steel is made from scrap metal in EAFs.
Thanks for commenting on my post and for the research. Your point is well taken. By "post industrial" I meant that fewer and fewer people will be required for equal production levels. Skill sets required in '44 and '69 are no longer in demand. Right now most human interaction is through software and AI will be doing more and more of that. Bona fides; I'm a retired heavy industry (paper/plastics) manufacturing installation/maintenance electrician and I have watched the march of technology through my career. Processes that used to require 30-40 reletively unskilled people now require a half dozen or so and most of those are tapping touch-screen computers, drinking coffee, and getting fat.. Will your sources tell us how much steel is imported today and how many people are directly employed in steel manufacturing in the US compared to 1969 and 1944. Thanks again for your response.
Considering the casualty rate at the old iron furnaces and steel mills automating the process is a good idea. The only reason for considering reopening this site is the raw materials of iron ore, coal and limestone are still available. Are they? Is high grade ore available from Minnisota along with the boats to carry it? Are the Bitiminous coal mines still open or can they be reopened? Who will open the limestone quarries? Who will supply the electricy?
@@gregwarner3753 I would be the last one to suggest opening up those mills again. If and when human population comes down to a sustainable level, they will be able to recycle all the steel they’ll ever need.
They invented planned obsolescence so that things would break and it would guarantee the makers a job. What happens when those jobs leave too and we’re stuck with broken old stuff and our money drained up?
why hasnt the entire plant been demolished already? so much GOOD steel that could be scrapped tommorow. why didnt ISG sell off the steel plant? and shit. they have a ton of refractory bricks just sitting there I assume. also ripe for use. why is this thing still standing? demolish it. let something new be built so that there can be some activity. we shouldnt be worshipping bad management, we should be letting new entrepreneurs work.
Give me a break Folks, electrical contractors do that same shit every day. My first 4 years as an apprentice was doing exactly this. You are all making it sound like you did it on the moon or some sensational shit. Come on back down to Earth and hang out a while.
I worked there for 26 years at the BOF & turned the lights out there.I was there for the last steel ever made at the bof & thought enough to have a test sample made so now I own the only & last piece of steel ever made there one of a kind. I also have pictures of all that were there at that time..I was a quality control leader there in the BOF Pit Office. I also have a complete video of the entire Coke Works i took..one of a kind
+robert deibert Thank you for sharing your story!
+robert deibert that's so awesome I have a question for you have you ever seen the movie Robocop at the end there in a pool of water what exactly did they keep in that area theres a crane that drops metal beams
They should have interviewed people like you (WORKERS) for this video but they didn’t. The Steel workers had backs disgracefully turned towards them yet again.
I'd love to touch it, and hear the history
I have a rock I found on the side of a hill. It's one of a kind. I also have a bass guitar I accidently put a big scratch in the back. It's one of a kind. My Bike got ran over. One of a kind. I also have a big gnarly zit on the side of my bean bag and you guessed it. It's one of a kind.
It’s so awesome how they preserved the plant so you can walk along the trestle and touch history. Most places like this would have been demolished in a month and made into an “Amazon” or restaurant. I love going there
It's a nice idea in concept but it's more like putting Band-Aids on a dead cow.
Gotta' paint the whole complex and maintain that paint coat much like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA (made of Bethlehem Steel) has its paint coat maintained.
Thank you for remembering the heartbeat of the nation, Steel mills .!
Very Nice glad you took the time to preserve this! Thank you..
Sad that this is whats left. Irony is they had a hard sourcing structural steel for the casino they built there. Perhaps keeping there as a reminder we were once an industrial country that made things, great things. Now we are an international joke.
The good Lord help us if there is another big war.
How fitting, of all things, they built a casino.
One of my favorite places to visit. So much history! Pure astonishment everytime I go
Astonishment seeing lights on a building? What happens when you walk inside Walmart? Is that astonishing? It sure should be because it's 20 times more complex than this.
They should use orange light instead of purple and blue, it makes it look like molten metal is still in there
Instead of shutting something down and make it a attraction keep it running and keep workers going
You cant keep a dead and inefficient business running just cuz.
I wonder where the conduit...panels ...led lights...etc were made.
Bravo! Excellent! This site shows us the shoulders we stand on today and gives proper homage to them.
It makes me so happy they didn't demolish everything for Sand's
Ive been on that walkway. Very neat
Dominic, I salute the history of the working men and women of America, particularly those in the Steel, coal and shipbuilding industries. Thank you for not allowing their generations of labor and lifetimes of contributions to American society, culture and strength to be forgotten. More important, is resurrecting our industrial capacity, in whatever trades those are and will become for ours and future generations. Doing that requires discussing the painful lessons learned that lead to their demise. that discourse has to occur nationally, openly, and with great courage and honesty. Two by two - two great mistakes and two great moves could be a starting place. One notion is some industrial ways and means are meant to be overcome, power generation for coal to oil, oil to gas, gas to nuclear, nuclear to alternatives, and how in these transitions to keep people working and keep our domestic industrial output and labor capacity strong. The second of this two, is proof we can do that, because it is done elsewhere in the world. no matter where one stands in terms of energy modernization, the facts are plain to see; We can generate our power here in America, in any of the ways I just mentioned, and especially in the most modern ends of the progression, but we are not. Why? The second pair of the two by two is to reinvent moral, political and entrepreneurial power and not repeat the mistakes of allowing greed (moral), corruption, (political) and centralized, top-down-first distribution of wealth (entrepreneurial power). The second half of this two distributes 85% of the earnings not to the owners, investors, and political campaigns but to the employees, driving political will in their favor, and bringing back to moral imperatives of the community, the neighborhood, the block, the family, ones own soul. I recently read 'The Posco Strategy' by Father William Hogan, S.J.. At the time of Posco's invention, rise and dominance, I lived in Korea as a defense contractor. As a Pennsylvanian and the grandson of coal miners (Pittston), ship builders (Chester) and refinery workers (Marcus Hook), I was haunted again again from the words in Father Hogan's book, the easy-to-see rise in world-leading steel, mining, shipbuilding from this tiny country, no bigger than New Jersey, that Americans like my father (Marine) fought and died and saved from slavery, while at the same time, the same industries i Pennsylvania are collapsing and dying. Where were the Industrial titans, the financiers, the politicians, to reinvent its industries, as Korea was inventing them? I hear all the time "not coming back"; "Cheap Labor" "no safety", when in other countries, "it keep on coming old industries reworked, and new industries begun" "the measurable quality of life, workers' benefits started low but continuously rise", and "through organization, labor strikes, and tough negotiations, worker safety increases". Two more facts are the number of politicians, even presidents, and billionaire industrial cronies, who end up in prison in those countries, form forsaking their people, and the increase and spread of catholic, christian, Buddhist and Muslim churches, even in China. I have never believed America cannot reinvent herself. We need this discourse, form the grass roots up, identity our objectives, define our moral boundaries, establish our timelines, line up the financing, get the political backing, and bypass everything that gets in the way through legal execution of our freedoms and liberties, including elections, civil disobedience, the traditional welcoming, churning, and amalgam of the American working class fellowship, and our buying power. Then, we will reignite Bethlehem steel.
Well you can kiss any of that goodbye with the traitorous corrupt evil bastard Joe Biden and his cohorts having stole the election right from under the American people. These people are going to make sure that this Nation and all the entities that made it once strong are erased forever.
@@LS-ti1rz Louis, why do you say that? The election aside, what or whom do you think is responsible for the initiation, rise, decline, and continued destruction of American Industrial capacity?
There are many many responsible for the decline of this nations strength. Its not one particular political party or another. There are many from both sides of the aisle throughout the years that have cozied up to lobbyist that represented foreign interest that wined and dined them. What I am saying is this particular bunch that have just took this election are very much in favor of this nation to continue in an even faster decline from its once glory days. This "party" is not the party of yesteryear, of John F. Kennedy and FDR. The ones that are behind all the degradation and outright election tampering that are actually pulling the strings have a vested interest in this Nation becoming as significant as a 3rd world country. ie: George Soros fingerprints are all over this mess and others of his ilk. What Im saying is people just like those that your inclining to are exactly those that have just undermined and corrupted our electoral process. The damage has just begun.
@@LS-ti1rz Do you believe and did you see the outgoing administration would do or have done anything to reverse or lessen the decline?
I agree with your recollection of history (I'm 64), and agree that the democratic party is in large part a neoliberal travesty.
I also feel the same way of the GOP, with their own brand of treachery.
But I'd offer that we can not take sides, but lay out clearly the different terrible situations we are facing n so many areas of our country.
And once we agree what the problems are we must decide the approaches we must take to solve them, how we will legislate those solutions, and how we will execute them.
We are mislead when we pick sides; in fact the corrupt powers your refer to want us to be divided.
In division, we expend all of our energy and shunt it to ground. When really we should be focused, and aimed at identifying and solving problems.
So how to do this? How to begin. I'd offer that it should start locally. Bottoms up and inside out. Every time we tried to start form the top down and outside in, the guys on the top made out and the money stayed on the outside.
Nothing on cold rainy day trickles down and seeps in that improves how we deal with the weather.
I believe locally we know what our problems are, but we have a hard time knowing what to do about it. We want what we had, what our grandfathers had. Mine were all immigrants, all coal miners, all shipbuilders, and refinery workers. I believe two of those industries are all but dead - and probably should be. Shipbuilding has some hope, particularly in defense, LNG, CNG, and dry/reefer.
Let me close with this. I have lived and worked all over the world. I saw the Asian tigers bleed us damn near dry. But more importantly, I saw them do the impossible, these counties small than New Jersey, to grow from devastation at the end of WWII and the Korean War, and lead the world in auto, ship, steel, chemical, electronics, and textile manufacturing.
And now China is bleeding them, slowly at first -but it will get worse - much worse if history serves us.
Why can't we take that back? Are they better than us? I think not. Not at all. Thank you for your time.
@@JoeCiliberto I can't say I disagree with you at all. Your absolutely right about the "outgoing" administration. They all are beholden to what I believe is perhaps one of if not the greatest enemy of this Nation, that being the Federal Reserve and the IRS. I especially feel that the "Red Shield" has put the world in "check" soon to finalize it all and call "mate" I look at these political figures that are suppose to represent We the People and I see how they are only beholden to the "corporation" The United States of America hasn't been a genuinely "free" country for quite some time now. I watch how there are always those that were either part of the Federal Reserve of associates of the Rothschilds all entangled in every administration the last decades. I thank you for taking the time to express your views...
First left the textile and shoe industry. Than furniture. After that the steel and auto industry. Ship building left same time. Electronic and high tech. included software left too now.
Watch less Fox and OAN.
@@ShainAndrews ?
Worked for Bethlehem in the Cleveland sales office in the 70s. Best gotcha moment in my life was selling the H-Piling for the U.S. steel building in Pittsburg. Chairman of the board went crazy when the Bethlehem steel trucks showed up at his job site. U.S.Steel wouldn’t give the foundation company any credit for supplying the piling. I knew how to get the guy credit. Gotcha!!!
Those were the days. Working for a steel company was where you wanted to be.
Its so weird to watch this, especially since I've spent my life in Bethlehem and I pass the stacks at least twice a week. I was their during the filming of one of the transformer movie.
Be proud of your heritage. Bethlehem Steel is American Heritage.
A better tribute would be to bring it back to life producing steel but environmental regulations and Union concessions would be needed to allow the company to compete
But hey we can always export out pollution, even china is looking to build their new steel mills in countries like Indonesia instead of domestically. So what happens when they build mills in Africa, where do the mills get moved from there?
I am building an N scale steel mill complex diorama. Would you be interested in putting that on display when I am done?
And then we lost our way.
Who is "we"?
At the Industrial supply a couple of months ago, the brand new 4 inch galvanized pipe was marked made in Vietnam. Why has a full blown steel mill that is making one of the largest volume steel commodity products popped up in Vietnam? I don't know the real story, but it looks like it is more profitable to move a steel mill and tubing plant than it is to stay put and deal with workers that want a vested retirement, money to pay off their mortgage, and health care. The local community has exhausted it's ability to absorb the steelmaking slag and other waste, the local dump is full and the local river is dead.
Suppose we think about the steel mill moving game as a global problem. One step would be to make a pension and retirement health care system where taxes on the fob sale price of steel are directly forwarded to the entire population of retired or fired steel workers. Lets see if we can think of something a little more modest.
How about we change the steel mill design to much smaller tonnages and use solar reflectors and solar electric panel arrays.
Wait wait, suppose we look at the Bethlehem shutdown as a case where thousands of people had their pensions greatly reduced and also many workers were laid off while they still had a mortgage to pay. The first fifteen years of Bethlehem steel were very profitable. The last fifteen years was a gradual collapse where eventually the pension system was underfunded. Suppose we look at putting the Social Security payroll tax system on a basis where industries and businesses and that are highly profitable pay more tax. When the same business slips into it's last 15 years of stalled profits, the employees can retire on a good pension even though the business is beginning to lose profitability.
Bethlehem steel plant just needs a remodel. Also check the consistency of the steel from years of heat. And go about doing a remodel this would open up jobs
And i wonder how long all that lighting lasted before it was all vandalized and/or taken down by scrappers. Unless the plant has since been demolished of course.
Good Lord. With all the “locals” and IB’s and “groups” involved this must have come in at quadruple the going rate. Everyone in this video looks like they got a cut.
That is nice what was done with the lights.
A derelict hulk, slowly rusting away. That's not a monument, it's a memorial; a gravestone. To light it all up with colored lights is grotesque. Much better to tear it all down and make something useful out of the scrap steel and restore the land to a natural state, though there are likely some serious, and very expensive, brownfield issues to deal with in any demolition/restoration. A Google maps satellite image shows the site surrounded by unused parking lots. Unmentioned in the glorious history presented in the video is the condition of the Lehigh River while the plant was operating. I bet you wouldn't have wanted to go swimming in it, let alone drink it.
If you're going to bring up "the good old days", it's best to remember all of it, not just the good parts.
Even if you re-built the plant and produced steel at the rates of the 1950's or 60's, it would be so automated it would need only a handful of technicians sitting at computer touch-screens with joy-sticks to run the show, and advances in AI would one by one eliminate those jobs as well.
We're post-industrial now, folks.
"Post industrial", not exactly. According to numbers from AISI, in the 50s and 60s the US made about 100Mt of steel per year (the peak was 1969 @ 141Mt). In 2017 the US made about 89.9Mt of steel. For comparison, in 1944, at the height of WW2, the US made 89.6Mt of steel. (Short tons of 2000lbs.) True we don't use as many blast furnaces to make liquid iron today as most steel is made from scrap metal in EAFs.
Thanks for commenting on my post and for the research. Your point is well taken.
By "post industrial" I meant that fewer and fewer people will be required for equal production levels. Skill sets required in '44 and '69 are no longer in demand. Right now most human interaction is through software and AI will be doing more and more of that.
Bona fides; I'm a retired heavy industry (paper/plastics) manufacturing installation/maintenance electrician and I have watched the march of technology through my career. Processes that used to require 30-40 reletively unskilled people now require a half dozen or so and most of those are tapping touch-screen computers, drinking coffee, and getting fat..
Will your sources tell us how much steel is imported today and how many people are directly employed in steel manufacturing in the US compared to 1969 and 1944.
Thanks again for your response.
Considering the casualty rate at the old iron furnaces and steel mills automating the process is a good idea. The only reason for considering reopening this site is the raw materials of iron ore, coal and limestone are still available. Are they? Is high grade ore available from Minnisota along with the boats to carry it? Are the Bitiminous coal mines still open or can they be reopened? Who will open the limestone quarries? Who will supply the electricy?
@@gregwarner3753 I would be the last one to suggest opening up those mills again.
If and when human population comes down to a sustainable level, they will be able to recycle all the steel they’ll ever need.
@@ralphaverill2001 What is your idea of 'sustainable'?
Factory looks like a steampunk battleship.
Hallowed?
Hello’d to you too.
Thanks to president Trump
The plant is in a very bad state of decay. Preservation work is desperately needed.
Seems like nothing more than an ad for a union and electrical contractor.
This surprises you?
They're going after the pension checks from the mill's retirees by building a casino...
They invented planned obsolescence so that things would break and it would guarantee the makers a job. What happens when those jobs leave too and we’re stuck with broken old stuff and our money drained up?
Who is "they"?
@@ShainAndrews obviously the wealthy industrial owners, who only can profit by selling more products.
Goofy...turn it into an amusement park...a philanthropic finger in our eye...lol
why hasnt the entire plant been demolished already? so much GOOD steel that could be scrapped tommorow. why didnt ISG sell off the steel plant? and shit. they have a ton of refractory bricks just sitting there I assume. also ripe for use. why is this thing still standing? demolish it. let something new be built so that there can be some activity. we shouldnt be worshipping bad management, we should be letting new entrepreneurs work.
Pollution..slag...acid runoff...and fumes..! Coal , coke , ash mountains that leach heavy metals....and acrid air...HEALTHY. ..? Nope...China has the headache now....hmmmm
Give me a break Folks, electrical contractors do that same shit every day. My first 4 years as an apprentice was doing exactly this. You are all making it sound like you did it on the moon or some sensational shit. Come on back down to Earth and hang out a while.
MAGA!!!