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@priscillaross-fox9407 Must've been a glitch of some kind on your phone I've done watched it a few times on 2 different phones & neither phone nothing was 'blipped' out
I was a bricklayer in the east chicago steel plant. I lined blast furnace 13 for the last time. My great great grandfather died in bethleham steel mill as a bricklayer. I'm a proud 4th generatiom mason
I am a retired Union Construction Laborer, Local 81, a Region Rat. Like you, I spent a good portion of my career in our area's steel mills. One thing about the furnaces, coke batteries or anything involving refractory work, it meant loads of overtime. After the demo was done the rest was a breeze. Cleaner anyways. Peace.
@larryspiller6633 Awesome brother. I was local 5 for a couple years before i got into the bricklayers union. I knife alot of 81 guys and 41 guys. Peace brother. Merry christmas
Bethlehem Steel paid for most of my Master's Degree in Engineering in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. I received a scholarship from Bethlehem Steel, to cover room and board, tuition, and books. Bethlehem Steel was on campus to interview and hire marine engineers. I scheduled an interview that lasted less than five minutes. I was told they did not hire marine engineers. They preferred mechanical engineers, the savings came from paying less for engineers with a broader, less specialized education. When I asked why pay for my scholarship? And, post they were hiring marine engineers. They explained the Bethlehem Steel shipyards requested naval and marine engineers be hired. However, Bethlehem Steel Employee Relations did the hiring. It was their decision to reject my application. Decisions like that bring companies down.
Damn that’s crazy. I’m glad you got free education on their dime, but it’s crazy that the company was willing to just light money on fire like that. Pay for someone’s education just to not bother hiring them after all that commitment
In all my years of collecting stories of how HR or it's equivalent screwed up the hiring of engineering and tech workers yours will have to go right to the top. Their loss, your gain though.
Bethlehem Steel also built the Golden Gate Bridge. It was shipped by rail to Philadelphia then by ship through the Panama Canal. The iconic color came from the original primer that the pieces were painted.
Yes I'd say that was a pretty significant blunder on part of the video creator to leave that out because it is more iconic than anything he mentioned 😮
My great grandfather worked his entire career at Bethlehem steel after he got back from World War 2 from the navy. He loved working there and did well for himself his entire life we still have his cabin that we are able to go to because he worked his ass off to be able to have it and they loved it up there. We still have some items like lights from out of one of the shops at the steel there that he was going to put out facing the lake haha but they are still sitting in the garage up there. He died in 1999 and he was lucky because he got his pension and everything before the company folded. He ended up dying of mesothelioma I'm taking it from working there but he was always having awesome stories from there and he loved it! We have a lot of stell stuff that my grandmother still has. Our boat anchors that we use for fishing are made from steel that he made at work. IT was an awesome thing for this area and the cool things we have in life because of his great career I'm glad he was not alive to see them demolish Martin Tower he would have definitely been upset
My grandfather also worked there after serving, and operated the giant crane that moved raw materials back and forth. He died just a few years ago, but I grew up in the same house him and his family of like 12 siblings all grew up in. I love this city and will never forget the tons of projects from twin towers, to the SF bridge, to Navy ships all using homemade steel made right in my backyard. Bless our hard working earlier generations, as I couldn’t be standing here today without them 🙏
Great stories. I was out on a hike recently and was hiking along an abandoned railroad in southern New Jersey. I noticed some embossed writing on the side of the rails along with a date. The rails were made at Bethlehem steel somewhere around 1910 or 1916 ( I couldn't discern the last digit in the date). I stared at that rail for some time. I couldn't help but imagine all of the work that went into producing that steel rail. A once proud bunch of people earned a good living and produced a once needed and useful product for a growing country. I was in Bethlehem recently for a concert at the Wind Creek Event Center. It was a very depressing sight to see that once great factory sitting there rusting into the ground. I hope that our new president can bring back some manufacturing to our country instead of sending it overseas like some previous president did. Here's to the great generations that made our country a premiere manufacturing giant.🍺
Worked in the coke plant, blast furnace, rolling mills, and maintenance. ( millwright and turn foreman ) . What we did back then would never be allowed today. It was like walking through the gates of hell for 8 or more hours a day, but it became my working home for years. Your video brings back memories.
Wow. My dad was a millwright mostly in the BOF for 33 years did you know an Italian guy from Easton (Palmer township) named Livio but used the easier nickname Lee???
Our college chemistry class toured the Bethlehem plant in 79. I remember going past the coke works and the smell coming out of there. Of course I lived right next to the NJ Zinc Plants in Palmerton and we had our own smells.
@@MAXIMUSMINIMALIST I have forgot more than I now know. Just bits and pieces. Always seem to remember old barrels set up and we would burn some of the coke to keep warm. I remember maintenance delays and how my boss would keep reminding me we are losing $600 per minute until it is fixed. LOL
I was a truck driver in the early 1980's and would often deliver to Fairless Works. I got an escort one day and he took me to see the blast furnaces. Your description of it being the gates of hell is exactly how I remember it.
@@GabrielSBarbaraSI understand. My memory is taking a hit too. Enjoy life. Consider your options and try to make sure you don't die with your sailboat in the driveway 🤔
I work at a former Bethlehem steel plant in burns harbor Indiana and I love my job. We still got loads of guys that were out here during the Bethlehem days.
Living in Bethlehem my whole life, it was definitely a surprise to see this video pop up in my feed! I would say this video doesn't touch quite on how poorly managed the company was in the later half of the 20th century. I think something that exemplifies this is the now demolished Martin Towers. What was supposed to be the future headquarters of the Bethlehem Steel Corp. was designed in a plus shape so that all the executives could have a corner office... Great video nontheless, thank you for highlighting a little piece of history from my hometown, cheers!
I remember Martin Tower i was a guard who had access to everything, the building was amazing the Steel offices had a Hand made Carpet, Hand painted portraits of former employees, and an Antique Gun room. A Table I have no idea how they got it in the building? The place was getting run down at the time a building in the back that had a Gym had a leaking roof the hardwood floors were all buckled up. Very hard to walk on with 2'-3' ripples. Across the street was the Server building that had a Halon fires system with alarms telling you if it went off you needed to get out fast! Because it would remove the Oxygen in seconds once triggered. The company was amazing.
@KRich408 my buddy worked a while at the Lowe's across the street on 8th ave 10 or so years ago we were always tempted to go over there and explore it because it looked like there was access from the back bottom cement utility looking area but there was also always Bethlehem cops sitting there on Martin Court so we never ended up doing it
More like we made a Pile of MONEY we do not need to Stay on Top of our Game? It's Greed, and comfort when the next Generation will not put in the hard work to keep the vision alive. Like lots of "inheritances" and the Bible? Believe it or not? So Cal Had a booming metals Industry with Shipyards to the 80's the Democrats, and South Korea's Assent to power and this type of building. I worked as a child in the industry, forges, foundry's, even made casting materials and binders in the 80's just a very few miles from downtown LA. I grew up a few blocks from Dayton Foundry and lived multi generationally around it too. I even own a titanium digging bar made with SR 71? alloy I watched the smith at another foundry cut off, heat up in the oven next to the one I worked on for him, hammer out, quench, hand to me about 13 or 15? years old about 1975 to 80? while working with Dad on weekends at a local foundry.
yes and now we have few integrated mills that could produce the masses of steel for things like major bridges, ships, and buildings, and that is why they must rely on china, for it and it dont help that of all the steel poured in the world china produces 60 percent of it in the world, as of last count I saw about 2 years ago, no other nations have a chance to overtaking them anytime soon. steel work is tough dirty and close to hell on earth, but its the price of modernity, and good paying jobs, some like what they do though as a badge of honor, we have several mills round here too nucor and sdi which was actually born in this area of indiana, and has several operations near by and both mini mills seem to be doing pretty well in their specialized areas they make stuff for. its a tail of our rise its golden age and fall just like soo much industry, steel, cars, clothing and shoes on the coast, and toolmaking, even much of the farming seems to be taken out of commission, and what bit of electronics we did produce is being stripped away, and if its not it seems the powers that be have to force it to do so when there is no reason it cant continue, they cant just leave it alone and let it decide if and when it will give up. I do see though people finally trying to say not only that its ok to do skilled trades but finally trying to help encourage it, or at least give the students some inkling to to do industry or produce stuff, or how to use the machines and ai to be able to do so, building not only the middle class again and the nation but also the dignaty of purpose, after all we all cant be influancers and keep the food produced or the garbage and recycling taken care of.
It’s the fate of any company that shifts its focus from actually making something, to simply making profits. “Maximizing shareholder value” means they’re not investing into R&D, efficiency changes, or most importantly workers… and it becomes a march towards death.
Well I wouldn't get to bent out of shape about it but you definitely make a point I was thinking the same thing myself but in addition to that the title is completely erroneous if not outright Clickbait.
Great video! I grew up in manufacturing and owned an aluminum manufacturing company in Florida before I retired. I love the pictures of these old "heavy industry " plants and really see what capabilities our country has lost.
I worked at Bethlehem Steel for many years from the 70's. I was a Technician at Homer Research Labs on top of the South Mountain. There were 750 Technicians, Engineers, support Trades. I worked on a research project at Lackawanna Plant BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace) near Buffalo NY. Then I worked at Sparrows Point Plant in Baltimore. I helped acquire a patent for Steel Sheet Length Measurement. I had many years of great employment there.
@@davebollmann5292 About ten years ago, I volunteered with the NMIH to move records out of that facility for preservation. We filled two 40’ trailers with filing cabinets. I was allowed to take anything lying around. I filled the back of my Santa Fe with goodies.
I had a neighbor in Coopersburgh who retired from Bethlehem Steel named Calvin (can't remember his last name). The day he retired he had a doctors appointment and found he had cancer. Two weeks later he died. He just gave up after he was basically forced to retire.
I've been to the Bethlehem facility in Indiana a number of times as a truck driver loading steel. Typically, large plate steel heading to The Philly Shipyard. We'd get a police escort for the last few miles. That was cool. Weaving through traffic, driving on the shoulders, running red lights.
My father worked for US steel from early 70’s to mid 80’s I was born late 70’s. I remember the early part of my childhood was average middle class and after father lost his job working for the steel company….. well I guess he had not been doing the skilled trades work there. Things were never good again. The parents lost the house we lived in the camper in multiple campgrounds in summers and stayed with compassionate family friends in winters. Luckily after I graduated from high school father went to the VA and found they could help him get a home loan and they got a house. Just unfortunate that they didn’t try that earlier so when I was in school I didn’t have to deal with the stress and anxiety of not having permanent housing. 🤦♂️🤷♂️
The statistic I remember is that in the early 70’s US Steel Gary works employed over 26 thousand people and by the late 80’s only 6 thousand but made more steel.
@@jimmylieb5225 you're funny. American firms buy companies all over the world. Canada hasn't got a domestic owned manufacturer of cars, trucks, tractors, combines, trains... because American policy & money. Now you've lost the advantages to stupid, greedy executives & unions. It wasn't Canada that killed the American dream.
People in very high places and not necessarily in the steel industry had in their plans the slow decline of America after WW2 it was planned our industrial might would rebuild the world and then it would be slowly unwound and dismantled, not improved or innovated we were off the gold standard by 73 the fraud of the oil embargo we had it here but to make the petro dollar work we were forced to not drill and use our own we were lied to and we suffered because of it, the money printers were cranked up to pay for the deluge of welfare claims as massive amounts of industrial jobs disappeared,there is much more to the story but greed is a human condition and labor as well as management were each other's worst enemy.
My grandpa and great grandpa both worked for bethlehem steel. I remember my grandmother telling me of a friend that retired from there and it was as if he died of cancer "the next day". Steel mills are a dangerous marvel of industry
My neighbor worked their and he retired (not by choice) and he went to doctors that day, found out he had cancer and died 2 weeks later. Can't remember his last name but his first name was Calvin
Thanks, excellent video. I had a lot of family work there and now I can show my younger family some of their roots. Growing up next to the steel, I still can remember the sights and sounds. Some of my family has had cancer that other people also had in the area, kinda like it's from the steel and your not the only family who is dealing with it. Strangle if the place was still going today, I'd probably be working there too. I snuck in there around the late 90s just to look and remember seeing orders ready to go out, but never made it. The steel definitely helped this family have a fighting chance and even with all the negative about the place, I will always be grateful for the steel. Thank you Ryan.
Dangerous Work: That was probably the case in all steel mills: In a former steel mill in Germany I saw an old sign “135 reportable accidents in the month of October - work safely!”
After World War II the soldiers demanded living wages and the houses they were promised and after taking several CEOs hostage an emergency meeting of the president and the top wealthiest families were held, and they agreed to give 1 generation the American Dream This was the 1950s and 60s In the late 70s and early 80s they began sending the steel over to China and they began closing down the steel mills in America Many people were laid off and it was upsetting because the people that lived here we put up with this incredibly loud sonic boom that happened every hour as they poured the steel. The toxic fumes and the unbearable noise pollution was tolerated in exchange for having a decent life Watching the hellertown yard that had 50 tracks and was constantly busy with trains going to Philly and back and constant yard work, as they began building I-78 over the yard, they started ripping up tracks I watched year after year as it went from 50 tracks to 40 to 30 to 20 to 10 to 5 to 2 to 1 lonely rusted track And finally the last track was ripped up This was the reading line originally and it was double tracked the entire way from Philly to Lansdale to Quakertown to hellertown yard In Quakertown there were six tracks and several yards Passenger trains ran daily through these towns I remember in the 80s walking the tracks through Center Valley and they were shiny and well-used with multiple trains every day Seeing it all gone is so sad
I grew up next to the tracks. It was our property line. The light from the engines would shine into our kitchen when they went by at night. I'm 46 and had many relatives work at the steel. You said it very well.
China didn't come into play until the 2000's. Their infrastructure for that was garbage tier during that era. You're probably thinking of both Japan and Germany, which had rebuilt their entire capacity post WWII (since it was bombed to ash) so they were competitive with the rest of the world.
The US never learns. We sent steel over to Japan, it was returned in Pearl Harbor and WWII. So, not learning, we're still sending steel over to China... But now, we've allowed our steel industry to fail. Hopefully, Chinese is easy to learn, given how we're also now attacking veteran benefits and pensions, won't have anyone to defend the nation or steel with which to defend it.
Wait, this is crazy! I was literally at the plant today for the first time! And this video came out while I'm there. My mind is blown. It's a great place to visit, and I would recommend if you are close by.
I live in Bethlehem now, never got to experience Bethlehem when the plant was running but now it still supports the city and helps the valley as a whole as there are events down there every season. The tourism revenue from steel stacks and Musikfest is wild. The plant will forever be the backdrop to our city. You don’t truly understand or realize just how BIG the blast furnace actually is until your there standing below it just looking up. Great video, and yes Martin tower was the only skyscraper in Bethlehem but they ended up demolishing that in the mid to late 2000’s. A lot of history for sure, my house I live in now was built in 1916 for the workers. It wasn’t a company home but it was meant for the steel mill workers to live in. I highly recommend anyone interest to take a trip and check out the old plant super cool, and love that I can walk down my road and hear music playing in the summer from the site of the old blast furnace.
@@danskinner9669 I work at Artsquest. It’s a really cool place to be and it’s awesome to see them continually pay homage to the steel plant and invest in the arts and the community. It’s become quite the music scene
so good. in the 80's I spent my youth exploring the slowly abandonment of this American icon in Bethlehem, thank you for such a great historic context.
FYI: A little historical fact. The Lackawanna Railroad was the only railroad in history that never had a year of "lost profit". It serviced Beth Steel in Lackawanna, NY, and the surrounding steel business entities, like the ports, shipping yards (trucks and trains) and the coke mills as well as the entire Lackawanna Bethlehem Steel Plant.
@@OneAdam12Adam I was born in the Schiller Park area, and raised on the lower east side where we didn't get the dark orange roofs from the plant area, but I remember them well.
This place is amazing. The fact that you’re able to visit and explore is like a steampunk enthusiasts wet dream! And that history that deserves to be remembered!
Its is a shame the museum directors were wasting money and took years to open.....the fact most of the mill is a hotel and casino is really a shame to me. Would have made a really cool complex for artists spaces local history museums antiques stores, restaraunts etc. Instead we got buses of new yorkers from china town coming here to gamble. At least the museum finally got underway and the concert venu is kinds cool.
It gets old when you have lived in eyesight of it before and after it was “rebuilt”. I did go into it before it was purchased and made into the casino as a teen. It was so surreal, scary as well.
@ explore! Although they do have an arts thing, attempted to develop parts of an into something else. I don't know, I've only been there a couple of times. I don't live in the states, I only go there if I have to "for the most part" unless there's something I want to see, do etc Although I couldn't imagine like many places in America, it's not safe from looters or people are trying to make a buck
China wanted to monopolize the steel industry. They could sell "state subsidized" steel to the USA for less than it could be made here. That's one of china's tactics. The government subsidizes target industries, allowing prices to drop, putting American companies out of business. After achieving their goal, prices (and profits) can rise again. They're also doing the same with solar panels, batteries, and automobiles. China's strategy is to monopolize tomorrow's products and resources. BTW, they are also buying up properties all across the USA, in case you're wondering why houses are no longer affordable.
Yep..that's exactly what happened...politicians let cheap steel in to fatten their wallets..bought off by china...I knew several older men and women that worked there..and retired there..I hauled steel out of several plants including Lehigh valley plant..always enjoyed getting a backlogs from there..politicians..greedy politicians are the reason America is down the drain...not unions not workers...our own government sold us out...yea it was dangerous but these individuals were proud of their work....
It’s not about America, the whole world went through the same. Remember it was the west that went to China for cheaper costs, and more profits, not the other way around….
It's ironic that Chinese Communism is becoming so dominant over American Capitalism. Without the Liberal Big Tech most of America would be economically destroyed by the CCP.
The day the Lackawanna plant burned about 4 years ago I could see the fire from Townline Rd in Stevensville Ontario across lake Erie and 1/2 hour from the shore.
That was just one building that had been converted to vehicle/boat storage. There were concerns about heavy metals contamination from what burned, but I don't recall what the findings were.
I drove past the plant often before and after that section burned down and it only made the entire place more uncanny. It’s been yacht storage my whole life but the surrounding area was clearly so dependent/heavily impacted by its presence, probably until just a decade or two before I was born. Here I am in the aftermath, the entire city surrounded by what is best described as ruins
I grew up near Bethlehem and remember when the plant closed and the affect it had on many of my friend’s families. It was a shock to the entire area that it could ever be closed!
My Great Grandfathet was a welder for Bethlehem Steel. He started in western Pa. And moved to the Baltimore Shipyards. He welded for 50 yrs at Bethlehem Steel. I carry that torch for him to this day. I wish I could have worked where he did, but it was long gone by the time I started welding 23 yrs ago.
The unwillingness to Integrate and improve working conditions of the steel industry wasn't just a problem for Bethlehem steel but, Pennsylvania steel as well. A lot of people had to move to find jobs somewhere else, including my family.
I live near Johnstown, our Cambria Ironworks got bought out by Bethlehem Steel. It went down with Bethlehem. We still have an ironworks here, but it's independently owned by employees, Gautier Ironworks, which makes wire mostly.
yea and they have that historic and very old industrial blacksmith shop that is now a metalworking school, and living landmark as a place on the national historic places register, the big steam hammer is owned I think by the smithsonian but they hope one day to put it back into use to teach the the skills that are slowly being lost in industral forging or so I belive remember hearing, but johnstown used to be a complete mill, as they say though what ever it takes to keep it going in some form.
My dad worked here back in the 70’s and he always had a nightmare story to tell. From being hit in the head with a beam, only being saved by his helmet, to guys falling to their deaths into a pit, there was always hardship and tragedy there. I’ll never take for granted the sacrifices my dad made to provide for the family.
Having moved to Bethlehem, Pa. in 1985, I have lived here for over half my life. I did work at the plant, after it closed, to help disassemble some of the machinery so that it could be refurbished and sold to other steel companies. I do attend events at the Steel Stacks/Arts Quest venues, and walking past the blast furnaces it creeps me out that people would be working on top of those huge stacks. There are ladders going up there, and i always think to myself, "No way anyone would get me up there, NO WAY!" You have to see them up close to understand. The site was also featured in the opening scenes of the movie "Transformers 2".
My mother’s brother worked at Bethlehem Steel Company in DUNDALK SPAROSS POINT MD ASa welder , the place was 3 miles long and 1 mile wide it was Hugh ! It’s closed up in the 1975 still just sitting there , a lot of. The jobs were lost 😞
@@williambarry8015 I worked there also it was the largest industrial complex in the Western Hemisphere. When they finally closed the hot mill they left the lights on as can be seen in another youtube video before they demolished the whole site to build an Amazon warehouse.
Bethlehem Steel in Sparrows Point didn't close up until 2003 when the company went bankrupt and steel was still produced here until 2012. It's a shame how many high paying jobs were lost.
What needs better description is how badly the steel corporations treated it's labor force...especially with Carnegie Steel in the 19th century. It was absolutely horrible.
My grandfather worked as a machinist and welder at Bethlehem steel in Lackawanna, NY from 1948 til 1978 and watched it burn down from his back porch in 2016, pretty sad to see what has become of domestic industry
The feds should never have allowed foreign building materials such as steel and other metals we can produce. But politicians like too many industry leaders and investors only care about making more money, not ensuring the future of our workforce and abilities to produce critical materials.
@@jsprit6669 oh it's worse than that! This is why we just had a massive upset in the election because not only did our government allow all of these companies to move overseas they actually used our tax money and paid many of them to do it!!!!!!!!
Yes,Government’s failure to take necessary and allowable measures to protect these critical jobs in the steel making industry.They,instead,stood for the corporations,that could increase profits by importing steel at half the price they could produces it.This practice was the end of the steel mills and the decline and decay of all the cities built upon it,and the tens of thousands of livelihoods in the balance.
As someone who works at the new Bethlehem steel, the same issues still persist 30 years later. The management has learned nothing since the collapse of the old Bethlehem steel.
My grandfather and father worked at the Bethlehem steel plant. I was looking forward to working at the steel but graduated 1 year too late. I’ll never forget the day my dad came home and said it’s done. He worked 38 years at the steel.
There’s a museum nearby the site dedicated to Steelstacks as it’s called by locals; Much of what I learned about Steelstacks was from there. I’d go every now and again with my dad for an ‘educational experience’. The economy’s a bit better now thanks to the addition of WindCreek casino but there are still some nasty areas. Still not as rundown as some parts of Allentown and Reading.
In my 2 years at Fairless Works, we had 2 deaths....one from an exploding saw, that severed a guy's leg....and from a Laborer cowboying a forklift with a heavy load, that flipped and squashed him. I was in killing range of the saw, and didnt see the forklift incident until after it happened. Many dangers in the mills in spite of safety practices that were in place. The smell of sulfur never leaves yer nose.
@@mikedee8876 I lived in Bethlehem during my mid to late twenties, heard many stories from my one friends dad who worked there, he told me one time he saw 3 guys get crushed to death by huge steel plates with one guy only half crushed, but died shortly after as he was trying to pull his trapped lower half out. My buddy Robs father in law worked there in the coke works. He was saying how one time a guy fell in the molten steel and just disappeared like in terminator and there was nothing they could do besides file an incident report because you couldn’t just stop the process.
@@johnperhach2534 yep, you touched on the main problem...that the process cant be stopped, and people take chances, or speed up, to keep that from happening......in that environment, you depend on your workmates to keep each other alive.
After my family had moved from Italy, they came to the lehigh valley during the depression the only way to get by was my great grandfather working for 7 hours a week for i believe $2-$3 per week, my family used to tell me of the hardships of the times they struggled and my great aunts would tell me how they would be making the ammunition for ww2 while my great uncles fought for their new found home. Bethlehem steel still stands high and tall with so much history and families who wouldn’t have made it without that company. it’s beautiful to walk around and is a great view while watching the concerts at Arts Quest. From one side of the town to the other there’s history from this beautiful country all around it 💙
My great grandfather worked for Bethlehem steel in Baltimore county, where the plant once stood, vacant for many years, is now owned by amazon and has many warehouses on its property.
the Lackawanna plant near Buffalo closure helped sink the whole region. The union contracts were ridiculous. For example, after 5 years of employment worker received 13 weeks paid vacation every year. No company can survive that.
My grandfather was an onsite EMT/Firefighter for Bethlehem Steel in PA. He's told me countless stories of times he's had to respond to deaths on the plant.
Thank you. My immigrate grandfather worked about 20 years in the coal mines in Hazleton, PA. When that closed, they moved to Bethlehem and he worked there around years. I wish he didn't pass away when I was so young. I would have loved talking to him about it. I live 10 minutes away and drive past it on my way to work every day. There is also a casino on part of the property now too. Plus, a hotel and outlet stores.
I remember seeing the Sparrows Point mill in full operation at night in the 1970s. Crossing the Franci Scott Key bridge you could see the firey glow in the sky for miles. Now the mill is an Amazon warehouse, and well, the Key bridge is history now too.
I remember my grandpa telling stories of his years working for the Bethlehem Mines in the 1960s. I remember him telling me that they weather proofed everything down there before flooding the mines incase they ever needs to use them again. Year's later most of the equipment they used is still there today.
Bethlehem controlled a number of mines and mining towns through International Collieries Corporation (ICC) including Heilwood and Wherum (Indiana County), Slickville (Westmoreland Co) and Ellsworth (Washington Co), along with the Cambria and Indiana Railroad. One of their last active mines was near Windber #35. After being closed a number of years Rosebud Mining reopened it around 2015.
While you're exploring Pennsylvania steel towns do a report on Coatesville. I recently read a book about the lynch-mob there that occurred in 1910. I never knew about it before before I read it.
My coworker was employed at Lukens steel in Coatesville PA when they got bought out by Bethlehem Steel. The executives at Bethlehem used the large Lukens pension fund to help pay for the large number of retired employees they already didn’t have the money for, draining the fund dry and leaving him and dozens of other workers with no money to retire with. Guys who had retired even had to come back to work because there was no money being paid out after Bethlehem screwed them.
I used to work at the plant in Burns Harbor, Indiana. People getting killed or maimed was a regular thing. the midnight shift was fun; no bosses. We'd have drag races with the locomotives and take one out onto a slip into Lake Michigan and go fishing....no, not to eat those 4-headed trout....
@@danielthoman7324 GM worker was bragging about having a hiding spot to sleep every night shift to me at the Massena plant. Now it's closed and he's a janitor at a hotel reminiscing of the good ol days being a union gut hanger.
I work for a law firm that specializes in asbestos and I see Bethlehem Steel listed as the defendant in most of our cases. This was very helpful to understanding why!
My dad was a millwright at Bethlehem Steel for 33 years he was one of the lucky ones that got out in the late 80's well before the collapse. The unions went crazy and put the final nail in the coffin. Yes there are other reasons including tariffs and management and lack of modernization But the unions are at the top of the list the final agreement they signed was completely outrageous and before the ink was dry everyone knew the company could not survive. There were something like 70 pensioners for every active worker at that time!!! Unions did a lot of good when they fought for workers but then they became ANTI business and bit the hand that feeds them. Then when the builders of the twin towers decided to get steel from China instead of Bethlehem which was only an hour and a half away it was the beginning of the end. The American dream ended with the baby boomers. Now we are third century Rome and witnessing our own collapse.
@@seanhartnett79 I've been a member of a union 3 times. I'm here to tell you that union greed caused free trade. It became cheaper for the companies to outsource because of lifetime pensions and $35/hour jobs when minimum wage was $3.50. Everybody knew the contracts were getting out of hand. The old timers just hoped to retire before it went bust. Us young men got fukked. Sorry you bought the bullshit, but I saw what was going on.
You are correct from what I've heard. It was the company and the unions that were the result of their failure. A new design for making steel faster and cheaper was designed by Bethlehem Steel. The company and the union decided it would cost too many jobs if implemented so the designs were sold to a Japanese Co that was going out of business for r&d costs. They put America out of the steel making business and all the employees became millionaires.
It was deeply troubling to me when I was a truck driver after my time in the service. I would pick up steel coils from Bethlehem steel run them down to New Orleans, then pick up steel ingots from China and bring them back up. I knew this was the end of an era of American dominance in the steel market.
I live in walnutport I take the D&L trail all the time. Lived in Bethlehem for a while. You can see the Bethlehem steel plant from the D&L trail from across the Lehigh river between the freemansburg and ice house trail heads. Love seeing historical videos on my local area.
I grew up in the area and my father would always take me there and teach me the history. The men and women who worked at that plant had such a massive impact on the country and world as a whole. From high rise buildings, to bridges, to wartime material, they are heroes!
I worked with a gentleman who was an electrician at Bethlehem Steel. The guy knows his stuff for sure, and he could tell all kinds of stories of his time there. Since then, I've moved on to another job, but he's still around.
Had the pleasure of working with people that had experienced the bethlehem steel unsafe standards. It wasn't unheard to hear of people disappearing on shift falling into a vat of molten metal
I as a Flatbed Truck Driver hauled steel out of Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point, MD (Baltimore) and Johnstown, PA mills. The Sparrows Point mill is gone. I have been there recently several big warehouses for McCormick Spices, Home Depot and others are there now. The Home Depot is where some of ship building used to be. From there you have a good view of where the Francis Scott Key bridge used to be before it got taken out (knocked down) by a container ship recently.
All of the sewer caps here in my small town in maine were made at Bethlehem a heck of a long time ago.I imagine sewer caps are everywhere in the US made by bethlehem steel..
I grew up with those blast furnace towers as my skyline. When you're a kid, they look like a rusted old Decepticon dragon skeleton dying on the horizon. If you ever come to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, you will see the massive impact these businesses visionaries had on forming the city's early history. The names of Sayre, Packer, Grace, etc. are on countless buildings, streets and parks. If you go to Nisky Hill Cemetery, the Grace family plot is more of a public monument than a marker for graves. If you love history, architecture and nature, the Lehigh Valley is an amazing place to grow up.
I worked as a sprinkler fitter and my job took me by the plant a lot. It always felt somber seeing the decaying buildings and the stuff they pulled out of them to scrap. A few times they hit stuff that was buried by the plant that was left to rot. I still have a section of railroad track that we pulled out of the ground there.
A lot of neighbors of the plant hated it. Working dispatch one night there was an exsplosion from a slag dump and it was so large it broke windows and moved homes on their foundations. I took over 100 calls in 30 minutes at the dispatch center and I dispatched police fire and ems to the scene. BTW, have you done anything on the Bethlehem Hotel Fire? Interesting with that fire is 3 dispatch centers worked together on that. The city of Betlehem handled law enforcement, Northampton County handled fire and I handled EMS at Lower Saucon TWP dispatch.
Well done video. It seems to happen quite often.... a company becomes a corporation, and instead of promoting the actual workers, the corporation hires former frat-boys from business colleges who have never actually been near a coal car or a blast furnace, or done manual labor at all,,,, but those Boardroom people in the air-conditioned office always want more work done but hate to pay the workers.
I work at SVCC down the road. Our first course named Grace Course was named after Eugene Grace as at the time it was the place for Bethlehem execs. Weyhill course had the steel insignia as it was reserved for the executives before it was purchased by the club
My dad worked in the PA plants. He was moved from the Lebanon plant to the Steelton plant before being fully laid off. This was in the 90s. Now the plants lay empty.
I live right next to Bethlehem. Lately I've been seeing a lot about the great history of PA. Which is weird because whenever I visit one state, I hear more about the states around me, so it's rare for me to hear about it while I'm still here.
i live about 30 minutes from this place, go down there sometimes to eat out since there’s some pretty good food down there, every time i like to walk the platforms they have under the steel stacks. you don’t realize how tall they are until you look up lol
Sad to see many of the mills shuttered, I worked at the Steelton PA plant in the 70's & 80's and whole communities that surrounded them that are now like the old ghost towns of the west. Whole families were often working in one plant so when they closed it was like mass destruction with all the stores ,banks and gas stations etc. also going away. I myself had seven other family members that worked there. End of a era.
When I was 17 in 1976, my neighbor was working at Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna, New York. He was home most of the summer vacation. I thought he was retired and mentioned it to him. He said he had 13 weeks' vacation. Shame he pissed it all away.
A longtime friend of mine's father worked here in Cleveland for what was once Republic Steel. My father also had an uncle who was at Republic w/my friend's dad from the mid to late 60's through the early 90's. They both would tell you they made a very good living working inside the mills but both would further tell you how dirty & dangerous it was. I think after Republic it was called LTV Steel and then I think after that it was Arcelor Mittal and now Cleveland Cliffs.
Republic Steel had a plant where I live in Buffalo, NY. It closed a long time ago and was torn down in the early 80s. It remained a brownfield for decades. Now there is a Tesla plant there. It's nice to see those jobs recovered, but it took decades.
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I would never support such no matter how much $ they paid me there's tons of others.......
This can be done for free.
@@Walmart5103 Absolutely
What was 'blipped' out @7:04? This kind of makes me wonder if more was not allowed in your video.
@priscillaross-fox9407 Must've been a glitch of some kind on your phone I've done watched it a few times on 2 different phones & neither phone nothing was 'blipped' out
I was a bricklayer in the east chicago steel plant. I lined blast furnace 13 for the last time. My great great grandfather died in bethleham steel mill as a bricklayer. I'm a proud 4th generatiom mason
Hi Bricklayer From SSM Worked Algoma Steel,Dofasco and US Steel BF,s
I am a retired Union Construction Laborer, Local 81, a Region Rat. Like you, I spent a good portion of my career in our area's steel mills. One thing about the furnaces, coke batteries or anything involving refractory work, it meant loads of overtime. After the demo was done the rest was a breeze. Cleaner anyways. Peace.
@larryspiller6633 Awesome brother. I was local 5 for a couple years before i got into the bricklayers union. I knife alot of 81 guys and 41 guys. Peace brother. Merry christmas
@@Dont_eat_here you should have your kids move on
Do the bricks just “sit” in there or are they held together with mortar or ??
How did you get the old bricks out?
Bethlehem Steel paid for most of my Master's Degree in Engineering in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. I received a scholarship from Bethlehem Steel, to cover room and board, tuition, and books.
Bethlehem Steel was on campus to interview and hire marine engineers. I scheduled an interview that lasted less than five minutes. I was told they did not hire marine engineers. They preferred mechanical engineers, the savings came from paying less for engineers with a broader, less specialized education.
When I asked why pay for my scholarship? And, post they were hiring marine engineers. They explained the Bethlehem Steel shipyards requested naval and marine engineers be hired. However, Bethlehem Steel Employee Relations did the hiring. It was their decision to reject my application.
Decisions like that bring companies down.
Damn that’s crazy. I’m glad you got free education on their dime, but it’s crazy that the company was willing to just light money on fire like that. Pay for someone’s education just to not bother hiring them after all that commitment
In all my years of collecting stories of how HR or it's equivalent screwed up the hiring of engineering and tech workers yours will have to go right to the top. Their loss, your gain though.
Bethlehem Steel also built the Golden Gate Bridge. It was shipped by rail to Philadelphia then by ship through the Panama Canal. The iconic color came from the original primer that the pieces were painted.
Awesome thanks
Yes I'd say that was a pretty significant blunder on part of the video creator to leave that out because it is more iconic than anything he mentioned 😮
International Orange
It was also used as Chernobyl in transformers dark side of the moon movie 😊
They didn't "build the Golden Gate Bridge", they simply supplied the steel...
My great grandfather worked his entire career at Bethlehem steel after he got back from World War 2 from the navy. He loved working there and did well for himself his entire life we still have his cabin that we are able to go to because he worked his ass off to be able to have it and they loved it up there. We still have some items like lights from out of one of the shops at the steel there that he was going to put out facing the lake haha but they are still sitting in the garage up there. He died in 1999 and he was lucky because he got his pension and everything before the company folded. He ended up dying of mesothelioma I'm taking it from working there but he was always having awesome stories from there and he loved it! We have a lot of stell stuff that my grandmother still has. Our boat anchors that we use for fishing are made from steel that he made at work. IT was an awesome thing for this area and the cool things we have in life because of his great career I'm glad he was not alive to see them demolish Martin Tower he would have definitely been upset
That’s so interesting!
My grandfather also worked there after serving, and operated the giant crane that moved raw materials back and forth. He died just a few years ago, but I grew up in the same house him and his family of like 12 siblings all grew up in. I love this city and will never forget the tons of projects from twin towers, to the SF bridge, to Navy ships all using homemade steel made right in my backyard. Bless our hard working earlier generations, as I couldn’t be standing here today without them 🙏
Great stories. I was out on a hike recently and was hiking along an abandoned railroad in southern New Jersey. I noticed some embossed writing on the side of the rails along with a date. The rails were made at Bethlehem steel somewhere around 1910 or 1916 ( I couldn't discern the last digit in the date). I stared at that rail for some time. I couldn't help but imagine all of the work that went into producing that steel rail. A once proud bunch of people earned a good living and produced a once needed and useful product for a growing country. I was in Bethlehem recently for a concert at the Wind Creek Event Center. It was a very depressing sight to see that once great factory sitting there rusting into the ground. I hope that our new president can bring back some manufacturing to our country instead of sending it overseas like some previous president did. Here's to the great generations that made our country a premiere manufacturing giant.🍺
@ well said! I remember better times too, it’s sad what this wonderful country has become. Merry Christmas
@@corny678 our grandfather's were probably friends. My grandfather worked there many many years till the shut down.
Worked in the coke plant, blast furnace, rolling mills, and maintenance. ( millwright and turn foreman ) . What we did back then would never be allowed today. It was like walking through the gates of hell for 8 or more hours a day, but it became my working home for years. Your video brings back memories.
Wow. My dad was a millwright mostly in the BOF for 33 years did you know an Italian guy from Easton (Palmer township) named Livio but used the easier nickname Lee???
Our college chemistry class toured the Bethlehem plant in 79. I remember going past the coke works and the smell coming out of there. Of course I lived right next to the NJ Zinc Plants in Palmerton and we had our own smells.
@@MAXIMUSMINIMALIST I have forgot more than I now know. Just bits and pieces. Always seem to remember old barrels set up and we would burn some of the coke to keep warm. I remember maintenance delays and how my boss would keep reminding me we are losing $600 per minute until it is fixed. LOL
I was a truck driver in the early 1980's and would often deliver to Fairless Works. I got an escort one day and he took me to see the blast furnaces. Your description of it being the gates of hell is exactly how I remember it.
@@GabrielSBarbaraSI understand. My memory is taking a hit too. Enjoy life. Consider your options and try to make sure you don't die with your sailboat in the driveway 🤔
I work at a former Bethlehem steel plant in burns harbor Indiana and I love my job. We still got loads of guys that were out here during the Bethlehem days.
@@jeffarmfield2346 I’ll bet they have great stories, I love listening to the older folks
My neighbor is retiring from there in a few days. He's been there almost 52 years.
@ wow! Hope he has a long and healthy retirement!
I work at Gary Works BOP shop and I'm actually nervous about USS future but it'll be what it'll be
I've picked up there many times.
Living in Bethlehem my whole life, it was definitely a surprise to see this video pop up in my feed! I would say this video doesn't touch quite on how poorly managed the company was in the later half of the 20th century. I think something that exemplifies this is the now demolished Martin Towers. What was supposed to be the future headquarters of the Bethlehem Steel Corp. was designed in a plus shape so that all the executives could have a corner office... Great video nontheless, thank you for highlighting a little piece of history from my hometown, cheers!
I remember Martin Tower i was a guard who had access to everything, the building was amazing the Steel offices had a Hand made Carpet, Hand painted portraits of former employees, and an Antique Gun room. A Table I have no idea how they got it in the building? The place was getting run down at the time a building in the back that had a Gym had a leaking roof the hardwood floors were all buckled up. Very hard to walk on with 2'-3' ripples. Across the street was the Server building that had a Halon fires system with alarms telling you if it went off you needed to get out fast! Because it would remove the Oxygen in seconds once triggered. The company was amazing.
One of the many dangers of monopolies - lack of innovation. Then disruption.
@KRich408 my buddy worked a while at the Lowe's across the street on 8th ave 10 or so years ago we were always tempted to go over there and explore it because it looked like there was access from the back bottom cement utility looking area but there was also always Bethlehem cops sitting there on Martin Court so we never ended up doing it
Mmmm
I got to see the demolition in person! Just to be honest, I always thought it was an eyesore driving by, just my opinion..
The rise and fall of Bethlehem Steel feels like a reflection of America’s industrial age - such a mix of innovation, resilience, and eventual decline.
More like we made a Pile of MONEY we do not need to Stay on Top of our Game? It's Greed, and comfort when the next Generation will not put in the hard work to keep the vision alive. Like lots of "inheritances" and the Bible?
Believe it or not? So Cal Had a booming metals Industry with Shipyards to the 80's the Democrats, and South Korea's Assent to power and this type of building.
I worked as a child in the industry, forges, foundry's, even made casting materials and binders in the 80's just a very few miles from downtown LA. I grew up a few blocks from Dayton Foundry and lived multi generationally around it too.
I even own a titanium digging bar made with SR 71? alloy I watched the smith at another foundry cut off, heat up in the oven next to the one I worked on for him, hammer out, quench, hand to me about 13 or 15? years old about 1975 to 80? while working with Dad on weekends at a local foundry.
yes and now we have few integrated mills that could produce the masses of steel for things like major bridges, ships, and buildings, and that is why they must rely on china, for it and it dont help that of all the steel poured in the world china produces 60 percent of it in the world, as of last count I saw about 2 years ago, no other nations have a chance to overtaking them anytime soon. steel work is tough dirty and close to hell on earth, but its the price of modernity, and good paying jobs, some like what they do though as a badge of honor, we have several mills round here too nucor and sdi which was actually born in this area of indiana, and has several operations near by and both mini mills seem to be doing pretty well in their specialized areas they make stuff for.
its a tail of our rise its golden age and fall just like soo much industry, steel, cars, clothing and shoes on the coast, and toolmaking, even much of the farming seems to be taken out of commission, and what bit of electronics we did produce is being stripped away, and if its not it seems the powers that be have to force it to do so when there is no reason it cant continue, they cant just leave it alone and let it decide if and when it will give up.
I do see though people finally trying to say not only that its ok to do skilled trades but finally trying to help encourage it, or at least give the students some inkling to to do industry or produce stuff, or how to use the machines and ai to be able to do so, building not only the middle class again and the nation but also the dignaty of purpose, after all we all cant be influancers and keep the food produced or the garbage and recycling taken care of.
It’s the fate of any company that shifts its focus from actually making something, to simply making profits. “Maximizing shareholder value” means they’re not investing into R&D, efficiency changes, or most importantly workers… and it becomes a march towards death.
Self inflicted demise, of course.
This is especially true for paper mills
It takes almost 3 minutes in a 14 minute video to get to any content. This will be the only video from this channel I watch.
Yeah, me too, I thought I was watching on of those crying animal commercials that go on forever!!!🤬🤬🤬🖕🏻💩🤡
Well I wouldn't get to bent out of shape about it but you definitely make a point I was thinking the same thing myself but in addition to that the title is completely erroneous if not outright Clickbait.
Agreed! It’s a very superficial treatment at best, history lite with commercials--or should I say commercials with lite history.
Comments section was the highlight of this video
Just another talking head.
Great video! I grew up in manufacturing and owned an aluminum manufacturing company in Florida before I retired.
I love the pictures of these old "heavy industry " plants and really see what capabilities our country has lost.
starts at 02:40
I worked at Bethlehem Steel for many years from the 70's. I was a Technician at Homer Research Labs on top of the South Mountain. There were 750 Technicians, Engineers, support Trades. I worked on a research project at Lackawanna Plant BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace) near Buffalo NY. Then I worked at Sparrows Point Plant in Baltimore. I helped acquire a patent for Steel Sheet Length Measurement. I had many years of great employment there.
@@davebollmann5292 About ten years ago, I volunteered with the NMIH to move records out of that facility for preservation. We filled two 40’ trailers with filing cabinets. I was allowed to take anything lying around. I filled the back of my Santa Fe with goodies.
It's now a disc golf course
I had a neighbor in Coopersburgh who retired from Bethlehem Steel named Calvin (can't remember his last name). The day he retired he had a doctors appointment and found he had cancer. Two weeks later he died. He just gave up after he was basically forced to retire.
I've been to the Bethlehem facility in Indiana a number of times as a truck driver loading steel. Typically, large plate steel heading to The Philly Shipyard. We'd get a police escort for the last few miles. That was cool. Weaving through traffic, driving on the shoulders, running red lights.
My father worked for US steel from early 70’s to mid 80’s I was born late 70’s. I remember the early part of my childhood was average middle class and after father lost his job working for the steel company….. well I guess he had not been doing the skilled trades work there. Things were never good again. The parents lost the house we lived in the camper in multiple campgrounds in summers and stayed with compassionate family friends in winters. Luckily after I graduated from high school father went to the VA and found they could help him get a home loan and they got a house. Just unfortunate that they didn’t try that earlier so when I was in school I didn’t have to deal with the stress and anxiety of not having permanent housing. 🤦♂️🤷♂️
I'm sorry to hear things were tough. Sounds like you are doing ok though. We are the same age. Never give up!
when Reagan 's "Let the free markets reign!!" mantra led to shipping jobs overseas!!
The statistic I remember is that in the early 70’s US Steel Gary works employed over 26 thousand people and by the late 80’s only 6 thousand but made more steel.
@@jimmylieb5225 you're funny. American firms buy companies all over the world. Canada hasn't got a domestic owned manufacturer of cars, trucks, tractors, combines, trains... because American policy & money.
Now you've lost the advantages to stupid, greedy executives & unions. It wasn't Canada that killed the American dream.
People in very high places and not necessarily in the steel industry had in their plans the slow decline of America after WW2 it was planned our industrial might would rebuild the world and then it would be slowly unwound and dismantled, not improved or innovated we were off the gold standard by 73 the fraud of the oil embargo we had it here but to make the petro dollar work we were forced to not drill and use our own we were lied to and we suffered because of it, the money printers were cranked up to pay for the deluge of welfare claims as massive amounts of industrial jobs disappeared,there is much more to the story but greed is a human condition and labor as well as management were each other's worst enemy.
My grandpa and great grandpa both worked for bethlehem steel. I remember my grandmother telling me of a friend that retired from there and it was as if he died of cancer "the next day". Steel mills are a dangerous marvel of industry
My neighbor worked their and he retired (not by choice) and he went to doctors that day, found out he had cancer and died 2 weeks later. Can't remember his last name but his first name was Calvin
Thanks, excellent video. I had a lot of family work there and now I can show my younger family some of their roots. Growing up next to the steel, I still can remember the sights and sounds. Some of my family has had cancer that other people also had in the area, kinda like it's from the steel and your not the only family who is dealing with it. Strangle if the place was still going today, I'd probably be working there too. I snuck in there around the late 90s just to look and remember seeing orders ready to go out, but never made it. The steel definitely helped this family have a fighting chance and even with all the negative about the place, I will always be grateful for the steel. Thank you Ryan.
Dangerous Work: That was probably the case in all steel mills:
In a former steel mill in Germany I saw an old sign “135 reportable accidents in the month of October - work safely!”
After World War II the soldiers demanded living wages and the houses they were promised and after taking several CEOs hostage an emergency meeting of the president and the top wealthiest families were held, and they agreed to give 1 generation the American Dream
This was the 1950s and 60s
In the late 70s and early 80s they began sending the steel over to China and they began closing down the steel mills in America
Many people were laid off and it was upsetting because the people that lived here we put up with this incredibly loud sonic boom that happened every hour as they poured the steel.
The toxic fumes and the unbearable noise pollution was tolerated in exchange for having a decent life
Watching the hellertown yard that had 50 tracks and was constantly busy with trains going to Philly and back and constant yard work, as they began building I-78 over the yard, they started ripping up tracks
I watched year after year as it went from 50 tracks to 40 to 30 to 20 to 10 to 5 to 2 to 1 lonely rusted track
And finally the last track was ripped up
This was the reading line originally and it was double tracked the entire way from Philly to Lansdale to Quakertown to hellertown yard
In Quakertown there were six tracks and several yards
Passenger trains ran daily through these towns
I remember in the 80s walking the tracks through Center Valley and they were shiny and well-used with multiple trains every day
Seeing it all gone is so sad
I grew up next to the tracks. It was our property line. The light from the engines would shine into our kitchen when they went by at night. I'm 46 and had many relatives work at the steel. You said it very well.
China didn't come into play until the 2000's. Their infrastructure for that was garbage tier during that era. You're probably thinking of both Japan and Germany, which had rebuilt their entire capacity post WWII (since it was bombed to ash) so they were competitive with the rest of the world.
very sad
The US never learns. We sent steel over to Japan, it was returned in Pearl Harbor and WWII. So, not learning, we're still sending steel over to China...
But now, we've allowed our steel industry to fail. Hopefully, Chinese is easy to learn, given how we're also now attacking veteran benefits and pensions, won't have anyone to defend the nation or steel with which to defend it.
Was the hellertown plant right about where Chevy 21 is today?
Wait, this is crazy! I was literally at the plant today for the first time! And this video came out while I'm there. My mind is blown. It's a great place to visit, and I would recommend if you are close by.
I live in Bethlehem now, never got to experience Bethlehem when the plant was running but now it still supports the city and helps the valley as a whole as there are events down there every season. The tourism revenue from steel stacks and Musikfest is wild. The plant will forever be the backdrop to our city. You don’t truly understand or realize just how BIG the blast furnace actually is until your there standing below it just looking up. Great video, and yes Martin tower was the only skyscraper in Bethlehem but they ended up demolishing that in the mid to late 2000’s. A lot of history for sure, my house I live in now was built in 1916 for the workers. It wasn’t a company home but it was meant for the steel mill workers to live in. I highly recommend anyone interest to take a trip and check out the old plant super cool, and love that I can walk down my road and hear music playing in the summer from the site of the old blast furnace.
@@danskinner9669 I work at Artsquest. It’s a really cool place to be and it’s awesome to see them continually pay homage to the steel plant and invest in the arts and the community. It’s become quite the music scene
I have an I beam in my basement ceiling labeled Bethlehem
@@thetommantom I have a Carnegie steel beam in my living room. I’m an Ironworker found it and restored it for a show piece
So cool!
The steel beam in basement of house i grew up was stamped.. Carnegie-Illinois-USS@akraix182
I've got 4 Bethlehem steel railroad spikes. Not for sale.
@jasonholloway2476
So, word on the block is you got some railroad spikes for sale eh?
so good. in the 80's I spent my youth exploring the slowly abandonment of this American icon in Bethlehem, thank you for such a great historic context.
FYI: A little historical fact. The Lackawanna Railroad was the only railroad in history that never had a year of "lost profit". It serviced Beth Steel in Lackawanna, NY, and the surrounding steel business entities, like the ports, shipping yards (trucks and trains) and the coke mills as well as the entire Lackawanna Bethlehem Steel Plant.
My grandfather was a train conductor/engineer on Erie Lackawanna during the 50s, 60s 70s. He was there when they converted from steam to diesel.
@@OneAdam12Adam I was born in the Schiller Park area, and raised on the lower east side where we didn't get the dark orange roofs from the plant area, but I remember them well.
This place is amazing. The fact that you’re able to visit and explore is like a steampunk enthusiasts wet dream! And that history that deserves to be remembered!
Visited the museum a few months ago. It is genuinely one of the most fascinating pieces of our past that is still standing.
Its is a shame the museum directors were wasting money and took years to open.....the fact most of the mill is a hotel and casino is really a shame to me. Would have made a really cool complex for artists spaces local history museums antiques stores, restaraunts etc. Instead we got buses of new yorkers from china town coming here to gamble. At least the museum finally got underway and the concert venu is kinds cool.
It gets old when you have lived in eyesight of it before and after it was “rebuilt”. I did go into it before it was purchased and made into the casino as a teen. It was so surreal, scary as well.
Ummm, "explore"?
Or; salvage.
@ explore! Although they do have an arts thing, attempted to develop parts of an into something else. I don't know, I've only been there a couple of times. I don't live in the states, I only go there if I have to "for the most part" unless there's something I want to see, do etc
Although I couldn't imagine like many places in America, it's not safe from looters or people are trying to make a buck
China wanted to monopolize the steel industry. They could sell "state subsidized" steel to the USA for less than it could be made here. That's one of china's tactics. The government subsidizes target industries, allowing prices to drop, putting American companies out of business. After achieving their goal, prices (and profits) can rise again. They're also doing the same with solar panels, batteries, and automobiles. China's strategy is to monopolize tomorrow's products and resources. BTW, they are also buying up properties all across the USA, in case you're wondering why houses are no longer affordable.
Yep..that's exactly what happened...politicians let cheap steel in to fatten their wallets..bought off by china...I knew several older men and women that worked there..and retired there..I hauled steel out of several plants including Lehigh valley plant..always enjoyed getting a backlogs from there..politicians..greedy politicians are the reason America is down the drain...not unions not workers...our own government sold us out...yea it was dangerous but these individuals were proud of their work....
Thank you, people dont realize this and the it annoys me when people think we shouldn't cut ties with china.
It’s not about America, the whole world went through the same. Remember it was the west that went to China for cheaper costs, and more profits, not the other way around….
@@BlaineKK37 it's funny that Chinese Communism is more Capitalist than American Capitalism. Is American Communism the future?
It's ironic that Chinese Communism is becoming so dominant over American Capitalism. Without the Liberal Big Tech most of America would be economically destroyed by the CCP.
The day the Lackawanna plant burned about 4 years ago I could see the fire from Townline Rd in Stevensville Ontario across lake Erie and 1/2 hour from the shore.
That was just one building that had been converted to vehicle/boat storage. There were concerns about heavy metals contamination from what burned, but I don't recall what the findings were.
I drove past the plant often before and after that section burned down and it only made the entire place more uncanny. It’s been yacht storage my whole life but the surrounding area was clearly so dependent/heavily impacted by its presence, probably until just a decade or two before I was born. Here I am in the aftermath, the entire city surrounded by what is best described as ruins
I grew up near Bethlehem and remember when the plant closed and the affect it had on many of my friend’s families. It was a shock to the entire area that it could ever be closed!
My Great Grandfathet was a welder for Bethlehem Steel. He started in western Pa. And moved to the Baltimore Shipyards. He welded for 50 yrs at Bethlehem Steel. I carry that torch for him to this day. I wish I could have worked where he did, but it was long gone by the time I started welding 23 yrs ago.
The unwillingness to Integrate and improve working conditions of the steel industry wasn't just a problem for Bethlehem steel but, Pennsylvania steel as well. A lot of people had to move to find jobs somewhere else, including my family.
When I left the area there were 1 million unemployed because of Bethlehem Steels failure. It hit everyone one way or another.
I live near Johnstown, our Cambria Ironworks got bought out by Bethlehem Steel. It went down with Bethlehem. We still have an ironworks here, but it's independently owned by employees, Gautier Ironworks, which makes wire mostly.
yea and they have that historic and very old industrial blacksmith shop that is now a metalworking school, and living landmark as a place on the national historic places register, the big steam hammer is owned I think by the smithsonian but they hope one day to put it back into use to teach the the skills that are slowly being lost in industral forging or so I belive remember hearing, but johnstown used to be a complete mill, as they say though what ever it takes to keep it going in some form.
My dad worked here back in the 70’s and he always had a nightmare story to tell. From being hit in the head with a beam, only being saved by his helmet, to guys falling to their deaths into a pit, there was always hardship and tragedy there. I’ll never take for granted the sacrifices my dad made to provide for the family.
The Indiana location is still running. Cleveland Cliffs owns it
I hated delivering there when it was still Bethlehem in the 90's. You would be there at least 4 hours before getting someone to unload you.
I worked there for 15 years as a bricklayer. I'm glad to be retired but i met some of the hardest workers and hardest party animals in my life
This is one of the best historical videos on TH-cam. You put a lot of effort into editing the video. We are all very grateful to you.😊😊
From Buffalo, NY here. In the winter time when you drove past the Bethlehem plant on RT 5 the weather would change as you pasted the plant!
My uncles and other family members worked for BETHLEHEM STEEL. My aunt had a coal chute for heating coal delivery.
I still heat my house with coal. Love it. Yes, some work, yes some dust, Warm and cheap!
Having moved to Bethlehem, Pa. in 1985, I have lived here for over half my life. I did work at the plant, after it closed, to help disassemble some of the machinery so that it could be refurbished and sold to other steel companies. I do attend events at the Steel Stacks/Arts Quest venues, and walking past the blast furnaces it creeps me out that people would be working on top of those huge stacks. There are ladders going up there, and i always think to myself, "No way anyone would get me up there, NO WAY!" You have to see them up close to understand. The site was also featured in the opening scenes of the movie "Transformers 2".
My mother’s brother worked at Bethlehem Steel Company in DUNDALK SPAROSS POINT MD ASa welder , the place was 3 miles long and 1 mile wide it was Hugh ! It’s closed up in the 1975 still just sitting there , a lot of. The jobs were lost 😞
@@williambarry8015 I worked there also it was the largest industrial complex in the Western Hemisphere. When they finally closed the hot mill they left the lights on as can be seen in another youtube video before they demolished the whole site to build an Amazon warehouse.
Friends dad worked there as a welder also, got paid by the inch
Bethlehem Steel in Sparrows Point didn't close up until 2003 when the company went bankrupt and steel was still produced here until 2012. It's a shame how many high paying jobs were lost.
Another great video! I enjoy this channel immensely and Ryan is a very eloquent and gifted speaker.
What needs better description is how badly the steel corporations treated it's labor force...especially with Carnegie Steel in the 19th century.
It was absolutely horrible.
My grandfather worked as a machinist and welder at Bethlehem steel in Lackawanna, NY from 1948 til 1978 and watched it burn down from his back porch in 2016, pretty sad to see what has become of domestic industry
The feds should never have allowed foreign building materials such as steel and other metals we can produce. But politicians like too many industry leaders and investors only care about making more money, not ensuring the future of our workforce and abilities to produce critical materials.
The feds allowed these corporations to ship their entire businesses to china and other countries without health or safety laws and barely pay workers
@@jsprit6669 oh it's worse than that! This is why we just had a massive upset in the election because not only did our government allow all of these companies to move overseas they actually used our tax money and paid many of them to do it!!!!!!!!
@@MAXIMUSMINIMALIST he was polling with the lead for a whole. Wasn’t an upset.
If you're a democrat it was.. 😂
Yes,Government’s failure to take necessary and allowable measures to protect these critical jobs in the steel making industry.They,instead,stood for the corporations,that could increase profits by importing steel at half the price they could produces it.This practice was the end of the steel mills and the decline and decay of all the cities built upon it,and the tens of thousands of livelihoods in the balance.
As someone who works at the new Bethlehem steel, the same issues still persist 30 years later. The management has learned nothing since the collapse of the old Bethlehem steel.
My grandfather and father worked at the Bethlehem steel plant. I was looking forward to working at the steel but graduated 1 year too late. I’ll never forget the day my dad came home and said it’s done. He worked 38 years at the steel.
There’s a museum nearby the site dedicated to Steelstacks as it’s called by locals; Much of what I learned about Steelstacks was from there. I’d go every now and again with my dad for an ‘educational experience’. The economy’s a bit better now thanks to the addition of WindCreek casino but there are still some nasty areas. Still not as rundown as some parts of Allentown and Reading.
In my 2 years at Fairless Works, we had 2 deaths....one from an exploding saw, that severed a guy's leg....and from a Laborer cowboying a forklift with a heavy load, that flipped and squashed him. I was in killing range of the saw, and didnt see the forklift incident until after it happened. Many dangers in the mills in spite of safety practices that were in place. The smell of sulfur never leaves yer nose.
@@mikedee8876 I lived in Bethlehem during my mid to late twenties, heard many stories from my one friends dad who worked there, he told me one time he saw 3 guys get crushed to death by huge steel plates with one guy only half crushed, but died shortly after as he was trying to pull his trapped lower half out. My buddy Robs father in law worked there in the coke works. He was saying how one time a guy fell in the molten steel and just disappeared like in terminator and there was nothing they could do besides file an incident report because you couldn’t just stop the process.
@@johnperhach2534 yep, you touched on the main problem...that the process cant be stopped, and people take chances, or speed up, to keep that from happening......in that environment, you depend on your workmates to keep each other alive.
After my family had moved from Italy, they came to the lehigh valley during the depression the only way to get by was my great grandfather working for 7 hours a week for i believe $2-$3 per week, my family used to tell me of the hardships of the times they struggled and my great aunts would tell me how they would be making the ammunition for ww2 while my great uncles fought for their new found home.
Bethlehem steel still stands high and tall with so much history and families who wouldn’t have made it without that company. it’s beautiful to walk around and is a great view while watching the concerts at Arts Quest. From one side of the town to the other there’s history from this beautiful country all around it 💙
My great grandfather worked for Bethlehem steel in Baltimore county, where the plant once stood, vacant for many years, is now owned by amazon and has many warehouses on its property.
R.I.P. Buckeye Castings!
Once owned by the Busch family here in Columbus OH
It’ll all rust away eventually anyhow unless someone keeps everything painted with red oxide primer 😝🤭🙀
@@NASCARLSON Yes the Patriarch of the President Bush family Samuel Prescott Bush took it over from the brother of John D. Rockefeller.
the Lackawanna plant near Buffalo closure helped sink the whole region. The union contracts were ridiculous. For example, after 5 years of employment worker received 13 weeks paid vacation every year. No company can survive that.
Thank you for letting us know about this place I knew people that worked there
My grandfather was an onsite EMT/Firefighter for Bethlehem Steel in PA. He's told me countless stories of times he's had to respond to deaths on the plant.
Thank you. My immigrate grandfather worked about 20 years in the coal mines in Hazleton, PA. When that closed, they moved to Bethlehem and he worked there around years. I wish he didn't pass away when I was so young. I would have loved talking to him about it. I live 10 minutes away and drive past it on my way to work every day. There is also a casino on part of the property now too. Plus, a hotel and outlet stores.
I remember seeing the Sparrows Point mill in full operation at night in the 1970s. Crossing the Franci Scott Key bridge you could see the firey glow in the sky for miles. Now the mill is an Amazon warehouse, and well, the Key bridge is history now too.
I remember my grandpa telling stories of his years working for the Bethlehem Mines in the 1960s. I remember him telling me that they weather proofed everything down there before flooding the mines incase they ever needs to use them again. Year's later most of the equipment they used is still there today.
Bethlehem controlled a number of mines and mining towns through International Collieries Corporation (ICC) including Heilwood and Wherum (Indiana County), Slickville (Westmoreland Co) and Ellsworth (Washington Co), along with the Cambria and Indiana Railroad. One of their last active mines was near Windber #35. After being closed a number of years Rosebud Mining reopened it around 2015.
They also owned a limestone quarry in Annville, an anthracite open pit mine in Tamaqua and the iron ore Grace Mines in Morgantown.
I live a couple minutes from Bethlehem steel... I love to hear the history about this area, great job on the video my man
Rebuilding American steel is a national security priority!
@@dapetik just make sure to hire competent management this time.
Do you have the iron ore to do it?
@@peterfalconer-h3k YES! We still have it here in PA.
@@JC-PSC And NO communist unions.
I wonder if anyone knows how to produce steel at the scale we used to or what the Chinese are doing now. But it is important we do it.
While you're exploring Pennsylvania steel towns do a report on Coatesville. I recently read a book about the lynch-mob there that occurred in 1910. I never knew about it before before I read it.
@@Richard_K1630 I grew up in coatesville. My grandfather and great grandfather and my father-in-law all worked at lukens.
I was just by Lukens the other day, it’s owned by Cleveland Cliffs now. A lot is gone now but they’re still working
My grandfather worked at Bhem Steel. I miss him. 😫
My coworker was employed at Lukens steel in Coatesville PA when they got bought out by Bethlehem Steel. The executives at Bethlehem used the large Lukens pension fund to help pay for the large number of retired employees they already didn’t have the money for, draining the fund dry and leaving him and dozens of other workers with no money to retire with. Guys who had retired even had to come back to work because there was no money being paid out after Bethlehem screwed them.
Love what you do Ryan. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
I used to work at the plant in Burns Harbor, Indiana. People getting killed or maimed was a regular thing. the midnight shift was fun; no bosses. We'd have drag races with the locomotives and take one out onto a slip into Lake Michigan and go fishing....no, not to eat those 4-headed trout....
😂😂
@@SouthObeautyNo wonder the place went out of business.
@@JamesSeaberry not true
@@dadlife8775 Yes it is.
@@danielthoman7324 GM worker was bragging about having a hiding spot to sleep every night shift to me at the Massena plant. Now it's closed and he's a janitor at a hotel reminiscing of the good ol days being a union gut hanger.
I work for a law firm that specializes in asbestos and I see Bethlehem Steel listed as the defendant in most of our cases. This was very helpful to understanding why!
Drove my Corvette out East a few years bavk . Stopped by The Stacks and snapped a few pics . Quite a place
My dad was a millwright at Bethlehem Steel for 33 years he was one of the lucky ones that got out in the late 80's well before the collapse. The unions went crazy and put the final nail in the coffin. Yes there are other reasons including tariffs and management and lack of modernization But the unions are at the top of the list the final agreement they signed was completely outrageous and before the ink was dry everyone knew the company could not survive. There were something like 70 pensioners for every active worker at that time!!! Unions did a lot of good when they fought for workers but then they became ANTI business and bit the hand that feeds them. Then when the builders of the twin towers decided to get steel from China instead of Bethlehem which was only an hour and a half away it was the beginning of the end. The American dream ended with the baby boomers. Now we are third century Rome and witnessing our own collapse.
Free trade and lack of modernization was the main problems.
@@seanhartnett79 I've been a member of a union 3 times. I'm here to tell you that union greed caused free trade. It became cheaper for the companies to outsource because of lifetime pensions and $35/hour jobs when minimum wage was $3.50. Everybody knew the contracts were getting out of hand. The old timers just hoped to retire before it went bust. Us young men got fukked. Sorry you bought the bullshit, but I saw what was going on.
Video starts at 2:40
Thank you sir.
Lol
You are correct from what I've heard. It was the company and the unions that were the result of their failure. A new design for making steel faster and cheaper was designed by Bethlehem Steel. The company and the union decided it would cost too many jobs if implemented so the designs were sold to a Japanese Co that was going out of business for r&d costs. They put America out of the steel making business and all the employees became millionaires.
It was deeply troubling to me when I was a truck driver after my time in the service. I would pick up steel coils from Bethlehem steel run them down to New Orleans, then pick up steel ingots from China and bring them back up. I knew this was the end of an era of American dominance in the steel market.
Imagine how much steel went into the construction of the Hoover Dam......mind boggling!🐸
My grandfather worked the Seattle plant until he retired. Lots of memories.
If that's the one in West Seattle, the mill is still running. It's now Nucor Steel. I have worked there since 1997.
I live in walnutport I take the D&L trail all the time. Lived in Bethlehem for a while. You can see the Bethlehem steel plant from the D&L trail from across the Lehigh river between the freemansburg and ice house trail heads. Love seeing historical videos on my local area.
I grew up in the area and my father would always take me there and teach me the history. The men and women who worked at that plant had such a massive impact on the country and world as a whole. From high rise buildings, to bridges, to wartime material, they are heroes!
I worked with a gentleman who was an electrician at Bethlehem Steel. The guy knows his stuff for sure, and he could tell all kinds of stories of his time there. Since then, I've moved on to another job, but he's still around.
Had the pleasure of working with people that had experienced the bethlehem steel unsafe standards. It wasn't unheard to hear of people disappearing on shift falling into a vat of molten metal
Im 16 and live less then 15 minutes from this place so i never really heard its history, thanks for this.
@@jacobmecchi me too, i’m 17 and live like 25 mins from bethlehem. didn’t know this history was behind it
This is for some reason classified by TH-cam as music
I as a Flatbed Truck Driver hauled steel out of Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point, MD (Baltimore) and Johnstown, PA mills. The Sparrows Point mill is gone. I have been there recently several big warehouses for McCormick Spices, Home Depot and others are there now. The Home Depot is where some of ship building used to be. From there you have a good view of where the Francis Scott Key bridge used to be before it got taken out (knocked down) by a container ship recently.
Skip to 2:40
Thank you 😊
All of the sewer caps here in my small town in maine were made at Bethlehem a heck of a long time ago.I imagine sewer caps are everywhere in the US made by bethlehem steel..
I used to love driving past industrial foundries/plants as a kid because it always reminded of seeing shinra corp in ff7
I grew up with those blast furnace towers as my skyline.
When you're a kid, they look like a rusted old Decepticon dragon skeleton dying on the horizon.
If you ever come to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, you will see the massive impact these businesses visionaries had on forming the city's early history.
The names of Sayre, Packer, Grace, etc. are on countless buildings, streets and parks.
If you go to Nisky Hill Cemetery, the Grace family plot is more of a public monument than a marker for graves.
If you love history, architecture and nature, the Lehigh Valley is an amazing place to grow up.
I worked as a sprinkler fitter and my job took me by the plant a lot. It always felt somber seeing the decaying buildings and the stuff they pulled out of them to scrap. A few times they hit stuff that was buried by the plant that was left to rot. I still have a section of railroad track that we pulled out of the ground there.
A lot of neighbors of the plant hated it. Working dispatch one night there was an exsplosion from a slag dump and it was so large it broke windows and moved homes on their foundations. I took over 100 calls in 30 minutes at the dispatch center and I dispatched police fire and ems to the scene.
BTW, have you done anything on the Bethlehem Hotel Fire? Interesting with that fire is 3 dispatch centers worked together on that. The city of Betlehem handled law enforcement, Northampton County handled fire and I handled EMS at Lower Saucon TWP dispatch.
Well done video. It seems to happen quite often.... a company becomes a corporation, and instead of promoting the actual workers, the corporation hires former frat-boys from business colleges who have never actually been near a coal car or a blast furnace, or done manual labor at all,,,, but those Boardroom people in the air-conditioned office always want more work done but hate to pay the workers.
I work at SVCC down the road. Our first course named Grace Course was named after Eugene Grace as at the time it was the place for Bethlehem execs. Weyhill course had the steel insignia as it was reserved for the executives before it was purchased by the club
My dad worked in the PA plants. He was moved from the Lebanon plant to the Steelton plant before being fully laid off. This was in the 90s. Now the plants lay empty.
Awesome I enjoyed learning about this famous Steel Company!!
I live right next to Bethlehem. Lately I've been seeing a lot about the great history of PA. Which is weird because whenever I visit one state, I hear more about the states around me, so it's rare for me to hear about it while I'm still here.
i live about 30 minutes from this place, go down there sometimes to eat out since there’s some pretty good food down there, every time i like to walk the platforms they have under the steel stacks. you don’t realize how tall they are until you look up lol
Fun fact- in the movie transformers dark side of the moon. Bethlehem steel plant was used as Chernobyl in the beginning ish of the movie.
I wish these places were still open today, maybe under better management. One can dream. We need more manufacturing in the US.
Easily one of the most interesting channels on TH-cam keep up the great work
Crazy I work at Lehigh anthracite coal. Heavy equipment operator. We find so much old equipment when we dig shits awesome.
Growing up in Bethlehem, this is awesome that I can learn more!!
My grandad worked at Bethlehem Steel. Managed to raise my mom and 6 of her siblings in a little row home in Jim Thorpe because of it.
Sad to see many of the mills shuttered, I worked at the Steelton PA plant in the 70's & 80's and whole communities that surrounded them that are now like the old ghost towns of the west. Whole families were often working in one plant so when they closed it was like mass destruction with all the stores ,banks and gas stations etc. also going away. I myself had seven other family members that worked there. End of a era.
Our shop did a ton of work for them over the years. They shut down right before I moved to the East Coast and started at our shop here in Baltimore.
When I was 17 in 1976, my neighbor was working at Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna, New York. He was home most of the summer vacation. I thought he was retired and mentioned it to him. He said he had 13 weeks' vacation. Shame he pissed it all away.
A longtime friend of mine's father worked here in Cleveland for what was once Republic Steel. My father also had an uncle who was at Republic w/my friend's dad from the mid to late 60's through the early 90's. They both would tell you they made a very good living working inside the mills but both would further tell you how dirty & dangerous it was. I think after Republic it was called LTV Steel and then I think after that it was Arcelor Mittal and now Cleveland Cliffs.
Republic Steel had a plant where I live in Buffalo, NY. It closed a long time ago and was torn down in the early 80s. It remained a brownfield for decades. Now there is a Tesla plant there. It's nice to see those jobs recovered, but it took decades.
I live a few miles from the Bethlehem steel stacks quite interesting to learn about local history
Corporations always fail they get to big and greedy, and the CEO,s and shareholders only care about right now, not the future!
@@jessekauffman3336 yeah…it’s NEVER the unions who get greedy. Ever…😏