a rainy day

 

A rainy Saturday and John needed a new pair of shoes so we headed down to a place called "Waterfront" the other side of Pittsburgh.  On the site of the old Homestead Steel Mills is an outdoor shopping mall, the likes of which we have near our home in Florida.  

There's not much left of the massive Steel Works other than these chimneys.  For more than a century this steel-making site was one of the most important in the United States, producing rolled armor plate for ships and tanks, beams and steel pilings for buildings, locks, dams and bridges,  and axels and wheels.  From what I understand these mills were also responsible for much of the pollution that marked Pittsburgh during those days.  When the Homestead Steel Works shut down in 1986, it occupied more than 430 acres and 450 buildings.  

The USA imports most of its steel now because it is cheaper to import than to make. (There goes those good American jobs.)

There was a little bridge from the shopping area to the river (though this photo is looking from the river back to the shopping area).

 We guess that this is the Monongahela River.  It looks clean here, a paddling of ducks were swimming down river.

 John didn't find the shoes that he wanted, and we couldn't think of anything else that we need.  It seems that we have everything we need.  We had lunch at P.F. Changs, but there was a problem in the kitchen and the delay was so long that the manager gave us our salads for free.  Good salads, too.