Posted on 02/07/2013 6:01:44 PM PST by Ditto
Smack in the middle of where a D.C. developer hopes to build apartments on the Forest Hills-Chalfant border stands a small brick building adorned with a towering steel orb.
The four-story weathered object, which resembles a giant light bulb, is the genesis of the Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s foray into nuclear power — a 1937 van de Graaff particle accelerator, the world's first industrial atom smasher.
“Westinghouse was really in the vanguard of nuclear power,” said Cynthia Kelly, president of the Washington-based Atomic Heritage Foundation. “It's great that they kept (the accelerator.) It's a great piece of history.”
Gary Silversmith thinks so, too. Now the developer wants to find a way to save it from the scrap heap.
(Excerpt) Read more at triblive.com ...
If it mashed dinner, Barney Frank would be interested.
Very cool. You could probably make everyone on your block’s hair stand up with that!
Hard to believe that it’s only worth 1.4m. You would think that the copper alone would be worth millions.
I grew up within a few miles from the site. The neighborhood adjacent is known as the Westinghouse Plan. It was concieved by Mr.W and was a “planed community for egineers and professionals. The streets are laid out with names like Ave. A, Ave.B....and so forth. A walk down the hillside would bring one to US Route 30 (Penn-Lincoln Memorial Hy) which had a trolley line that would go to the door of the Westinghouse Electrical Plant in East Pittsburgh which produced electrical generators for power production. The area is really rich with industrial firsts and I hope they find a home for the “Atom Smasher†It was a great place to grow up!
Nope, Thanks!
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