Tag: industry

Outlook Drive View of the Mill on the Monongahela River

A favorite place to capture the look of yesteryear but it is tonight.  Right now. 2014 from West Mifflin across the Monongahela River.

After being with the family up on VistaView I drove down Outlook Drive. The leaves aren’t full yet and I found a good clearing between two homes.

Propped the camera up onto the passenger window ledge and tried to get a steady shot with a long shutter.

That mill is working all day and night every day and I just drive by for a glimpse a couple of times every year.

 

I have posted the mill at night a few times but I never get tired of seeing it. Here is it in the snow

And another April shot from a few years ago 

 

Steel Mill at night

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Made in America – Clairton, PA

Clairton PA is the largest coke manufacturing facility in the United States.  Tons of it!

And although the opening in the The Deer Hunter (Best Picture 1978) shows a sign Welcome to Clairton: The City of Prayer  (the film’s story set in the industrial town of Clairton) it sounds like the filming was in various locations other than the city itself.

I really didn’t know much about coke manufacturing from coal for steel production but you can read about it here and I haven’t seen The Deer Hunter in years I can still remember the vivid scenes.

The headline reads U. S. Steel Completed Clairton Coke Battery Project in a Pittsburgh Business Times article by Malia Spencer.  Trying to make production emissions greener…..

My daughter-in-law was driving so I was shooting from the passenger seat of the family van.  A famous photographer ( I forget who but someone might know and comment) when asked to give advice to novice photographers replied, ” You have to get out of your car.”  Oops.

I wish I had but we were headed to dinner at Aunt Linda’s and Uncle Frank’s.

Clairton Coke Works (1)

 

Through the windshield

 

 

Clairton Coke Works (3)

 

 

 

 

Clairton Coke Works (4)

 

 

 

the train yard as we headed down the Mon Valley along the Monongahela River

Train Yard Mon Valley

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The Mill on a Winter Night 2012

I have posted photographs of the mill at night before, and in the winter the leaves are off the trees so I can get a nice shot from West Mifflin hill, near VistaView Street.  I think there are four Christmas light decorations on it this time.

This photo is looking across the Monongahela River  to Braddock.

Many family members of blog followers have worked in the mills of Pittsburgh. This is the last mill.

Click to see the earlier view from the blog in April 2010.  I liked reading that post because my friend Dorothy H. wrote a comment on the blog post about a poem she wrote in response to another mill photo I took.  The mill is endlessly fascinating to me, the smoke always different shapes. The cloud cover affecting the light at night.  The snow.  The darkness.

I remember a class in  photography suggested to return to the same subject, a different season, a different time of day, but the same location. Close to it.

Guess I am doing that assignment again and again.

mill at night

 

 

and this view is farther up the hill, with the naked trees on the right.

mill at night2

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