SteelStacks
A cultural campus built on the former blast furnaces of the Bethlehem Steel works. Its rust-red giant furnaces light up at night and have become a symbol of the city's renewal.
Bethlehem Steel was once the second-largest steel producer in the United States, supplying steel for the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building, and it closed in 1995. Five blast furnaces, each over 70 metres tall, remain from the old works. The surrounding area has been converted into the ArtsQuest arts centre, the Levitt Pavilion open-air theatre and PBS39 television studios, and free performances are held almost every summer night. The Hoover-Mason Trestle, a roughly 500-metre walkway converted from an elevated rail line, gets you close to the furnaces so you can see the industrial details. It is open to the public for free. Musikfest is held here in August, and the Christmas market runs here from November to December. The best time for a stroll and photos is the evening, when the lights come on. Next door is the Wind Creek casino hotel.
Opening hours
Grounds open all day; trails from sunrise to after sunset
Nearby sights
- Christkindlmarkt Bethlehem
- National Museum of Industrial History
- Wind Creek Bethlehem
- Lehigh University
- Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts
- Historic Moravian Bethlehem District
- Central Moravian Church
- Moravian Book Shop