King Coal and the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum
Wilma Steele sits on her screened porch and watches the last of the apples fall from her tree. It’s a beautiful, crisp day in Mingo County, West Virginia.
Weekly Links Roundup
News of the Rust Belt from around the world, brought to you weekly by the staff of Belt Magazine. November 2-8, 2015
Beyond Rust: Part 3, “Mills and Malls”
In light of their efforts to attract the stores, restaurants, and vibrant night-life essential for remaking the downtown riverfront, Wheeling officials would have gladly changed places with Betty Esper, Homestead’s mayor ...
In Monroeville, a Living Museum
From inside, nothing can be seen. The stores are open, everything seems basically the same. Then there are groans and, after those, screams.
Rust Belt Vehicle Love
I saw a dinosaur carcass the other day in the driveway of an abandoned house on a side street off St. Clair Avenue. It was a dark green Ford LTD with a tattered brougham roof peeled back to the rusted metal.
The Flint Anthology: Call for Submissions
It’s time to tell the stories of Flint. That’s stories of Flint, mind you, not story, because there is no one story, no singular narrative that can define the Vehicle City.
Weekly Links Roundup
News of the Rust Belt from around the world, brought to you weekly by the staff of Belt Magazine. Links from October 26 - November 1, 2015.
Beyond Rust: Part 2, “Victorian Wheeling”
As with the Renaissance of the 1950s, community leaders in the region’s smaller cities sought to copy Pittsburgh’s relative success in reinventing itself as a high-tech, post-industrial hub ...
“A Flair for the Scare”: Inside Ohio’s Nationally Ranked Haunted Hoochie
Sometime around 9 p.m., a hollow-eyed corpse in coveralls will appear on the balcony overlooking a 1,000-odd patrons dancing in place in the 40-degree Ohio evening.
Rust Belt Questionnaire
Rust Belt Questionnaire - The questions below were developed by a “team of experts” to quantify Rust Belt literacy. Literacy has been shown to be an important word to mention.
Keep Us In The Loop, Rust Belt
I was intrigued when my old friend Bill told me he had gotten a new job as an editor at a magazine based in Cleveland. I was more intrigued when he told me the title of the magazine and its subject matter -- the “Rust Belt.”
From One Rust Belt to Another
“I’m going to be working from Germany for the summer,” I told everyone this April. “Ooh, Berlin?” was the universal reply. “No,” I would reply, savoring the weirdness of the word I was about to pronounce: “Gelsenkirchen.”