Lincoln Highway Road Trip, day 6. On my way to West Virginia.
First, let’s stay in Pittsburgh – yesterday, on the outskirts of the city, I took a wrong turn and got stuck on this expressway with no exit for a mile or two. I got off and found myself transported to an industrial landscape of mills and other industrial sites (some open and some closed) of another time.
In the pictures you see the Edgar Thomson plant at US Steel’s Mon Valley Works at Braddock – active since 1872. The sheer size of the complex was breathtaking – the pictures don’t really capture it. Also, one shot of a nearby lone church standing sentinel over the vacant lots where its parishioners surely once resided and the wall of an abandoned building near the plant.
The area around Braddock has been depopulating for years as the rust belt industries get increasingly challenged. According to Wikipedia from its peak in the 1920s, Braddock has since lost a stunning 90% of its population. Rather than turning around – that would have been a really smart move – I continued and found myself in Braddock itself, a place I quickly realized I did not belong…doors locked, check. Get the hell out of here, check.
Besides the vacant lots one sees abandoned buildings surrounded by the surviving run down houses everywhere … the churches seem to mostly still be there … tending to what flocks I do not know. The streets were seemingly vacant with just a few people here and there (not looking too friendly). An eery and somber place… a city, an industry, a way of life, a part of our past – all dying.
Other than the shot of the church and that one building taken near the plant I decided to leave the photojournalism of Braddock to another (too bad – it would have been brilliant to take some pictures there) – my primary focus was to get back to the main road. I found my way back to the highway route (at this point a city street) – thank you, Google Maps – and headed for central Pittsburgh. What an experience unlike anything I have ever had in America before (not having ever been to Detroit or the like).
Back to the countryside today – first stop Chester, West Virginia, and then East Liverpool, Ohio. On we go.
