Readers’ Corner: Bridging Past with Present
My favorite Rust Belt location? The bridge leading into the former U.S. Steel McDonald Works, a finishing mill where three generations of my family members worked shifts...
Weekly Links Roundup
News of the Rust Belt from around the world, brought to you weekly by the staff of Belt Magazine.
Making a Case for Youngstown
When my wife and I first started dating, she lived in rural Georgia and had no knowledge of Youngstown. We hadn’t been dating long enough to even really discuss what my hometown was like.
From Comp Lit to the Adjuncts’ Champion: The Academic Odyssey of Maria Maisto
In the spring of 2004, Maria Maisto, a doctoral student in comparative literature at the University of Maryland and a long-time Washingtonian, decided to leave Washington, D.C. for an uncertain future in the Rust Belt.
Panic in Detroit: Benjamin Markovits’ You Don’t Have to Live Like This
Detroit is a city of fist-pumping, all-caps slogans. A hashtag for your Instagram, a bumper sticker for your Ford: NOTHING STOPS DETROIT. DETROIT HUSTLES HARDER. BELIEVE THERE IS GOOD IN DETROIT.
Happy Independence Day! Pass The Tortillas, Por Favor!
Having lived fifteen years in a small town in a remote part of the Midwest -- dubbed Forgottonia in the 1970s -- possibly the most interesting change I’ve observed over time has been the emergence ...
Look, Decrease
“This is just a simulation, but you’ll lay there in the bed, and we’ll slide you into the tube,” the technician points at the fMRI bed and motions for me to lay. But it’s not a real fMRI, it’s just a big, cheap-looking model of one.
A State Of Quakes
As sun set on the final evening of 2011, a loud boom interrupted New Years’ Eve revelries in eastern Ohio. Valerie Dearing, who was ringing in the New Year in her living room in the small town of Poland ...
Readers’ Corner: W. 65th St. & Detroit Ave., Cleveland, OH
Most of the time when I mention Gordon Square in a conversation, people don’t know what I’m talking about – which is disappointing. “It’s around West 65th and Detroit,” I tell them.
Reading The Midwest: Gillian Flynn
I abandoned Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl shortly after it came out in 2012. Around 50 pages in, I started wondering: What were people seeing in it?
How to Grow a Music Festival: The Nelsonville Music Festival Story
Just before 5pm on Sun., May 31, Seattle-based singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile looked out at the large, energetic and sweaty crowd from her perch, front and center on the Nelsonville Music Festival’s Main Stage...
Physics From The Farm
The first thing that Ellen Vinson wanted to tell me about her aunt, physicist Melba Phillips, was that Phillips was the only person from Pike County, Indiana, to ever have an obituary in the New York Times.