First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerSmoke billows from LTV Corp.'s East Side plant at sunset. The company has asked a federal bankruptcy judge for permission to close the plant, along the east bank of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland's Industrial Valley, and its other mills in East Chicago, Ind., and Hennepin, Ill.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerTrying to keep mills like LTV Corp.'s Cleveland Works operating, the United Steelworkers of America vowed yesterday to press a nationwide fight for government help and import curbs.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain Dealer1997 a couple taking their evening stroll walk out to the the end of closed Pershing Rd. and watch the sunset over LYV.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Larry Hamel-Lambert / The Plain DealerAerial photo of the LTV plant on the west side of the Cuyahoga River, Saturday, June 16, 2001, Cleveland.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerThe neighborhood north of LTV shot from a roof top in Tremont shows the domes of St. Theodosius mingling with the smoke of LTV.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain Dealer A steelworker at LTV's Cleveland Works, left, does maintenance earlier this month on the machine that coils steel. With excess supply flooding the market, many industry watchers say the death of one or more big American steel makers is inevitable, even desirable.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerThe semi-pro football team, the Cleveland Panthers practice in the shadow of LTV.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerThe sun setting casts a redish light on the back lit smoke from LTV. The green cast on the street is from a street lamp. The mill was the life - the breath - of this neighborhood, at East 45th and Jewett.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - / The Plain DealerThe one way street that is Holmden Ave. leads directly to the gates of LTV.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerThe crew on the day shift left LTV Corp.'s East Side mill in Cleveland yesterday before a federal bankruptcy judge granted the company's request to idle steel making, but they knew what was coming.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerPlants at LTV idle as gates are locked while the future of LTV is decided in court.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerJune 16, 2001, Scot Reppa, 44, worked at LTV since he was 19 worked the last heat at LTV's westside slab. He holds a 'lollipop', a sample taken from the last heat from the plant.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Chris Stephens / The Plain DealerRalph Whitney, a railroad worker at LTV, heads in to work for the afternoon shift today Thursday December 28, 2000
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Chuck Crow / The Plain DealerSharon Tokar got laid off from LTV Corp.'s West Side mill in March, but she has kept her several uniforms hanging from the frame of her bedroom closet. "I'm hoping I would be going back," she said last week. "I won't put them away."
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Lonnie Timmons III / The Plain DealerThirty-year LTV worker Andy Hotz, 53, is resisting suggestions that he should retire to lock in his pension. "If we go belly up, it won't do anybody any good."
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerDecember 3, 2001, Carl Battles, a mechanical millwright at LTV for 24 years at a vigil for LTV workers at the LTV headquarters.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerElectrician Dennis Pugliese holds one of the 900 jobs that LTV Corp. will eliminate when its West Side mill closes next weekend. Pugliese's job takes him to the mill's blast furnace, in the background.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerSam Stafford a 32 year vet of the steel industry pauses at the west gate of LTV before his final shift at 7 to chat to another worker.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Marvin Fong / The Plain DealerLTV retiree Bob Haley fears for his pension following the steel maker's bankruptcy court filing, its second since 1986. "A lot of us retired 15 or 16 years ago," Haley said during a break from a letter-writing campaign at an East Chicago union hall. "We've been under the threat of losing our pension and health benefits since day one."
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerA worker at Russian steel maker AO Severstal tends one of the company's two open-hearth furnaces. Severstal has closed 10 of its 12 open-hearth furnaces, which are inefficient and antiquated by American standards.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerA Severstal worker waits for an open-hearth furnace to produce a batch of molten iron. Severstal has closed 10 of its 12 open-hearth furnaces, which are inefficient and antiquated by American standards. Open-hearth take eight hours to make a batch of steel. Severstal's modern furnaces take just 50 minutes.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerBlast Furnace worker, Severstal.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerA worker tends a coke oven at Severstal's plant in Chere povets. Coke, coal that has been processed to remove impurities, is consumed in blast furnaces while smelting iron.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerA female crane operator inside Severstal.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerNicolai Ryjov, 44, takes a break on a wooden bench just feet from one of Severstal's steel furnaces. After 23 years at the plant, he earns less than 300 per month. "I wanted to work here," he says through a translator. "I make a bit more money here.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerSunbathers enjoy the afternoon at a beach across from Severastal's steel mill. The company spent next to nothing on environmental controls until a decade ago. "The... water taken from the river was thrown back dirty," says Nikolay Arkhipov, who heads Severstal's nature management division. "Today we are able to clean 98 percent of the water we use."
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerSteel worker inside blast furnace, Severstal.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Scott Shaw / The Plain DealerLTV steelworkers and supporters pass near LTV headquarters. They marched from St. Michael Hospital to the Peace Memorial downtown.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Gus Chan / The Plain DealerFritz Polosky and Evelyn Haston raise their fists in support of a speech given by Congressman Dennis Kucinich Saturday, June 16, 2001. Haston (right) worked at LTV's westside mill and lost her job. Polosky, an eastside plant worker, still has his job.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - David I. Andersen / The Plain DealerFrom left: LTV steelworkers Dan Boone, Local 1157; Jim Lance, Local 1098 and Tim Pecek, Local 1098 with boxes containing 110,000 signitures on petitions from the Cleveland area that were presented to Secretary of Commerce Don Evans during the Steelworkers rally at The Capital in Washington DC to get H.R. 808 passed in congress. Wednesday, June 6, 2001.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Scott Shaw / The Plain DealerLTV steelworker Mike Kostya listens to rally speakers after steelworkers and supporters marched from St. Michael Hospital to the Veterans Peace Memorial, Dec. 1, 2001, in downtown Cleveland. Speakers (from left) include Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Cleveland City Council member Joseph Cimperman, Mark Shaw, United Steelworkers of America, Cleveland Mayor-elect Jane Campbell, John Ryan, AFL-CIO, and County Commisioner Jimmy DiMora.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - John Kuntz / The Plain DealerJohn C. Matta, a retiree with United Steelworkers of America Local 2265, listens through a closed door to a meeting in the Cleveland union hall. The room was so full that it was the best place Matta could find to hear the speeches. Many of the local's members work in LTV Corp.'s rolling mill, which the company might soon close.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerA lone steel worker in front of LTV headquarters during at rally the night before the federal hearing in Youngstown.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerCoils of flat-rolled steel await delivery in a warehouse at WCI Steel Inc., the last integrated mill in the Mahoning Valley. Making steel from raw materials is a perilous business today, and the mill on the outskirts of Warren is in a fight to stay alive.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerThe Wheeling-Pit steel plant looms over downtown Mingo Junction. The closing of these plants could prove economically devastating to these small towns.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerRolling mill at Wheeling-Pit, in Mingo Junction.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerSteam billows from the rolling mill at Wheeling-Pitt steel plant in Mingo Junction.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerElectric furnace at Timken in Canton, Nov. 28, 2001.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerSome of Ohio's steel operations, including AK Steel Holding Corp.'s mill in Middletown, are considered strong and viable. But others are weak, and the last year has taken a heavy toll on the industry nationwide and in the state.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerBill Thomas is a steelworker at AK steel in Middletown.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerScott Wade is a metallugical engineer at Timken in Canton.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain DealerThe stress of an unclear future shows on Jack Sabolich, a vesselman at LTV Corp.'s East Side mill in Cleveland. Sabolich and his family - wife, Sherry, and daughters, Nikki, 6, and Amber, 4 - attended a Mass yesterday at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Cleveland to pray for the steel company and its employees as a possible closing looms.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - / The Plain Dealer
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain Dealer Zef Luka, 76, of Cleveland, quietly sits at a table where he lit a candle at last night's vigil in front of LTV's building at Broadway and E. 51st St. Luka, an LTV retiree, worked in the mill for 37 years - his only job since coming to America from Albania almost 50 years ago.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Dale Omori / The Plain DealerRick Lucente has worked at the Lorain steel plant for 28 years. The plant is now owned by Republic Technologies International LLC.
First Place, Ohio Understanding Award - Mike Levy / The Plain Dealer Will abandoned stacks and razor wire be the legacy LTV will leave to Cleveland.
