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Pittsburgh
Brewing in Lawrenceville
The folks here have been making Iron City Beer since the time of
the Civil War. If you’re at least 21 years old, you can find
out more about our city’s most famous local brews: Iron City
and I.C. Light.
RICK: It was very noisy here, but the guys on the canning line were
extremely helpful, and they let us taste the beer before it was
pasteurized. Cold and crisp and delicious. I learned that canned
and bottled beer is pasteurized, but draft beer is not, so it needs
to be kept cold in the keg
Pittsburgh Brewing
Co.
Glenshaw
Glass in Glenshaw
Just north of the city, along Route 8, Glenshaw Glass has been making
glass containers of many sizes and shapes since 1895. People here
mix the ingredients, make the glass in furnaces, and then transform
red-hot gobs of glass into more than a million bottles every day.
RICK: Our trusty cameraman on this program, Paul Ruggieri (who likes
to be called the “director of photography”), said this
was our most incredibly visual factory of all that we visited. At
the hot end of the line, the bottle-making machinery looks like
something out of one of the Alien movies, and at the cool end, the
conveyors of bottles going every which way are amazing.
The
Glenshaw Glass Co. Coded Dates
The
Glenshaw Story
PGH History
Center: Shattering Notions
Soda
Manufacturing In 1937
Rye
whiskey in Western Pennsylvania
One of the earliest products that made money for farmers in western
Pennsylvania, rye whiskey was distilled here in large quantities
until Prohibition went into effect in 1920. Abraham Overholt, the
grandfather of Henry Clay Frick, made Old Farm Rye in West Overton
and later at Broadford near Connelsville where the huge distillery
still sits, overgrown and in ruins.
RICK: I wanted this story to be much longer. I spent lots of time
reading about Monongahela Rye (there’s a wonderful chapter
about it in George Swetnam’s book Where Else But Pittsburgh!)
and bouncing around the internet looking for clues. The best source
of information may be the first website listed below, compiled by
a couple from the Cincinnati area who have become outstanding historians
of early American whiskeys.
Menu
of Monongahela Distilleries
West Overton Museums
Fay West: West Overton
Museums
Experience
PA: West Overton Museums
Boatbuilding
(including the Meriwether Lewis keelboat)
We made a lot of boats here in Western Pennsylvania, starting at
the end of the 18th century when many adventurous people were heading
farther west and this was the gateway to that whole world. At the
end of August 2003, as part of the bicentennial of the start of
the Lewis & Clark expedition, the town of Elizabeth and the
city of Pittsburgh were full of re-enactors and local folks ready
to celebrate the fact that Meriwether Lewis got his keelboat (and
the expedition’s dog, Seaman!) here in Pittsburgh in 1803.
RICK This is another story that could have been a lot longer. We
were making boats here well into the twentieth century (including
many of the D-Day landing craft constructed on Neville Island),
but we took advantage of all the 19th century Lewis & Clark
stuff that was happening this past summer. The Discovery re-enactors
from Missouri were kind enough to let us hide a mini-DV camera on
their keelboat as they went from Elizabeth to Pittsburgh, and that’s
how we got the unusual point-of-view shots that are in the show.
US Army
Corps of Engineers: Monongahela River Background
Discovery Expedition of
St. Charles
Expedition
2000
Discovering Lewis & Clark
PGH
History Center: Rediscovering Lewis & Clark
Steamboat
Building in Elizabeth, PA
US
Steel at the Mon Valley Works
We still make steel in the Pittsburgh area, not as much as we once
did when huge mills sat along the banks of so many of our rivers,
but it’s a much more efficient, computer-controlled process,
and the Edgar Thompson Works put out more tons of steel now than
ever before.
RICK: I had never been in a steel mill before, and walking around
the Edgar Thompson works was a totally awesome experience, from
the blast furnace through the BOP Shop to the continuous caster.
I’ve seen that mill from Kennywood all my life, and I know
we all were thrilled to get to see what goes on inside that world
of molten metal and stacked up slabs. We spent another half day
at the Irvin Works in West Mifflin, and that was equally immense
and amazing.
U. S. Steel
American Iron and Steel Institute
Edgar
Thomson Furnace Reline, USA
Monongahela
Valley Introduction
U.S. Steel:
Mon Valley Works
Wolverine
Toys (formerly on the North Side)
The Wolverine Manufacturing & Supply Company started out as
a tool-and-die company, but got into the toy business as a side
line, and soon the toys took over. From 1913 till 1970 they made
some very interesting and ingenious toys in a North Side factory
(still there on Western Avenue.)
RICK We were honored that Ann Madarasz and Bill Kindelan from the
History Center were willing to show us some of the toys they have
in storage in the Strip District, but I’m so glad we did our
last day of shooting up in the North Hills with Terry Mowrey and
his collection of Wolverine toys. He gets such joy out of them,
and his willingness to wind them up and show us how they worked
was great. I know I could watch some of those old toys just running
for hours at a time.
Ebay:
Wolverine Toys
Wolverine
Tricky Taxi Car
The
Atlantic: Field of Tin
Vintage Toys and
Diversions
List of Toy
Companies
George
Westinghouse Museum and Wabtec in Wilmerding
George Westinghouse may be the most influential Pittsburgher of
all time. He made so many things in the Pittsburgh area that he
deserves his own program (or series of programs.) His work that
electrified the world still has an impact on us every day, and that
was just one of the many things he did that have ongoing influence
on the modern world. Westinghouse air brakes (now manufactured by
the company called Wabtec) still stop trains around the world, and
many Pittsburghers have fans and roaster pans and other appliances
that still proudly display their Westinghouse brand.
RICK: I have learned so much about George Westinghouse from Ed Reis,
the executive director of the Westinghouse Museum in Wilmerding,
that I don’t know how I’ll ever thank him. And his guidance
in putting this story together was crucial. He also shared the amazing
1904 Westinghouse movie with us, a pictorial record of how vast
the manufacturing facilities were in Westinghouse Electric’s
East Pittsburgh plant.
The George
Westinghouse Virtual Museum
Wabtec Corporation
George
Westinghouse
Del
Monte in the old Heinz Plant on Pittsburgh’s North Side
Pittsburghers will probably always think of the old red brick plants
across the Allegheny from the Strip District as the Heinz factory,
but all the food production facilities there were sold to Del Monte
in 2002. They make private-label soups (the ones that have a grocery
chain’s name or “brand” on the label) and millions
of jars of babyfood. 980 little glass jars a minute!
RICK: We asked almost everyone we interviewed if they could name
some other Pittsburgh products, and the most common answer was “ketchup.”
And when we made “North Side Story” back in 1996, Heinz
still made those little packets of ketchup, but Heinz stopped making
ketchup here even before they sold the place to Del Monte. Ketchup
is now made in Ohio. And we still have Heinz’s world headquarters
here in Pittsburgh.
Del Monte Corporation
East
Bay Business Times: Del Monte, some Heinz units merge
Heinz: Relishing
the Past
Hoovers
Online: H.J. Heinz Company
Heinz: Milestones
PGH History
Center: Heinz 57
All-Clad
Metal Crafters
The people here make outstanding pots and pans, using a “sandwich”
of bonded metals that are purely Pittsburgh: a layer of aluminum
between two layers of stainless steel. The plant is in Canonsburg
in Washington County, and, as with so many of these places, it’s
inconspicuous and easily overlooked, but producing beautiful stuff.
RICK I’m so glad we got to include Chuck Davis and his Classroom
Restaurant in this story. In 1990 I shot a story with him and his
wife Shawn when they owned the restaurant called Angel’s Corner
here in Oakland for our “Holy Pittsburgh!” program,
and we never used the story. So it was great to end up at his restaurant
for lunch, to find out that he did some product testing for All-Clad,
and to include him in this program. He makes great food in unusual
spaces.
All-Clad Metalcrafters
The Classroom Restaurant
Canonsburg: Local
Points of Interest
PG
News: High-end pots that no one would pan
PPG:
Glass & Coatings
PPG Industries was founded as Pittsburgh Plate Glass back in the
19th century, and various products made by the company’s different
divisions are often taken totally for granted. The plant in Creighton
(located on the site of the first PPG factory) makes windshields
for many different cars, and the plant in Springdale makes a variety
of industrial coatings that keep various products all around us
(including cell phones and golf balls and countless other items)
looking good, lasting longer, and sometimes even sounding quieter
(they make a very cool acoustic coating that’s used in cars
to muffle sounds coming from the road beneath.)
RICK: On this project, we were constantly reminded that shooting
video in a factory can make a really long, hard day. There’s
so much to see, and so many people you want to talk to. Shooting
two factories in one day might seem impossible, but our director
of photography, Paul Ruggieri, and our trusty lighting guy, Jarrett
Buba, and I went with PPG’s PR guy, Jeff Worden, to both Creighton
and Springdale on the same day. It was brutal, but we did it, and
the people at both plants were so accommodating and so full of energy,
that we didn’t realize how pooped we were till the day was
done.
PPG Corporate:
PPG Home
PPG Industrial
Coatings
PPG Automotive
OEM Glass
SONY
Technology Center Pittsburgh in Mount Pleasant
Since 1990, SONY has been making televisions in Westmoreland County,
and they now manufacture three different kinds: direct-view televisions
(the standard sort of TV with a glass picture tube that most of
us have known and loved for years), projection televisions (with
three small CRTs that combine their images to project a big picture)
and LCD televisions (with new liquid crystal display technology.)
Across the street from the main facility, there’s a division
of SONY called American Video Glass that makes the glass components
for the direct view televisions in a totally modern plant that’s
won all sorts of national awards for its outstanding environmental
innovations.
RICK SONY is immense and incredible. This was the only plant that
asked us to come first without cameras to just see what goes on
there. It’s mind-boggling and high-tech and totally cool.
Carnegie
Library of Pittsburgh Resource Guide
New Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Technology Overview
EPA:
American Video Glass Company Reduces Lead in TV Glass
Jensen
Model Steam Engines in Jeannette
Founded by a Danish immigrant named Tom Jensen in 1932, this small
company is the only American manufacturer of model steam engines,
and its products are admired, cherished and collected by people
around the world. All of the parts of the various models (which
range in price from about $110 to around $5000) are made here in
the small but ingenious machine shop that houses all the tools and
dies and vices and contraptions that are needed to put a Jensen
together.
RICK: I love this place, the product and the story. I found out
about Jensen steam engines when I was gathering materials for our
proposal, and I went on radio station 3WS with Merkel & Dickson,
and we asked their listeners for help with ideas for a manufacturing
show. Two people called in and told us to find out about “that
place in Jeannette that makes the little steam engines.” There
are only three Guys who work here: the foreman, Tom Guy, his wife
Dorita Guy, and his brother Andy Guy the machinist.
Jensen Steam Engines
NCSU
Physics: Jensen Steam Engines
McKesson
Automation on Washington’s Landing
McKesson Automation makes robots for pharmacies. Founded by Sean
McDonald who came up with the idea of using a robot to dispense
drugs as part of a class he was taking at Carnegie Mellon University,
this business utilizes technology to make sure that the right patient
gets the right dose of the right medication. Most of their robots
are housed in hospitals, although they are developing smaller robotic
devices that will fit into standard drug stores around the country
as well.
RICK I love to ride my bike on the trails around downtown Pittsburgh,
and it’s always nice to pedal up to and around the island
now called Washington’s Landing. I never paid much attention
to the McKesson building till we went over there to shoot and interview
people for this program, but it’s an amazing sort of modern
“factory.” The folks build and refurbish robots here,
they test them, they work on new designs, and they have the demonstrator
model that we feature in the show. Amazing manufacturing goes on
all around us in buildings we don’t look at twice.
McKesson
Automation
Computer
Talk: McKesson APS
Betsy
Ann Chocolates in West View
Bessie Helsel, the woman who started Betsy Ann Chocolates, had worked
for several candy makers before she started her own business on
the North Side in the late 1930s. Her luscious chocolates and her
many customers caused the people at Horne’s department store
to take notice, and Bessie made her chocolates for that store for
many years. She sold the business to the Paras family in 1968, and
they have continued to make outstanding sweets ever since, including
the phenomenal Paras Truffles that they introduced in 1993.
RICK How can you not love a chocolate factory? We spent one unforgettable
day at Betsy Ann, learning about chocolate covered cherries, truffles,
peanut brittle, caramels, turtles (which they call “slow pokes”),
and so many other excellent candies. I loved the fact that so many
of the people who worked here would try to let me know confidentially
that really they make great chocolates there. As if it weren’t
obvious. Employees get to eat as much as they would like while working,
and when I drove by in early December they had a NOW HIRING sign
up. It was tempting to turn in an application.
Betsy Ann American Chocolates
Post
Gazette: Chocolatier answers his prayer
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