Downed atom smasher supported Chalfant so long
It lies there like a large dead whale, only bigger — not on a beach, but in a brownfield. Its iconic Westinghouse “W,” a symbol once recognized around the world, is faded, yet clearly visible. The Van de Graaf generator, as they called it, sure looks dead, like it should be covered with a sheet.
It was the world’s first industrial atom smasher. For 50-some years we around Chalfant referred to it simply as “The Smasher.”
My friend Harold recalls that on a 1940s school field trip he had wondered why something so large was needed to smash something so small. Now I’m left to wonder what will become of it. Will the smasher itself be smashed into tiny particles?
On the morning of Jan. 20, it was still standing where it always had for 78 years. Later in the day it was not.
A large track hoe had spent the previous months eating up all of the surrounding Westinghouse buildings. With the aid of a skid steer, the track hoe tried to push and/or pull the smasher. On its side, the smasher is as round as a beach ball. It would not budge.
Large steel cables were attached in an effort to coax the smasher to roll. The cables snapped like kite strings. As the sun began to set, the track hoe raised its hydraulic arm as though in sign of surrender, and it crawled away.
The lights had gone off and the life had gone out at the Westinghouse Atomic Division more than 30 years ago. The last atom was smashed more than 70 years ago. The brownfield that remains is the long-lasting Westinghouse legacy. It’s the 21st century price to pay for having had life-enhancing, middle-class jobs in the 20th century.
Regardless of any role the smasher played in the Westinghouse foray into nuclear power, it was a sacred image of industry. It was a different kind of symbol from the Jolly Green Giant, who never actually put green beans in a can, or the Michelin Man, who never really changed a tire.
There was a legend that the discoverer of radium, Madame Curie, once visited the site. Maybe in spirit. She died before the smasher was built.
It was built during the most unnerving economic time of the American narrative, the Great Depression. It had risen like a beacon of hope in the electric valley. It meant union wages, job security, medical insurance, pensions — all things still very much desired by today’s workforce.
Although the smasher loomed large over the Lincoln Highway in Forest Hills, it perhaps loomed larger over Chalfant borough, one of the smallest municipalities in Allegheny County. Chalfant is the backdrop in the Post Gazette’s 1937 archival photo of the smasher. The newly built WPA schoolhouse is visible in the photo, as is the strip mine that served as the baseball field.
Though never to be confused with Oz, Chalfant’s main street of North Avenue was a yellow brick road. It ended directly in front of the guarded Westinghouse main gate. There was no man behind a curtain, but the smasher commanded as much mystique.
Vietnam-era Memorial Day parades would begin near the Westinghouse main gate and proceed to the Chalfant war memorial. Veterans of both world wars and Korea would stand at attention. Behind them stood the smasher, like some manmade setting sun.
The Westinghouse air horn would scream daily to indicate shift changes, piercing Chalfant denizens’ ears. Chalfant dogs would howl. The air horn would also scream to signify world events such as V-J day in 1945 or an assassination one tragic November day in 1963.
My father’s Westinghouse career involved a daily, fiveminute morning commute. He would walk the yellow brick road past J.B.’s bar and Henry’s tavern. Past Eddie’s market, where many an item was bought on credit. Past Wanovich’s penny candy store, where many a cavity got its start. Past the servicemen’s club, the barbershop and Delio’s bar and grill.
Westinghouse wages paid the mortgage and the company’s taxes supported the borough, the schools and everything else around. That smasher, the one still lying on it side now, was for so many years Chalfant’s constancy.