The 1892 pump house of the Homestead Steel Works has been standing for 110 years. The original building was doubled in size in 1898, and subsequently the river wall was constructed all along the mill’s edge. Originally built right in the bed of the Monongahela River, the pump house that is seen today is only the top floor of the structure. Inside the building, steps lead down to the pump intake floor at the level of the river water. Outside the lower two thirds of the building have been buried with landfill, mill refuse and topped with slag.

This project offered a clue as to the original status of the river’s edge and forced viewers to imagine the building as it originally stood, subjected to every flood, as it sat in the river with a pier at the base where boats landed and were launched. The site will never again be returned to its original state; too much has been done to it for that to ever happen. An understanding of the changes that have taken place can help to guide the site’s future uses and development.

The changes to the river’s edge at the Pump House are echoed up and down the river communities of the Pittsburgh region, and throughout river communities nationally. The rivers are our life blood, our water sources and our sinks. We might drive over them in cars on bridges, and we might motor up them for recreation, but few of us sit on the edges of our rivers and contemplate how we are altering their flow and containment. This project will encourage and facilitate such reflection.

THE RIVER'S EDGE

MATERIALS: blue tempera paint