April 6, 2021 - Sparrows Point
I came out to the Skypark, cleaned the hangar, and washed the RV-7. Then, of course, I had to fly the RV to blow the water out of the cracks and crevices.
Here I am over Miller's Island looking down at the house of the first boss I ever had of the high-tech company I worked 19 years for. I remember when he bought that floating black dock there. He retired a couple of years before I did; I wonder how he is doing?
Looking at Miller's Island. Everything is brown and grey; still nothing to get excited about.
So I headed over to Sparrows Point. Bethlehem Steel was big here. In its heyday in the mid-20th century, it was the largest steel mill in the world. There was even a company town. It's all gone now. The decline started in the 1970s. The town was demolished in 1973. Bethlehem Steel Corporation declared bankrupcy in 2001 and its remaining assets were sold to International Steel Group in 2003.
Fast forward to today. All the steel mill and shipbuilding infrastructure is gone. Now there are huge distribution and fulfillment center buildings for companies like Amazon, Under Armour and FedEx. The site is now named Tradepoint Atlantic and appears to be thriving.
Because I drive I-695 across that bridge to the left everytime I go to the Skypark, last year I noticed that Amazon had moved into the huge building inthe center of this picture. They were already in another Sparrows Point building.
The large one really illustrates how these buildings are built. First they put up the outside walls. In this picture, you can see how the walls are braced from the inside (so they don't fall over). Then they put up interior posts and roof joists. Then they lay the roof. You can see all this happening at different points onthis large building.
