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Save Our Steel in the News
Developer's pullout buoys group
Preserving historic structures is focus of Save Our Steel, others.
By Kathy Lauer-Williams
Of The Morning Call
April 14, 2004
The departure of a
developer that wanted to tear down all but two of the former Bethlehem Steel's
skyline-defining blast furnaces, and the involvement of city officials in discussions of
adaptive reuses for the historic Steel buildings are giving members of Save Our Steel hope
about the future of the south Bethlehem site.
The grassroots group formed last summer to preserve the Steel's mills and blast furnaces is
banking that a coalition of several regional groups can come up with a proposal for a reuse
of the site that would preserve its history and meet Bethlehem's community development
goals.
''The city planning office is a full partner,'' said
Michael Kramer, co-founder of Save Our Steel. ''That's the single biggest key.''
More than 40 people gathered in Lehigh University's Sinclair Auditorium to discuss the March
27 coalition workshop sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities of
Rutgers University in Camden and the Historic Bethlehem Partnership.
The daylong workshop included not only city officials but also representatives from New
York's South Street Seaport, South Bethlehem Historical Society, Delaware and Lehigh
National Heritage Corridor, Easton's National Canal Museum and Alabama's Sloss Furnaces
National Historic Landmark.
Lance Metz, historian for the National Canal Museum, called the withdrawal last week of
Delaware Valley Real Estate Investment Fund from negotiations with International Steel
Group, which owns the former Bethlehem Steel properties, ''a good thing.''
''It gets rid of a plan that would've been devastating,'' Metz said.
Bill Mineo of the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor added the city ''is
beginning to provide kind of leadership necessary'' to come up with a viable proposal.
''Now we have a mayor saying there's value in the historic structures,'' Mineo said. ''And
the community is stepping forward. That's a light-year step from six months ago.''
Kramer and Amey Senape debuted a video they made about Homestead, the U.S. steel plant near
Pittsburgh that was torn down and made into a mall.
The video shows vacant storefronts in the Homestead downtown and has city officials
discussing the strain on resources as a result of the mall.
Mineo said a historic attraction combined with retail, similar to South Street Seaport,
would be ''more sustainable and provide more for the community.''
''None of the big box strip malls last more than 20 years,'' he said.
He also voiced concerns about a mall at the Steel site taking business away from Bethlehem's
healthy downtowns.
''It could undo all the years of work to bring small businesses into town,'' he said. ''If
we put a mall right in town, I'm not sure they would survive.''
Metz also reported that he had helped conserve 21/2 tractor-trailers full of records from
the Steel, including shipbuilding records, master videotapes and film negatives. He said he
is archiving them for the National Museum of Industrial History, which hopes to build a
preview center on the site.
''This is a major resource to begin serious study,'' Metz said. ''Our goal is to make these
records available for scholarly research.''
kathy.lauer@mcall.com
610-861-3627
Copyright © 2004,
The Morning Call
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