A new birth in Bethlehem

How an abandoned industrial icon was creatively reimagined...with a little inspiration from Germany

This (Germany's Landschaftspark)...

...inspired this (Bethlehem Steel)...

...to become this

The blast furnaces at Bethlehem Steel once forged beams for the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, and the Golden Gate Bridge.  By the end of the twentieth century, deindustrialization had taken its toll and the plant was shuttered.  But the facility's new owner, Sands Casino, sold 2.5 acres of the site to the city of Bethlehem for one dollar.  And the city used casino tax revenue to build a concert pavilion and arts complex, called SteelStacks:

But the most popular addition so far is SteelStacks, a cultural center that uses the idle blast furnaces as a backdrop for public green space, a performance pavilion, an arts center and a new studio for the local PBS affiliate. [The city] has already spent $27 million on the project, money generated by Sands revenue.

The new arts center, designed by a local firm, was awarded a Pennsylvania AIA silver medal award last year. Next door to it, SteelStacks' Levitt Pavillion is composed of a green space with steel design elements and pedestrian friendly paths that lead up to the uniquely designed stage. Philadelphia-based WRT, which designed Levitt Pavillion, received six different awards for the project.

The original inspiration for the concept came during a tour of Germany's old industrial heartland, the Ruhr valley.  Local activist Jeff Parks was thrilled to see how abandoned plants had been successfully converted into recreational centers:

[SteelStacks leader] Parks admits he's not very sentimental and he's not easily impressed. Yet in 2002, as he stood three stories up on a brightly lit former steel mill in Duisburg, Germany, his jaw hung open in amazement as he realized just how wrong he had been.

"Oh, we've got to have one of these in Bethlehem," he said, awestruck, standing on a performance stage embedded in the 110-year-old former Thyssen steel mill.

In that instant, for Parks, the former Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces went from being rusted relics he thought should be demolished to becoming the centerpiece of the newest attraction he was planning for the barren Steel land.

And SteelStacks has proven so popular, the city is now planning to convert the site's elevated rail line into a High Line-style park:

Bethlehem officials want to restore the elevated Hoover-Mason Trestle at the former Bethlehem Steel Corp. site to better connect the tourism destinations of SteelStacks and Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem.

... the restored trestle would add another destination itself because of the great views it provides of the blast furnaces, the former Steel site and the city. [Mayor John] Callahan likened it to the High Line, a linear park in New York City created from a former rail line.

And this will soon look like...

...this