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Actually, the slag floats to the top of molten iron, not steel. The iron produced by the blast furnaces was used in the production of steel. Steel was produced by open hearth furnaces or basic oxygen furnaces. The steel was poured into ingots, which were then rolled into blooms, billets and slabs. These semi-finished products were then rolled into various structural shapes in the mills.

During my employment in the Plant Engineering Department of Bethlehem Steel, I was fortunate to see a blast furnace being tapped. It was fascinating to see the molten iron run into the ladel cars.

I had climbed to the very top of "C" furnace in 1981. It provided quite a view of Bethlehem!

The blast furnaces were indeed designated by letters. While employed as a draftsman, I had worked on the re-line of "C" furnace back in 1981.

I would love to find the power distribution box and fire it up on some special day at mid-night. That would require one big generator or a bunch of jumper cables. It would just be cool to see how many things actually lit up.

i have a big affliction for New York [ upstate] and go back every yea-r this year am off to London- i figure not much going on in Millbrook

Ohhh, dear wanderer; this Your Home Area Known? Sparrows Point? WOW! How cool!
Family lived in NYC 1976-1980; and am just interested/love USA;
and use Google Earth, to the max, hahaha, check ALL out.

I think they installed the equipment first, then built the building around it!

I just fell off my chair

I'm a Baltimore native, and the stated reasons in the papers for closing this facility were (1) it had no air conditioning, and (2) the MTA, our public bus service stopped service to the hospital citing lack of passengers. It was hotly contested by local residents, who listens to them?

Hm, I'm not sure what happened to the tunnels - it's possible they were opened up from the top and back filled after the asbestos and pipes were removed.

Thanks for another great gallery Motts. On to the next...

Wow those are old and sure doesn't look the least bit comfy

I love cupolas! I sound like a broken record, but man, this place was such an old beauty!

I hope they did something with this stuff