After school I drove down the slopes to the flats and headed to Homestead to buy a special cable for an external hard drive so I could retrieve a summer photo for Erika.
I turned onto Waterfront Road towards Best Buy and saw the late afternoon light reflected and warm the rusting metal across the Mon. Pulled over and stood on top of a guard rail to capture the sinking light on the Carrie Furnace, remnants of Homestead Steel Works and then I heard the tug and saw it pushing the barges up the river. It was a mighty scene on the river and the limitations of photography or my ability to capture it thoroughly, the seeing and feeling it, became clear once again.
The Rivers of Steel Heritage Corporation sponsors tours but the last one was October 15th so will have to wait until 2012.
If you want to get a real feel for the Blast Furnaces and the incredible history, interviews with employees and historical photographs I recommend watching at least video # 1 at this website. I especially liked the man reading the last names of the workers he found in some type of log at the site. He spoke of reading obituaries of workers who gave 30-40 years of hard work for the Homestead Steel Works What a compilation of footage of Carrie Furnace. Closed in 1986.
