The Waterfront

By Karamagi Rujumba
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In a field of knee-high grass behind the hulking frame of what is left of Carrie Furnace — an expanse of blast furnaces that once produced as much as 1,200 tons of iron per day for the former Homestead Works of U.S. Steel mill — sits a rusted torpedo car.

The cylindrical container made of steel, together with hundreds more, was at one time an indispensable tool in the steel producing days of the Mon Valley. Back when massive steel factories still churned plumes of smoke over much of the region, torpedo cars didn’t sit rusting away.

They were used to treat and transport iron via a hot metal rail bridge that runs across half of the Carrie Furnace site in Rankin and Swissvale, over the Monongahela River, and into Homestead where it was made into steel.

That era is long gone, but Allegheny County, which in 2005 bought the 168-acre land parcel where the Carrie Furnace had operated for 102 years, is in the final stages of environmental cleanup and expects to start marketing the land for redevelopment this year.

[ Full article available at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09138/970906-56.stm ]

By David Green
Morning Edition

Betty Esper spent 36 years working at U.S. Steel's Homestead Works. The mill closed in the 1980s. A few years later, Esper began her second career as Homestead's mayor. Photo (c) David Green/NPR

Some of the hardest-hit communities in this recession are the towns and cities that have lost jobs in the automobile industry — or worse, saw an entire auto plant close.

It’s a predicament the steel towns around Pittsburgh know well. They had to search for new identities after the steel industry buckled in the 1980s.

During a recent visit to the Steel City, I sought out some of the people who brought Pittsburgh through its hardest times to see if there were any lessons to learn.

From Industrial Mill To Waterfront Shopping

In the Pittsburgh suburb of Homestead, I found longtime Mayor Betty Esper. She spent three decades working in U.S. Steel’s massive Homestead Works, a sprawling mill across the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh that shut down in 1986. She was elected mayor several years after the mill closed.

[ Full story available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102457292 ]

By Maria Sciullo
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Representatives from several Steel Valley communities got a preview of a proposed high-tech surveillance system this afternoon at the Waterfront.

Megapixel cameras mounted at key locations throughout the retail complex, which covers Homestead, West Homestead and Munhall, would be able to record and feed video to police stations.

The computerized program will not only be able to scan car license plates, but alert the police should it read a plate number already in the authorities’ database of “known” offenders. Thanks to improved computerized imaging, faces and other details on the images will be much clearer than shot by standard analog cameras.

[ Full story available at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09014/941703-100.stm ]

By The Tribune-Review

Security cameras to be installed at The Waterfront development in Homestead will be funded by a federal Department of Homeland Security grant, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said Monday.

Zappala said cameras that can recognize faces and license plates will be installed at the entrances and exits to The Waterfront. Zappala said he hopes the cameras will deter crime there.

The popular development had a spate of shootings and robberies in the summer.

[ Full story available at: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_605814.html ]

Public Works Changes Traffic Pattern Due To Construction

The Allegheny County Public Works Department is changing the traffic pattern near the Rankin bridge because of construction.

The Rankin bridge underpass is now closed, so all traffic heading toward Homestead is being re-routed through a signal intersection and that’s adding big delays.

This is all necessary so contractors can replace the Rankin bridge in sections.

[ Full story available at: http://www.wpxi.com/news/18415405/detail.html ]