History's Headlines: Bethlehem Steel's Martin Tower
17.6 هزار بار بازدید -
5 سال پیش
-
Original airdate: 3/25/2019 | The
Original airdate: 3/25/2019 | The decision was final. Martin Tower’s doom, announced by Bethlehem officialdom, was set for late spring or early summer. It would, they said, be carefully imploded so as to cause as little fuss as possible. Over 20-odd stories of steel, what was once the tallest building in the Lehigh Valley, would be scrap and Allentown’s Art Deco PPL skyscraper from 1928 would once more take the title it had lost to its 12-foot taller rival.
All of this would have been unthinkable on August 25, 1969, a bright summer morning, when the executives of Bethlehem Steel, the second largest steel company in the world, gathered with a group of political leaders to break ground for the new office building. First with the shovel was Edmund F. Martin, Bethlehem’s chairman and chief executive officer. He had been with the company for years. Martin could remember the tough Depression days of 1930s, and the violent strike of the early 1940s to keep out the union. Even years later he was able to tell a newspaper reporter how he saw it, not happy but long ago resigned to the result.
Martin had participated as the company became the great “arsenal of democracy” leading the Allies to victory in World War II. The phrase was President Franklin Roosevelt’s, not a popular fellow in the executive suite of “the Steel.” But the war gave them the mission and they had followed it splendidly and profitably. “Always More Production,” his mentor Gene Grace had said. And eventually following in his footsteps, it was Martin’s mantra as well. Skyscrapers and bridges of Bethlehem Steel transformed post-war America’s cities. Now this new, modern office building would bear his name.
At Martin’s shoulder as he lifted that first sod was Stewart S. Cort. Cort was Bethlehem’s president and a year later would step into Martin’s shoes as its chairman. Cort, whose father had been a company steelmaking operations head, was a Harvard Business School graduate who showed his ability in a variety of ways, not the least of which was being an excellent golfer at the company’s Saucon Valley Country Club, following the pattern set long ago by Grace in the days when Charles “Charlie” Schwab’s press agents had christened them “the Boys of Bethlehem.” And now, as Cort turned his shovel, the ultimate brass ring at Bethlehem Steel was about to be his. He would depart that job retiring at age 63 from a still apparently prosperous Bethlehem Steel in 1974. His monument is a huge ore carrying ship, the first 1,000 footer on the Great Lakes, that bears his name. Launched in 1973, it is still in operation today.
Read Frank Whelan's full story at WFMZ.com:
http://www.wfmz.com/features/historys...
All of this would have been unthinkable on August 25, 1969, a bright summer morning, when the executives of Bethlehem Steel, the second largest steel company in the world, gathered with a group of political leaders to break ground for the new office building. First with the shovel was Edmund F. Martin, Bethlehem’s chairman and chief executive officer. He had been with the company for years. Martin could remember the tough Depression days of 1930s, and the violent strike of the early 1940s to keep out the union. Even years later he was able to tell a newspaper reporter how he saw it, not happy but long ago resigned to the result.
Martin had participated as the company became the great “arsenal of democracy” leading the Allies to victory in World War II. The phrase was President Franklin Roosevelt’s, not a popular fellow in the executive suite of “the Steel.” But the war gave them the mission and they had followed it splendidly and profitably. “Always More Production,” his mentor Gene Grace had said. And eventually following in his footsteps, it was Martin’s mantra as well. Skyscrapers and bridges of Bethlehem Steel transformed post-war America’s cities. Now this new, modern office building would bear his name.
At Martin’s shoulder as he lifted that first sod was Stewart S. Cort. Cort was Bethlehem’s president and a year later would step into Martin’s shoes as its chairman. Cort, whose father had been a company steelmaking operations head, was a Harvard Business School graduate who showed his ability in a variety of ways, not the least of which was being an excellent golfer at the company’s Saucon Valley Country Club, following the pattern set long ago by Grace in the days when Charles “Charlie” Schwab’s press agents had christened them “the Boys of Bethlehem.” And now, as Cort turned his shovel, the ultimate brass ring at Bethlehem Steel was about to be his. He would depart that job retiring at age 63 from a still apparently prosperous Bethlehem Steel in 1974. His monument is a huge ore carrying ship, the first 1,000 footer on the Great Lakes, that bears his name. Launched in 1973, it is still in operation today.
Read Frank Whelan's full story at WFMZ.com:
http://www.wfmz.com/features/historys...
5 سال پیش
در تاریخ 1398/01/06 منتشر شده
است.
17,662
بـار بازدید شده