A recent article on the website GOOD, outlines a historical time line on a once thriving city, and then like many of our small towns in the US, was faced with the challenge to “get it back”. GOOD does a good (sorry, no pun intended) job of telling the story of Braddock, PA through an engaging infographic. In a quick glance, you’re immediately engaged in learning about the town’s start in 1873 when Andrew Carnegie builds his first steel mill, and continues all the way through a 136 year industry and population swing of good times and bad. The crux of the story begins its happy ending by showing the concerted upswing effort in this century while the map temporarily ends with Braddock’s 2009 opening of its first alternative energy company, Fossil Free Fuel. Another story in itself, the company specializes in converting cars, trucks and vans to run on used cooking oil.
Other highlights include the founding of the city’s first urban garden, Braddock Farms. My wife Karen has been involved in urban and organic gardens in Charleston, SC and now here in Chambersburg, PA, and I think we’ll be planning to make the trip to Braddock soon so she can see what they’re up to.
Another highlight in the graphic includes the city’s use of a website to, as they put it, “chronicle the town’s revival project and encourage urban pioneers, artists, or misfits to join in building a new kind of community”. Someone in Braddock gets it. An outreach to misfits? An urban garden? Believing in your town and people? Sign me up!
Let’s see, I love to cook, and I’ve always had my eye on a vintage Chevy Van with the 70′s tear drop window. I think I’ll gas up the VW as usual and take a trip to Braddock with Karen. I’ll drop her off at the Braddock Farm Urban Garden, and I’ll take my van idea and head up the road to the guys at Fossil Free Fuel to see what’s cookin’.
