The pace of demolition is quickening at the former Pittsburgh Plate Glass plant adjacent to Foundation Park in Mount Vernon. This week the majority of the original manufacturing structure on the site was razed, except for parts of the southern wall and an attached brick structure that will be integrated into the new parkscape. Project manager Ted Schnormeier and landscape architect Bob Stovicek are carefully monitoring the demolition with an eye toward preserving interesting and architecturally-significant  elements of the century-old glass plant.

The structure pictured here was built as the Coxey Steel Company in the late 1890s and was later converted for the manufacture of sheet glass. The building was distinctive in that its skeleton was constructed from steel salvaged from the landmark 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in Chicago, and transported to Mount Vernon on 40 colorful circus train cars.

Work on the expanded parks, which now comprise some 200 acres including three lakes, and the renovation of the C.A.&C. Railroad Depot (the former Station Break) is being undertaken by the Foundation Park Conservancy with generous funding from Karen Buchwald Wright and the the Ariel Corporation, The Community Foundation of Mount Vernon & Knox County and others.

The Foundation Park Conservancy is in the process of planning a community-wide fundraising effort, including an outreach to families of former PPG employees, to assist with the completion of later phases of park construction and to create a permanent monument to Mount Vernon’s significant role in the glassmaking industry.