LTV Steel
My focus, LTV Steel, was one of the city of Cleveland, Ohio's biggest employers. In its’ most productive period, LTV employed over 15,000 people. As international trade restrictions fell and our failure to re-invest profits in our core manufacturing sector began to take their inevitable toll, this changed.
Unsurprisingly, LTV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1986.The reorganization was temporarily successful and LTV emerged from Chapter 11 in 1991. A second bankruptcy filing in 2000 only confirmed the downward spiral. Operations ceased completely in December 2001, when the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing allowed the executives to liquidate the company’s assets. Layoffs in the period between 1986 and 2001 began to downsize the employees, a total of 9,800 workers were furloughed. Operations ceased completely in December 2001, when the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing allowed the executives to liquidate the company’s assets. When the company finally closed the final 5,200 workers were let go.
The demolition of the buildings began in January of 2004, once all tangible assets had been stripped and sold off to the highest bidder, mainly foreign steel makers like China and India.
This then, could be thought of as a fin-de-sicle series. A cycle started by another Cleveland photographer, Margaret Bourke-White, who photographed these very same mills when their sounds, smells and almost hellish vistas of fire and sweat was the coursing blood that breathed a vibrant assured life into a city and a nation. I have sought to capture the end of that cycle, as these once mighty behemoths of industry become the rusted and crumbling hulks of our once prosperous economy.
Unsurprisingly, LTV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1986.The reorganization was temporarily successful and LTV emerged from Chapter 11 in 1991. A second bankruptcy filing in 2000 only confirmed the downward spiral. Operations ceased completely in December 2001, when the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing allowed the executives to liquidate the company’s assets. Layoffs in the period between 1986 and 2001 began to downsize the employees, a total of 9,800 workers were furloughed. Operations ceased completely in December 2001, when the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing allowed the executives to liquidate the company’s assets. When the company finally closed the final 5,200 workers were let go.
The demolition of the buildings began in January of 2004, once all tangible assets had been stripped and sold off to the highest bidder, mainly foreign steel makers like China and India.
This then, could be thought of as a fin-de-sicle series. A cycle started by another Cleveland photographer, Margaret Bourke-White, who photographed these very same mills when their sounds, smells and almost hellish vistas of fire and sweat was the coursing blood that breathed a vibrant assured life into a city and a nation. I have sought to capture the end of that cycle, as these once mighty behemoths of industry become the rusted and crumbling hulks of our once prosperous economy.
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