Faded Glory

When we came to Buffalo NY in 1974, steel was king. Behemoth factories, operating 24/7 dominated the city skylines of Buffalo and a handful of other booming cities in the Midwest. By the time we left graduate school, circa 1982, the process of making steel had been transformed. Mini mills using electric power had taken over. In Buffalo, the old factories that had employed tens of thousands for decades were shuttered. Families and communities were devastated by the loss. The landscape of Buffalo today is the epitome of faded glory, bearing witness to both the extraordinary rise and final collapse of an American Industry and era of entrepreneurship.