Carrie Furnace Halloween Party planned

From the Brew Gentlemen website

"On Saturday, November 1st, for one night only, The Independent and The Brew Gentlemen will restore the Carrie Furnace to its 50s and 60s era of greatness. We will be throwing a Halloween party in homage to that era’s most prolific director: Alfred Hitchcock. Together with Rivers of Steel, the non-profit steward of this beautiful historic monument, we present: Hitchcock! – A Halloween Party at the Carrie Furnace.

This little party will have all of the components of a great Hitchcock film: suspense, romance, psychological thrills, and murderously good craft beers and cocktails. DJs throughout the evening will keep you dancing the night away on our dance floor centered in an old hangar bay of the mill."

Warning - this is not a cheap event, $35 for entry plus $15 for onsite parking (free offsite parking and shuttle available) plus the cost of food from a wide range of food trucks. Even so, the experience may be more than worth it- I would be going if I could.

The Antiques Roadshow Will Visit Pittsburgh's Historic Carrie Furnace

Regular viewers know that Antiques Roadshow usually includes a few segments on local museums and or historic sites specific to the cities they visit. No surprise, they will be looking at the Carnegie and Warhol Museums, but the third visit will be to a truely unique icon of of our steel heritage.

Apparently, the producers insisted on shooting there when they learned of the place.

""This is the coolest place we've been this summer," Mr. Wahlberg said of the Carrie Furnace Thursday, looking skyward to the criss-cross of beams and wires overhead. "It's overwhelming; I cannot imagine what this place was like when it was up and running."

In its heyday, about 4,000 workers manned the Carrie Furnace complex as it provided more than 2 million tons of iron a year to the Homestead Works across the river.

When the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area organization heard "Roadshow" chose Pittsburgh as one of its six summer tour cities, it pitched a visit to the historic site."

Read the full story here.

Has this illuminated art work found a home in Braddock or is it in a dumpster?

I had the very impractical idea of making an illuminated piece that was based on my Carrie Furnace photos, and putting it in the doorway of an abandoned building in Braddock.

I picked a spot near the closed UPMC Braddock, as that area could use some light these days (or nights rather). I experimented with using solar powered lights, and did some otherthings that were new for me in my work. The piece is? was? about 40 inches high,and was stapled to a make shift pedestal since the doorway wasn't level.

Now obviously, it was unlikely I was actually going to ever get this piece back....I didn't really secure it, just a few staples. I was really hoping it wouldn't get trashed.....and I don't think it was.....as the staples seem to have been carefully removed so as to not damage the piece or the lights.

So, I don't want it back....but I'd love to know where it is.

I do think I'll make my next one a bit more difficult to get...as I think this one was only out 24 hours or so.

Any info?

Braddock's Mayor, John Fetterman On PBS

One of the longer interviews I've seen of Braddock Mayor, John Fetterman on the PBS show, NOW. Mostly a very good job here, but honestly both the mayor and the journalist involved leave one with some pretty inaccurate impressions.

I want to watch again and come back with more thoughts but as near as I can tell, a viewer would think Braddock's huge ET works had closed. Also, no mention at all of what is likely the biggest single factor affecting the town over the last 20 years, The Mon Fayette Expressway. The threat to tear down pretty much every building along it's main street and divide the town with a wall might have had some effect?

Again, I will watch again. I drink a lot and perhaps missed some things. (OK, I just watched again and will be back with more thoughts.)

If you have thoughts or insight you want to share about art, music, film, urban design, architecture, transit or history in the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown, Erie, Morgantown, Akron, Canton region--Cleveburgh, email me diggingpitt@gmail.com

This is not Hyper Local media, but regional media seeking local viewpoints.

Carrie Furnace Project Opening Reception October 1st, Thursday 6-9

I'm gonna hype this show a bit more than usual because it's very likely you haven't heard of it or possibly of the venue it's in and also because it looks like a very, very good show.A combination of good artists dealing with a great subject and exhibiting in a great space.

The general theme of the show, is four artist's response to the amazing, Pittsburgh relic Carrie Furnace with work ranging from photography to sculpture.


Photo by George Mendel

George Thomas Mendel

"George Mendel is a freelance photographer with over 20 years of experience specializing in architectural and corporate event and location photography. His images have appeared in Architectural Lighting, Western Pennsylvania History, Pittsburgh Metropolitan, Pittsburgh Professional, and Mt. Lebanon magazines, to name a few. Mendel's images featured in the book "Death by Renaissance" and shown at The Silver Eye Gallery are now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution's affiliate museum/library, the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center."

George will be exhibiting a series of large scale panoramic photo works taken at the Carrie Furnace site.





"Jean McClung is an artist who lives and works in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. She has exhibited extensively and was recently featured in a group exhibit at Agni Gallery in N.Y.C. Jean had a one-person exhibit at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in 2006. While she is primarily a painter, her work since 2001 has mainly involved photographing street art and graffiti in urban areas. These photographs are then combined with painting and drawing, and used to create illuminated "paintings" and sculptures. These works are intended to celebrate the complexity, spontaneity, intensity and individuality of the urban world."

All of the exhibited works are derived from photo's taken at the Carrie Furnace site.





"Norman W. Schumm started photography as a freshman in high school and estimates that, since 1946, he has taken over 100,000 pictures. Since moving to Pittsburgh in 1959, he has spent many hours photographing the different moods of the city itself. Many of his Pittsburgh pictures grace the walls of Pittsburgh homes, offices, and distant cities where former Pittsburghers now live. His pictures have been published in books, posters, calendars, and post cares. Stefan Lorant, noted author and pioneer photojournalist, chose Norman to take photographs for three different editions of his book: "Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City."

Norman photographs primarily with a 4x5 view camera and uses both color and black & white film. He personally controls each step of the photographic process from the initial exposure to the developing and making of both color and black & white prints in his darkroom. Norman's personal preference is for the full tone, expressive black and white prints such as those taken by Ansel Adams."



Dee Briggs is a sculptor currently living and working between New York and Pittsburgh. Born in 1968 near Pittsburgh in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, and raised in Wellsburg, West Virginia, Briggs moved to New York in 1986, and has recently returned to Western Pennsylvania. Briggs has two degrees in architecture from the City College of New York (BA '97) and Yale University (M.Arch '02), and has worked with several leading architecture firms in New York . After 15 years in architecture, Briggs began making sculpture full time in 2002. Most recently, she has been teaching in the Schools of Art and Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.

Briggs works mostly in steel and bronze at various scales, and does all fabrication work herself. Currently, her work is rooted in the exploration of chirality, or 3 dimensional handedness, pursued through the study of basic principles of geometry and symmetry.I am very interested in the resulting relationships of line and plane, and the way in which each composition describes or implies space. Although my work often appears chaotic and whimsical, it is, in fact, highly ordered.

Really a whole bunch of reasons to see this show if you can. Dee Briggs and George Mendel are showing works of a size not easily shown in a lot of Pittsburgh venues; Jean hasn't shown in a while and is exhibiting new works inspired by Carrie furnace and I think Norman is showing a considerable body of amazing photos of the region's steel heritage.

More info and images can be found on Pittsburgh Grapevine

More info about Carrie Furnace and Steel Heritage can be found on Rivers Of Steel.

Open Gallery Hours:
October 2, 3, 9, 10, 16 &17 from 12:00 noon to 3:00 pm
& by Appointment through www.RiversofSteel.com 412.464.4020

Pump House & Water Tower
880 East Waterfront Drive
Homestead, PA 15120


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