The only reason I see not to build this museum would be if Alderman Pope already plans to re-zone it for one of his political contributors, for a condo or an office tower or a McDonald's or something similar. These aren't good reasons: the site should be turned into a museum. I would really like to visit such a place.
Monument to city's industrial past: Chicago's steel industry, once the engine that forged the skyscraper beams and railroad spikes of America's industrial expansion, has long been reduced to weedy lots and concrete foundations. But a group of environmentalists, retired steelworkers, historians and others is gambling $250,000 on a plan to preserve steel's memory by creating a museum at a plant that once baked coal into coke, a fuel that fires the blast furnaces that melt iron ore to make steel.
Representatives of Chicago's Steel Heritage Project envision exhibits that would teach the public about steelworkers' lives and their unions' struggle during tours of the old Acme Steel Co. Chicago Coke Plant at 11236 S. Torrence Ave. The goal is to have Chicago join cities in Alabama and Germany that have preserved old steel mills as parks and museums, said Marian Byrnes, one of the organizers. Other towns in places as diverse as Belgium and Pennsylvania are looking at similar plans. “It's as if the Western world has suddenly discovered that the first wave of the Industrial Revolution has passed into history, and that there are almost no structures left,” Byrnes said. “We have to work on saving a few representative structures so people can understand how life was then.”
But organizers are counting on the city to assume ownership of the property to preserve for the museum and as an auto impound lot, a proposal it is studying. Because a scrap-metal dealer had planned to tear down the facilities, project organizers made a down payment last week to prevent Chicago from losing what they call its last standing plant involved in steelmaking. The decision to move ahead has drawn criticism from Ald. John Pope, whose 10th Ward includes the old plant. Pope isn't sure the property is the best site for a museum. The coke plant shut down in 2001, but the property wasn't disposed of in bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware and is still held in the name of Acme Steel. The project is only buying the structures from the ground up. “You don't own the property,” Pope said. “You don't know the extent of the environmental [damage]. You don't know what the cost of cleaning it up is. You don't know what the cost of actually rehabilitating it is. And then you're figuring out the operating budget.”
