Abandoned Pittsburgh

Pittsburghers are slow to give up their ghosts. Rusted skeletons of steel mills and rail depots line the rivers, corroded reminders of a city’s past forged in steel. Churches built in the 19th century by devout East European immigrants now stand desanctified and decayed. For me, it’s not enough to just pass by these empty places every day. I want to know what happened there. I want to see what was left behind. ABANDONED PITTSBURGH is an ongoing project documenting these forgotten places where a strange, haunting beauty still exists.

Photographer Chuck Beard is the founder of the Abandoned Pittsburgh project, which has led to the publication of three books in the Abandoned Pittsburgh series, with more planned for the future. The project documents the Steel City’s forgotten industrial and community sites where “beauty in decay” still exists.