Over a series of recent visits, Sun photographer Algerina Perna documented life inside the Bethlehem Steel plant in Sparrows Point, recording its final days under that legendary name before a new owner took over this past week. In doing so, she says, "I had a sense of seeing the great Industrial Revolution now faded before me. The vastness of the place was accentuated by the lack of people. Yet, I could almost see the hordes of men from an era gone by, walking under huge overhead pipes, carrying empty lunchboxes, on their way home after a hard day's work."
There was a stillness and quiet beauty all around the plant, she says, "accentuated periodically by a warning siren announcing the pouring of molten lead or the sound of submarine cars filled with hot metal making their way to the furnace."
