Rychalsky's Vision


Century III Mall was built on the site of the former U.S. Steel slag dump, and at the entrances of the mall sculptures have been created of the machines of the slag dump: the slag cars, ladles, and castings from them. Although not created by a sculptor's hand, they were assembled with an artist's eye. I think we can thank Tony Rychalsky, who was in charge of the Century III project, for this.

I have long admired these works of art, and wonder how many people, streaming into the mall each day, take the time to look at and really appreciate these beautiful objects and what they represent.















This sculpture, made of three "castings", or "buttons" from a slag ladle, sits on the side of Route 51.
Next to it, a hunk of raw slag.












Also along Route 51, a "mushroom" sculpture made of a ladle reamer. Those little knobs scoured out residual slag from the dirty ladle.












Another mushroom, sitting above the mall on the lawn next to the Iron and Glass Bank. The head is made from a ladle, the base a drum (looks like a cement mixer of some sort!)



At the upper entrance to the mall is a refreshed, repainted slag ladle car. A hedge, planted in front of the sculpture, has grown to an almost obscuring height - you have to catch this one with a quick sideways look as you approach the entrance.

Note the remnants of the slag dump in the background.

Next we move to Homestead, the site of the Homestead works, which closed over 20 years ago. Now the site has been leveled, most of the buildings removed and in place new places of entertainment have been erected: a water park, a gigunda multiplex, restaurants, stores. Parts of the old works remain, in part, left as sculptural reminders of what had been.


At the corner of 8th Avenue and West Ave, just before you go over the Homestead High Level Bridge, this sculpture was formerly an ingot car. When the Homestead Works were in operation, ingots were cast in the plant next to the bridge. In the evening one could see red hot ingots coming out of that shed on cars like this one.




We thought this was the mother of all shear knives, but we are told it is a forge.

It is at least 25' tall!



No, not a alligator or growly dog of gargantuan scale, this is a travelling crane. But why did they plant those trees around it? In 5 years it will be as obscured as the slag ladle at Century III!

















One of the first things you'll notice, when approaching the Homestead Waterfront, is this row of smoke stacks - now isolated from the furnaces they serviced, now cleaned and floodlit. They remind us that this had once been a hard working steel mill!