Save Our Steel in the News

National Trust gives Steel preservationists a boost

The Express-Times
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

By GREGG W. BORTZ

BETHLEHEM -- The former Bethlehem Steel site known as Bethlehem Works is one of the United States' 11 most endangered historic sites, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The trust, a private, nonprofit organization, released its 2004 endangered list Monday.

The trust began the endangered list in 1988 to flag historic sites threatened with demolition or lacking resources for protection from the wrecking ball.

Bill Mineo of the Delaware and Lehigh Canal National Heritage Corridor Commission submitted an application for the former Steel land in February. Mineo worked with several other groups that are trying to keep Steel's historic buildings preserved.

Michael Kramer, co-founder of the preservation group Save Our Steel, said the listing is "validation" for local preservationists.

"The biggest thing is national recognition," Kramer said. "The National Trust is truly, fully behind us. My understanding is they don't put anything on this list unless they're fully prepared to support it."

Save Our Steel is working with other groups such as the Steelworkers' Archives to generate support.

Kramer said the National Trust listing could provide access to donors from around the country.

According to the National Trust, the Steel site is threatened because of a transition in ownership and neglect of the buildings could render them irreparable.

Steel closed the Lehigh Plant, as it was known, in 1995, and then planned a 160-acre entertainment district with an industrial museum as anchor.

Several would-be developers backed out of the project. In 2001, Steel declared bankruptcy.

International Steel Group of Cleveland bought Steel's working assets in 2003 and agreed to take the local properties in hopes of selling them to a developer.

ISG agreed to sell more than 1,000 acres to Lehigh Valley Industrial Park for redevelopment and also found a buyer for Martin Tower, Steel's landmark headquarters.

Now, a development group led by Phillipsburg area attorney Michael Perrucci has an agreement to buy Bethlehem Works.

Perrucci has promised to work with community leaders and groups interested in seeing the site redeveloped.

Kramer said he was encouraged by his meeting with Perrucci, whom Kramer said is interested in a "degree" of historic preservation.

"How much of a degree that is still needs to be defined," Kramer said. "Preservation is one of his important features from what he told us."

Last year, Preservation Pennsylvania put Steel on its list of endangered sites.

The National Trust's other endangered historic sites for 2004 are:

A former art museum and city office building at 2 Columbus Circle, New York; Historic Cook County Hospital in Chicago (setting for the television series "ER"); Elkmont Historic District in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tenn.; George Kraigher House, Brownsville, Texas; the Gullah/Geechee Coast of South Carolina and Georgia; Madison-Lenox Hotel, Detroit; Nine Mile Canyon, Utah; Ridgewood Ranch, home of Seabiscuit, in Willits, Calif.; the tobacco barns of southern Maryland; and the entire state of Vermont.