Braddock, Pennsylvania, Out of the Furnace and into the Fire (lost 90% of its population).

Monthly Review ^ | December, 2008 | Jim Straub

[2banana]

As far as scenic ruins go, the Pittsburgh metropolitan area sets a high standard. The natural beauty of the Monongahela Valley and the built legacy of deindustrialization make gorgeous scenery out of blue-collar defeat.

Beauty is no compensation for lost jobs though. The old steel towns of this region have been imploding for decades. No place has lost a greater share of its population than Braddock, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh. This ravaged, near-empty stretch of abandoned homes, storefronts, and buildings was once a storied cornerstone of the industrial age. After losing 90 percent of its peak population, today it looks more like the nightmare at the end of the American Dream.

...

The area has perhaps more labor history per square mile than any other place in the nation. Up Braddock Avenue to the east are electronics factories where America’s domestic Cold War was fought out with fists and union elections between pro- and anticommunist workers. A few miles west in Pittsburgh is the downtown office building where the CEO of US Steel and his arch-nemesis, John L. Lewis of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee, used to tensely ride in the same elevator to work every morning. America has many industrial places, of course. But just as the Declaration of Independence was only signed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, only here did steelworkers fight and win the Battle of Homestead on July 5, 1892.

[2banana]

Da Mayor!

The irony of the union parasites killing their hosts is lost on the mayor and author of this article.

[whitedog57]

Throw in pollution regulations and others. The left, the friend of the working man, always seeks to shut down businesses they don’t like.

[Gondring]

The irony of the union parasites killing their hosts is lost on the mayor and author of this article.

What do you expect? His masters degree in public policy is from Harvard.

[elpadre]

I seem to recall the closing of the steel mills in Allaquipa (sp) after WWII with over 10,000 workers unemployed left that town, according to reports of the time, as the most devastated town in America.

[Ciexyz]

McKeesport PA is a close second in the running for depressing rust belt towns.

[Jay Howard Smith]

Wow ... I was born in Braddock and raised in Turtle Creek. Still have family back in the Crick.

[buccaneer81]

Every town in Beaver County is the same depressing mess. And the median age of the population has to be 50.

[tet68]

Socialist lexicon fills the rhetoric of the author and all involved in this article, of course no mention is made of the fact that eviromental extremism drove the steel industry
out of this country.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

The Hazelwood section of the Burgh is right up there too.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

I actually believe Allegheny County still out ages just about every County (north of FL).

The areas (like Hazelwood, Braddock, North Braddock, McKeesport, Garfield, Lincoln/Lemington, etc) that had bigtime housing projects (and subsequent Section 8 influxes) are the dying communities. The South Side Flats regentrification with almost no subsidized housing is a thriving area (same w/Shadyside, Squirrel Hill). Once the welfare clientele takes over...its a death sentence.

[2banana]

Buba compares the newcomers to the local activists who first re-opened the library Vicky Vargo works at, saying, “In the late seventies, a group of activists got together to reopen the abandoned Carnegie Library, and they had a lot of great programs out of there too. It was all part of a time here, when a lot of the socialists from the sixties...were getting jobs in the steel mills, getting involved in the union,” and producing a variety of media and art on blue-collar life in the area.

How do you like that cause and effect...?

[buccaneer81]

I believe it. My ex-wife was from Midland in Beaver County. The holidays there were so depressing.

The only thing good about my divorce was never having to go back there.

[sarasmom]

It's not lost by me.

I have very fond memories of that general area, from my youth.
It's probably a good thing that none of my uncles lived to see what happened to their families and friends.
I can honestly say they did not then, and would never have approved the socialist parasites that have infected their legacy.

[mozarky2]

“For an individual who has devoted so much effort to reviving a town many wrote off as a lost cause, Fetterman’s pessimism about Braddock under the Mon-Fayette seems uncharacteristic and vivid. “That expressway would be the last stake in the heart of Braddock.””

IMHO, ya can’t build that thing fast enough...DIE, SOCIALIST SCUM!!! (see my tagline)

[PennsylvaniaMom]

I am starting to get a 'complex' about being the people 'left' back here. There is alot of growth (UPMC, Westinghouse, CMU--high techie start ups)...but there is just something about alllll (well almost all) of your relatives having 'moved' on.

Me...I want to go to the Carolinas...

[haircutter]

just visited your home page...
that certainly is beautiful country. My son is engaged to a young girl from South Korea, who was adopted when very young. They both talk of going there some day to visit..hope I can go with them on that visit....

small world...I have great friends from Turtle Creek and my daughter use to live in the Burgh so when I drove by Turtle Creek I would always smile and chuckle to my self...I now live not far from there in Southwestern, PA.

All these small towns are becoming "ghost towns" I was born in Confluence, PA... pop. then was 1500, today it is 800 !!!! just thought I would post you a note...HAPPY NEW YEAR FREEPER TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY...

haircutter

[RobRoy]

This must be the town and old factory Dagny Taggert and Hal Roirden drove through in Atlas Shrugged.

[Boiler Plate]

As my Dad always says, “Pittsburgh is a great place to be FROM”.

[ExGeeEye]

I just had a fantasy...several thousand freepers and likeminded folk moving into such a town, using “squatters’ rights” to take over houses, storefronts and churches, funding the project by selling the steel mills for scrap and setting up a community of unfettered entrepreneurship, full recognition of COTUS 2A (see tag) and COTUS as a whole...

A man can dream...

[stockstrader]

Socialist lexicon fills the rhetoric of the author and all involved in this article, of course no mention is made of the fact that eviromental extremism drove the steel industry out of this country.

So true. BEST COMMENT OF THE THREAD!!

But with Hussein in the White House---

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET!

[paul51]

I just had a fantasy...several thousand freepers and likeminded folk moving into such a town, using “squatters’ rights” to take over houses, storefronts and churches, funding the project by selling the steel mills for scrap and setting up a community of unfettered entrepreneurship, full recognition of COTUS 2A (see tag) and COTUS as a whole... A man can dream...

Let's wait until the spring though.

[Emperor Palpatine]

Clairton and Glassport ain’t far behind.

[ExGeeEye]

Oh...and I want to put a life-sized fully religious creche on the front lawn of City Hall, with the only nod to secularism being Santa Claus on his knees being blessed by a fully-vestmented St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra...

And I'm a Baptist :)

[maine-iac7]

sounds solid to me - The Phoenix of unfettered “Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal” rises out of the ashes left by Socialism...

[Eska]

I worked at ET in mid 70's when I first came outta the military; Braddock was dead even back then. We live along the Yukon, now, minus 58 last night; could never live back east after all the years of freedom in Alaska.

We still watch the Pens & Steelers in HD on dir tv; wife cooks halupki at least once a month. The burgh wasn't a bad city at all if one likes urban living.

[Jimmy Valentine]

WOW! I haven't heard the name "Turtle Creek" in years!

Went to school in Wash,Pa. Rolled all around that country, Monongahela, 84, Donora,Carnegie,and of course, "Big Smokey", Pittaburg.

If my memory serves, "The Vogues" were from Turtle Creek.

[Jimmy Valentine]

"Once the welfare clientele takes over...its a death sentence."

True word. Used to date a girl from Fox Chapel. There were very few places in Pittsburgh she would go to, and that is a while ago. Had to beg her to go to the old Forbes & Shadyside Bar with me. Halcyon days!

[Jimmy Valentine]

Interesting to note that they take credit for the library. The Carnegie Foundation provides to this day stipends for each of the original Carnegie Libraries.

[bmwcyle]

This is why I don’t live in PA any more.