Slog - The Stranger's Blog

Line Out

The Music Blog

« Roving Rim-Job Reporter | Beach Bummin' »

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Age of Industry

Posted by on June 29 at 12:03 PM

These beautiful industrial monsters from the end of the 19th century are doomed. Useless since 1979, the Hulett ore unloaders are rusting in a city that cannot afford to watch them rust, Cleveland.
img12.jpg
A city should have the courage to let go of the past, but these 100-foot-tall, 880-ton machines have undone the past and now maintain a presence that is so powerful and dream-like. Their use-value shifted from being unloaders to works of art.

(Note to my critics: Do not compare the Hulett ore unloaders to King Street Station or that downtown church.)


CommentsRSS icon

Do you have any opinion on Gasworks Park?

I've always thought they were works of art. Driving around the guts of the Ford plant at 3:00 am getting shot at by steam leaks. Watching the red eye shifters have shift smokes. Cleveland doesn't have the money to move it. If they can afford to move it they should. Cleveland was ranked the poorest city in the nation in 2004. It's time Cleveland grew in the 21st century. I left becasue I didn't want to work in an office. Guess what I work in an office. You can thake the girl out of Cleveland, but you can't take the Cleveland out of the girl. I LOVE Cleveland all of it's history, tear it down.....

BTW Napolian part 8 Gasworks park is located in a very safe a conveinent place here in Seattle. One might say it's the perfect place for a park. This landmark in Cleveland is just outside the ghetto. If you were to drive there with your kids and fly a kite you may want to consider bringing mace or a gun.

According to the story, the unloaders are completely dismantled and moved, and it'd take 2 million dollars to site and reconstruct one of them. So it's not simply a matter of preserving them in situ.

I like Gasworks park. I just wonder if Seattle's post-industrial ruins are World-Class enough for Charles.

Shouldn't the city approach the issue starting from a judgement about what public space use is best for the city overall? It seems unlikely that such an expensive project (something like $4 million to move and reassemble the two reamining units) would have a place in a reasonable plan for the development of the city's public spaces.
It seems wrongheaded to look at these pieces and their disposition in isolation, ignoring the context of the total picture of the common spaces within the city, such as they are.

Can we safely consider the Wawona's use-value as a work of art?


Maybe Paul Allen should buy it and install it at S.A.M. Sculpture Park... or somewhere between there an the grain elevators. I think it's frikkin' gorgeous...

I agree with herethere. They'd go perfectly at the old Darigold Plant.

Actually, lets put one at Darigold, and mount another one on top of the Freedom Tower instead of the probe. Maybe even 2 of them- and they can move their ore arms about like a distressed robot.

They're gorgeous, and the way they've been treated shows that Americans have no clue what is interesting or valuable about their own culture. These are the most interesting structures in the Cleveland area. In comparison, fake bullshit like Jacobs Field is an affront to the human spirit.

FNARF --but is Jacobs Field as bad as milk-based coffee drinks?

Ah, those were the days -- baseball at Municipal Stadium, right on the much-maligned lake -- and general admission for the much maligned, shit-bag Indians at three bucks. And a skinny youngster named Julio Franco playing short stop.

The unloaders, as Cleveburg continued slowly dying, were no longer scooping, scooping, scooping. They were, rather, termilally folded over like a dead mantis's arms.

Yet, Franco still carries the torch....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Franco

Charles I love your posts. So dreamy and poetic. You are a local treasure.

You should visit the site: n sync music

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).