Episode One: “I’ll Die Here”
[JML]: (door unlocks and opens) Ok. Here we go.
[ALEX]: Alright. Walking in!
[JML]: 113 Ida Ave.
[NARRATION]: I’m with my husband Alex. I’m buying a house.
[ALEX]: Well we—see that’s what we really don’t need–
[JML]: I’m not buying a house, honey.
[ALEX]: Well that’s what I’m asking you—
[NARRATION]: Well, I’m trying to buy a house. In a dying town in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania. My husband’s not as convinced as I am that this is a good idea. I dragged him out here with our realtor to try and make the hard sell.
[JML]: Yeah, but you—
[ALEX]: Then why are you pointing at me?!
[JML]: (laughing) I don’t know!
(phone ringtone: “Bad to the Bone”)
[NARRATION]: And so far…
[ALEX]: Whatever you say. (phone ringtone continues)
[NARRATION]: …it’s going about as well as can be expected.
[ALEX]: Hi honey, can I call you back in about a half an hour?
[NARRATION]: The thing is, we already have a house. Out on a farm about a half-hour away. We live there with our two kids… and our four dogs and our cats Matt and Millie. And a bird and a few horses and a donkey and a pregnant goat. It’s a lot to take care of as it is.
[JML]: Oh I love it!
[ALEX]: (fade under) Oh my god!
[NARRATION]: Alex is not interested in owning another house. Especially a house in a random, dying town… with no real hope of any return on your investment. Which is definitely a sticking point.
[REALTOR]: (fading up) I tell you what—
[ALEX]: (interrupting) You’re kicking in, right?
[ERIN]: (laughs).
[ALEX]: Why are you laughing?
[NARRATION]: That’s my friend Erin. With the microphone.
[ALEX]: Am I the object of your…?
[NARRATION]: She’s in on this too.
[ERIN]: (laughs) For now!
[NARRATION]: Until a few weeks ago Erin and I had never even heard of this little town. Donora, PA.
[JML]: Look at this nice little yard!
[ALEX]: Jeanne!
[NARRATION]: But we got sucked in pretty quickly.
[ALEX]: Is she gonna move here do you think? Do you think this is just a–
[NARRATION]: It became an obsession – that would last for years. I can honestly say that to this day —
[ALEX]: Could be!
[NARRATION]: — we’ve thought of very little else since we first walked into town. We had no friggin’ idea what we’re getting ourselves into…
[ALEX]: I just think it’s too big.
[JML]: Oh my god no. Oh my lord no. Oh god no!
[ALEX]: Oh honey, let’s try to contain your…
[JML]: That’s three no’s.
[ALEX]: ...religious ecstasy.
[JML]: Ah jeez not too big! Are you kidding?
[ALEX]: (laugh) What do you think of what I just said?
[JML]: (laughs) (gasp) Trains, listen!
(train whistle)
[NARRATION]: I’m Jeanne Marie Laskas and this is Cement City.
[JML]: I love having the trains!
[NARRATION]: Chapter One: “I’ll Die Here.”
(train whistle)
[JML]: What the heck is that red shoe in there?
[ERIN]: Thank you for using your Visa card. (laughs)
[JML]: Hushpuppies…
[NARRATION]: Our story starts just a few weeks earlier, back in February 2017. Erin and I are looking in the window of a shoe store – in downtown Donora, Pennsylvania. Population 4,650.
[JML]: Oh wow.
[NARRATION:] It’s our first time here. And we can’t stop staring at these shoes.
[ERIN]: Like, what year are these from?
[JML]: That’s a good question.
[NARRATION]: They’re all lined up on display racks. Covered in dust. Hushpuppies. LA Gear. It looks like this store hasn’t been open for decades.
[JML]: I mean there are price tags on those shoes. These boots.
[[NARRATION]: This is McKean Avenue – which is basically Main Street. It’s pretty much all like this. Everything’s closed up… there’s all these vacant storefronts.
[ERIN]: It’s like frozen in time.
[JML]: Mmhmm.
[NARRATION]: — or maybe vacated is a better word. A lot of them still have merchandise in the windows – from another era.
[JML]: It’s so eerie…
[[NARRATION]: It looks sorta like the whole town just—
(car door shuts)
[NARRATION]: —picked up and left in a hurry. Like they were trying to outrun something.
[JML]: (car starts) And look at those racks of—what are they, bras?
[ERIN]: (reading) All bras half-price. Sale $2.
[JML]: Racks of that stuff and it’s just like it’s still here and it… Like when would that have… That is ‘80s. ‘70s… I mean that is—look at these hairdos on these ladies in the bra boxes. That’s like ‘60s!
[ERIN]: I didn’t know bras came in boxes.
[JML]: Mmm. What the heck happened here?
[NARRATION]: This town’s similar to a lot of towns around where I live, out in Southwestern Pennsylvania, about an hour south of Pittsburgh. There’s this whole region called the Monongahela River Valley that’s dotted with places like this… old mill towns that’ve seen better days. But from the looks of things, this town feels especially far gone.
Of course, what do I know? Because I never come to these places. And I don’t know anyone who does. Put it this way: when I told some colleagues up in Pittsburgh that I was headed out to the Mon Valley, one of them said, “The Mon Valley… Didn’t they close that?” It’s like this whole region has been totally cut off and forgotten.
And just for context, this is 2017. We have a new President. Donald Trump just moved into the White House. And the whole thing has really knocked me for a loop. Like a lot of people, I don’t quite understand it. And I live in the heart of the rust belt, so I feel like I should understand it.
And one day I was talking to Erin about this – and about how weird it is… to live right here… with all these towns around us… all these forgotten towns that we barely even notice. They’re basically our neighbors and we know nothing about them. And we got to thinking... What if we just picked a town – randomly – off a map. And drove there. What would we find?
[JML]: Oh is this the Mames…
[ERIN]: Yeah.
[JML]: Oh wow…
[NARRATION]: And now here we are. In Donora, Pennsylvania.
[JML]: Did it used to be like a…
[NARRATION]: And we’re just looking for signs of life.
[JML]: I guess just a store, but it could’ve been like a movie theater or something.
[ERIN]: Huh.
[NARRATION]: We pass an abandoned boxing gym inside a thrift store…
[JML]: I need a backstory there, right?
[NARRATION]: An old Chinese restaurant… with cracked windows held together with tape… and a sign above that says, “Donora Smog Museum.”
[JML]: Now what is this?
[ERIN]: I have no idea. (laughs)
[NARRATION]: It’s hard to tell what’s going on with a lot of these places.
[JML]: Yeah, see? “Haloski dom bowling.”
[NARRATION]: It’s also hard to tell what’s actually open…
[JML]: It’s some (pause) Eastern European sounding…
[NARRATION]: … or if anything is…
[JML]: Croatia! Croatia, there you go. (reading) American Croatian Citizens Club.
[ERIN]: Oh, it’s one of those private members’ only things.
[JML]: Yeah!
[ERIN]: You’d have to really make friends to get in there, but—
[JML]: What if we… what if we opened the door?
[ERIN]: Uh, no.
[JML]: No.
[ERIN]: That’s not the way to–
[JML]: Ok.
[NARRATION]: For the record, here’s the difference between me and Erin:
(door shuts, bar sounds)
[NARRATION]: I open the door.
[ERIN]: Hi!
[JML]: Hello!
[NARRATION]: I should probably mention: This is a thing I like to do. I’m a journalist. And I like to go to places I know nothing about. Without a list of questions. Just to poke around and see what’s there. And then… come home and write about them. I once spent months down in a coal mine underneath Ohio, crawling around in the dark with a guy named Foot. I’ve hung out in the control tower at LaGuardia Airport for more time than anyone should spend at LaGuardia Airport. I’ve written about gun shops and landfills and Alaskan oil rigs. Migrant worker camps and cattle ranches. But this is new for me. This isn’t a coal mine or a gun shop. It’s an entire town…
[ERIN]: Um is it ok, is it ok if I record while we’re in here?
[NARRATION]: And I don’t usually bring a friend with a microphone…
[ERIN]: (laughs)
[GUIDO]: (in background) Chased him out!
[GUY 2]: What are you doing, recording? Hey! Is she recording?
[ERIN]: Oh, I have an audio recorder. Is that a problem? (laughs)
[GUY 2]: Shut it off!
[ERIN]: Shut it off? Ok.
[GUY 2]: Shut it off til I leave.
[ERIN]: All right.
[GUY 2]: I don’t want you doing that shit.
[ERIN]: (to someone else) Yeah? Is he joking? Or I can’t tell.
[GUY 2]: Shut that thing off!
[ERIN]: Right. Let me— (laughs, mic cuts out)
(silence)
[NARRATION]: So this is the American Croatian Citizens’ Club. Where we’ve just been politely asked to shut off our recorder… Which, fair enough, it’s a private club… and who the hell are we?
We sit down… awkwardly… at this huge semi-circle bar in the center of the room… sign the guestbook, order a beer, and wait for that guy to leave.
It’s dark in here. The whole place feels straight out of the ’50s – like polished oak and glass-block with this neon glow that catches the cigarette smoke hanging in the air. There’s a jukebox and a chalkboard reminding everybody to pay their dues. It’s eight bucks for the year – seven for seniors. Those are annual dues.
(cut back to ambi)
[ERIN]: Hello!
[JIM A]: (off mic) You can’t have me tonight.
[JML]: Oh-ho-ho!
[JIM A]: I’m otherwise engaged.
[JML]: Can we look at a menu too?
[BARTENDER]: (fade under) I don’t have my kitchen on tonight…
[NARRATION]: By the time we turn our recorder back on, I’m ordering us a second round of Yuenglings and a five-dollar pizza. And talking to this guy at the bar. Jim.
[JIM A]: Heather, keep the noise down please? I’m trying to relax here.
[NARRATION]: He’s trying to relax here. If it weren’t for Heather. And the dudes at the end of the bar….
[SHAKES]: (fade up) Let’s check her out.
[NARRATION]: …who keep catcalling the girl with the microphone.
[JIM A]: You got three Harvard graduates sitting together down there, you know what I mean?
[SHAKES]: (fade under) All I wanna do Zooma Zoom Zoom…
[JIM A]: (laughs)
[NARRATION]: Jim’s giving us the play-by-play.
[SHAKES]: (laughs)
[JIM A]: But don’t you badmouth Harvard. Remember they gave us the Unabomber and napalm. It’s a great school. Remember that.
[NARRATION]: Meanwhile, Erin keeps getting sucked into the orbit of this other guy two stools away.
[GUIDO]: I’ll tell you one thing…
[NARRATION]: He’s got a hunched back… and he’s settled in… with this… amused expression on his face that looks kinda permanent.
[GUIDO]: You know, people bitch about Donora. I guarantee you, if I break down, within five minutes, I get picked up. ‘Cause I’m in Donora.
[HEATHER]: (off mic) Yeah but I get picked up just because I’m cute.
[GUIDO]: They know me. They’re gonna pick me up.
[ERIN]: What did you say?
[GUIDO]: (interrupting) I asked you— if, if, within five minutes of breaking down in Donora, if you’re stopped or you’re walking and they like — you’re getting picked up. Cause people in Donora know you, and we're a big family. And that's a fact, Jack.
[JIM A]: You know what, I was broke down—
[GUIDO]: (off mic) Like this bananahead over here.
[JIM A]: I was broke down at the uh six pack shop this morning. The car wouldn't start. Keith.
[GUIDO]: (in the background) What happened?
[JIM A]: Keith, the cop. The cop said, “You need a ride up the hill?” You know, so. It's just the way it is.
[GUIDO]: It’s just the way it is! It’s a beautiful thing. We don't got no bank. No gas station…
[JIM A]: No school…
[GUIDO]: No grocery store.
[JIM A]: No bank. (laughs)
[GUIDO]: We got nothing but each other. We have each other. And I love it. I just bought a new house six months ago in Donora. And I’ll die here. And that’s why. My family's here, this bananahead’s here, my friends are here... I ain't leaving Donora for no reason whatsoever. This is where we're going to be. It's really nice. It's a beautiful thing. It really is. (laughs) Yep. This is where I’ll die. (laughs) It's a great thing. (in background) Believe me.
[NARRATION]: Before we rang the buzzer and came in here, I would’ve said it’s a cliche to walk into a rust belt town and talk to two guys at a bar…
[JIM A]: (in background) Right up your ass! (laughs)
[NARRATION]: Except here we are… we walked into a rust belt town, opened the first door we saw, and found two guys at a bar.
[JIM A]: Like my sweet old grandmother used to say: “Fuckin’ A, Bucko!” You know.
[GUIDO]: Hey!
[BARTENDER]: (in background) I believe that she said that.
[NARRATION]: There’s a reason it’s a cliche.
[GUIDO]: Oh yeah!
[NARRATION]: Cliches don’t come out of nowhere.
[GUIDO]: It’s a nice, it’s a nice little close-knit town. and I like it. Yep, this is where I’ll be for the rest of my days. And I’m only 53! (laughs) It’ll be alright. (pause) I’m good…
[NARRATION]: That guy’s name’s Guido, by the way.
[JIM A]: Guido Fronzaglio! (laughs)
[GUIDO]: (in background) See how much he loves me?
[NARRATION]: I’m still over here talking to his buddy Jim.
[JIM A]: Well, I better get home soon. Mother’s not happy with me.
[NARRATION]: Whose wife Peggy is apparently at home.
[JIM A]: (pause) You women have no sense of humor.
[NARRATION]: Wondering where the hell he is.
[JIM A]: I believe she thinks I’m at the office… Ah, hey, hey, hey, hey! Hey! (laughs)
[NARRATION]: To be fair, Jim’s the one doing the talking.
[JIM A]: (in background) Oh she is super hot!
[NARRATION]: I’m mostly just sitting here listening.
[JIM A]: You should’ve seen her fifty years ago!
[NARRATION]: It’s kind of amazing what people’ll tell you when you sit with them on a barstool. Sometimes all you have to say is “hi.”
[JIM A]: She got us pregnant and she kept getting us pregnant. And on and on and on!
[NARRATION]: But you know what… sometimes people surprise you…
[JML]: Why do you think that is?
[NARRATION]: In fact most of the time they surprise you. I’ve found that people are almost never who you think they are.
[JIM A]: He’s not opening any coal mines! Who’s he trying to kid?
[NARRATION]: I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a long time, and that’s the only thing I’ve really come to expect.
(Music swells: “American Pie”)
[JIM A]: You’re lying. You’re fucking lying. Is it 9:00?
[BARTENDER]: 8:30.
[NARRATION]: I’m not sure how long Jim and I sit here talking. This place has a way of making time stand still…
[JIM A]: I’ll do what I have to do, yes.
[NARRATION]: But we talk for a while, about a lot of things – whatever’s on his mind…
[JIM A]: He’s a lying conman!
[NARRATION]: He talks about our new President…
[JIM A]: Bite me, Heather!
[NARRATION]: …but that doesn’t last long…
[JIM A]: He’s a big man-child. I mean I–
[NARRATION]: And as it turns out, it’s one of the only times anyone in town will bring up the topic…
[GUIDO]: Don’t worry!
[NARRATION]: …the whole time we’re here.
[JIM A]: And I’ve learned I’m just gonna quit talking about it. You know.
[GUIDO]: You know that old saying, right?
[JIM A]: What’s that?
[GUIDO]: If it’s got tits or tires eventually it’s gonna give you trouble.
[JIM A]: (laughs)
[GUIDO]: Sorry!
[NARRATION]: Anyway, Jim and I spend more time talking about other things…
[JIM A]: If it’s got tits or tires it’s gonna give you trouble…
[NARRATION]: His church fundraiser for example…
[JIM A]: It’s called golfing for Jesus.
[NARRATION]: … and his job as a broker…
(pause) You know.
[NARRATION]: …the latest book he’s reading on FDR…
[JML]: It really literally is?
[NARRATION]: He wants to know what I like to read.
[JIM A]: No.
[NARRATION]: He wants to show me the gaps where his teeth fell out.
[JIM A]: (singing along with American Pie) What an education, huh?
[NARRATION]: He wants me to know about his old dog Sadie who died last year. He still can’t bring himself to replace her.
[JIM A]: (fade up) But see? I consider myself a high-level asshole. (laughs). Ah well.
[ERIN]: What do you mean?
[JIM A]: I'm not, you know, it's kind of interesting cause I'm completely self-educated. I only had one year of college. But I've read and I've read and I've read. Ugh. And I— Well, whatever. I'm tooting my own horn.
[JML]: Wait. I want to hear this. I want to hear this.
[JIM A]: I think I'm pretty smart. Do you? (song ends, pause, music starts: “Piano Man”)
[JML]: I do!
[HEATHER]: (in background) Oh thank you!
[JIM A]: (laughs) That’s the dumbest fucking thing I ever said! (laughs)
[NARRATION]: It’s almost nine o’clock. Jim’s switched from whiskey to water. He’s eating a pack of peanut butter cups to sober up.
[JIM A]: One of the–you know, this song is the great American novel. It really is. I mean. (fade under)
[GUIDO]: (in background) Moody blues!
[JIM A]: (singing along) It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday…
[GUIDO]: And you said… Now listen!
[JIM A]: (mocking him) Now listen!
[GUIDO]: You told them this was the deadest night of the week. Sorry about your luck!
[JIM A]: What? What did I–?
[GUIDO]: Isn’t that what he said? You picked the sorriest night of the week…
[JIM A]: Well, it is!
[GUIDO]: …to come to the Cro Club.
[JIM A]: Wednesday’s usually a dead night here. Always dead.
[GUIDO]: Hey! You’re wrong!
[JIM A]: (fade under) Tonight I’m wrong!
[GUIDO]: First time ever!
[NARRATION]: In a few minutes, Erin and I will start packing up to head back home. I get the feeling these guys aren’t leaving any time soon. I get the feeling that any day of the week, you can walk in here to the American Croatian Citizens Club in Donora, PA, and these guys are gonna be here, sitting two stools apart…
[JIM A]: You make me feel cheap!
[NARRATION]: ...shouting at each other over the jukebox… eating peanut butter cups…
[GUIDO]: (pause) Really?
[NARRATION]: ...raising a glass to their dying town. Or toasting what’s left of it.
[JIM A]: (pause) How come I’m still here?
[GUIDO]: (singing along)...politics. The microphone smells like a beer… (stops singing) There you go. You know why you're still here? You should be home.
[JIM A]: (singing along) La da da, da dee dah.
[JIM A]: Billy Joel, a national gift.
[GUIDO]: You must go home and like giggle to yourself after you listen to all this bullshit. Is that what you do? (laughs) But it's a fun crowd. We're all good people. Donora’s ok. Like I said, I love it. And I ain’t leaving! (fade under laughing)
[NARRATION]: When I was a little kid, my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I told her I wanted to be a stranger. I’m not sure I knew what I meant. But I know I meant something. It wasn’t until years later that it would click.
I was 23 years old, and I wanted to be a writer. But I didn’t know what to write about. And I remember, I was standing by the river on the Southside of Pittsburgh. And there were these barges passing by, piled with huge mounds of coal. I’d seen them before – they were always there, sort of in the corner of your eye.
But for some reason that day, it suddenly dawned on me… There were people on those barges. Going back and forth, back and forth… And I wanted to know where they were going, what they were doing, what they were talking about… A few days later, I left my cat with my neighbor, packed a bag, went to the dock, and talked my way on board.
I rode the barge for two weeks – I bunked with the cook. I watched her make spaghetti… I learned her favorite recipes and her favorite curse words… and all about how she ended up there… how her marriage fell apart and what happened when her mom died… and how much she loved it there… and how she never wanted to leave…
[GUIDO]: (fade up under) It's really cool. It really is. I love it here.
[NARRATION]: It was all the things I could have never imagined standing on the bank of a river.
[GUIDO]: Like I said, I ain't leaving! (laughs) There ain’t nothing better in the world to me. It's really nice. I really do enjoy it. I really do. (laughs) That's all. It's all good though. (song ends) He says you’re coming to a boring, a boring evening. I don’t know about all that. (laughs)
(The Crown theme song and ambi)
[NARRATION]: Two weeks after we first set foot in Donora… I’m home on my couch watching Netflix. I’m on episode 4 of The Crown. Two men dressed in overcoats are sitting in a pub… talking under their breath about this… strange fog that’s descending over London.
[MAN 1]: (bar ambi) What I can tell you is we don’t get a weather warning like this every day. In fact, I’ve never heard of us getting one at all. Does the name Donora mean anything to you?
[NARRATION]: And I’m like: Donora?
[MAN 2]: Donora.
(car engine)
[NARRATION]: That can’t be Donora, Donora. Why are they talking about Donora?!
[MAN 3]: Oh, of course I remember Donora. It was a scandal! A small mill town in America outside Philadelphia?
[MAN 1]: Pittsburgh.
[MAN 3]: They had a smog brought on by a freak anticyclone, which trapped the emissions from the local… copper works?
[MAN 1]: Zinc.
[MAN 3]: Mm. In the fog. In a few days, a number of people died.
[MAN 1]: Twenty.
[MAN 3]: And several thousand became seriously ill from the poisonous fog.
[NARRATION]: Here’s the thing: this isn’t the first time I’ve heard about this smog disaster. I mean, you don’t walk into a town with a sign that says “Donora Smog Museum” and not get a little curious. But honestly, until two weeks ago, I’d never heard of any of this. I’d never even heard of this town and I live just 20 miles away. That’s weird enough. And now suddenly here it is… on Netflix. Donora, PA. On a show about the Queen of England. And I’m like: What the heck?
[BOBBITY]: Winston, people are angry. They see us as the culprits.
[CHURCHILL]: Culpable for what? It’s fog! Fog is fog! It comes… And it goes away!
[NARRATION]: I’m sitting here watching John Lithgoh do Winston Churchill. I love John Lithgoh.
[CHURCHILL]: It’s an act of God, Bobbity! It’s weather!
[NARRATION]: And this is the moment when it really hits me: What a big deal this all was. I mean, it has a name. “The Donora Smog Disaster…” I start Googling…
[WEATHER CHANNEL]: 1948. The post-war economic boom was hiding a sinister side. Donora, Pennsylvania was the center of it all.
[NARRATION]: I find old newsreels... and doctoral dissertations... and a whole docudrama on cable TV. This thing made headlines around the world. It was the worst air pollution disaster in U.S. history. A killer smog event. That apparently helped bring about the Clean Air Act. And it happened half an hour away from where I live.
[WEATHER CHANNEL]: See how four days of toxic smog changed our understanding of industry and the environment. “Weather that changed the World.” Sunday at 9. On the Weather Channel. History… weather permitting.
[MAN]: (in background) Turn around. (mic handling sounds)
[BRIAN]: (blown out mic) Hello! My name is Brian Charlton from the Donora Historical Society. We call ourselves the Smog Museum to attract a whole busload of people like you to come and see us.
[NARRATION]: When Erin and I head back to town, we head straight to the Donora Smog Museum. Because… it’s a “smog museum.” But we’re also wondering how this town fell so completely off the map. Because seriously I live right here. In the same county. I’ve lived here for 25 years. I mean really. How have I never heard about this?
[TOUR LEADER]: Let me — can I just have the microphone for a second? Hi. So um the Smog Museum is here right to our left. We’re gonna take our lunches, go um wander around for a few minutes, go into the auditorium, have a seat, have lunch. And um, enjoy the museum.
[DAVE]: You uh, you put in an auditorium since I was last here, Brian!
(ambi of people in museum)
[NARRATION]: When you step inside the Donora Smog Museum, you can see right away: there’s no auditorium. Just a few rows of plastic chairs and a pull-down screen. They’re tucked away in the back. In a little alcove with a jade-green Formica archway that seems weirdly out of place... like something you’d see at the entrance to Chinatown.
[MARK]: These are actually — originally this was a bank building, this was one of the original buildings when the town was started in 1901. And then it had — it was a woman's clothing store, it was a uh, drug store, it was a Chinese restaurant, and now it's a museum.
[MAN]: (laughs, pause)
[NARRATION]: This is Mark. He’s a volunteer. Everyone here’s a volunteer. They’re here every Saturday from 11 to 3, or by appointment. They’re historical society guys. They put this whole place together. It’s like a local history buff’s fever dream. And it’s kind of about smog. There are gas masks and oxygen tanks and blueprints of the mill. But there’s also a whole section on hometown sports heroes. Ken Griffey… Ken Griffey Jr… Some guy named Arnold “Pope” Galiffa. There’s a whole corner devoted to the legendary Stan Musial, bats and balls and gloves, magazine covers, a jar of “Stan the Man” Musial #6 original barbecue sauce.
[TOUR LEADER]: Um so what's our next thing we're going to do? We're gonna have a slideshow?
[MARK]: (interrupting) It’s up to you… Well, Bri — well, Brian will be your presenter. So whatever you're looking for him to do.
[BRIAN]: (cuts in) I’m just gonna charge, charge through this. This is actually like an hour presentation that I like to do in about ten minutes —
[TOUR LEADER]: (laughs)
[BRIAN]: (fade under) — uh, if that… (fade under)
[NARRATION]: That’s Brian, the town historian. He’s also a high school history teacher. That’s his day job. We’re here crashing a private tour he’s giving – for all these environmental journalists… who are in Pittsburgh for a conference. They’re on a bus tour of the region and they stopped through Donora to learn about the smog.
[BRIAN]: (people talking in background) Uh, this is the story of the Donora smog disaster. And there of course is our logo. We’re going to do this very, very quickly, so if someone wants to stop me, just say, hey, Brian, stop here please, ok? Uh, our primary resources — (shouting) uh, could I — people who are self-absorbed in their own conversations, please let us have a little bit of a presentation here. Thank you. Uh, primary resource tools are the key...
[NARRATION]: So the story of the Donora Smog Disaster —
[BRIAN]: ...they tell us the story...
[NARRATION]: — it all starts with this zinc plant. Built in 1915… It was the largest in the world at the time – it was a really big deal. Donora zinc was used to make battleships and skyscrapers and the cables that hold up the Golden Gate Bridge.
[BRIAN]: …the rod mill and the nail mill and the blooming mill…
[NARRATION]: This plant was part of a huge steel mill complex that stretched two miles, from one end of town to the other. Brian shows us pictures.
[BRIAN]: ...uh, this is what the Zinc Works would have looked like…
[NARRATION]: A row of smokestacks lined up like toothpicks… belching out these huge plumes of smoke. The barren hillside downwind across the river where nothing grew. Not even grass.
[BRIAN]: ...because of the fluoride and fluorine gasses and the sulfur trioxides coming out of the Zinc Works…
[NARRATION]: This Zinc Works was a really messy business. Way worse than just the steel mill alone. People who worked there only had four-hour shifts — that was considered full-time. Because, if you spent too long around the fumes...
[BRIAN]: ...you’d get lightheaded, you’d get dizzy, you’d get shortness of breath, you’d get a headache, you’d get nauseous.
[NARRATION]: You’d get something called the “zinc shakes.” It wasn’t pretty, even on a good day. That was just the way things were. People just lived with it.
[BRIAN]: ...in the shadow of the mill. And life was just like any other town...
[NARRATION]: But pretty soon chickens started dying. And cows. And cats. Then one day in late October 1948, the sky got dark. People had to drive with their headlights on at noon.
[BRIAN]: So there was the Halloween parade. I remember one lady telling me the story—she was just a little girl at the time...
[NARRATION]: Brian tells us about this little girl who dressed as an angel for the Halloween parade. She wore a bedsheet. Her mom told her not to get it dirty. But she couldn’t help it. The air was that thick.
[BRIAN]: ...and when she got home, her white sheet had turned completely yellow.
[NARRATION]: The next day, the Donora Dragons played a football game up at the high school on the hill. Where legend has it —
[BRIAN]: You couldn’t see anything!
[NARRATION]: — they couldn’t see the ball.
[BRIAN]: People talked about not being able to see literally someone standing right next to you. Uh, so what happened? October 28th there's a temperature or a weather inversion. We have the cold air that traps the warm air near the surface. So there's no draft, no uplift. (fade under) Anyway...
[NARRATION]: Brian starts explaining what caused all this. And it’s kinda hard to get your head around… but just imagine it. Donora sits in a valley. Like at the bottom of a bowl. And this weather event was like putting a lid on top, keeping all the smoke in. It stayed that way for days…
[BRIAN]: About 4,400 were made ill at that time...
[NARRATION]: Soon the volunteer firefighters were lugging oxygen tanks from house to house, trying to help people breathe. Some people just never recovered.
[BRIAN]: We had no hospital in Donora except for the mill hospital...
[NARRATION]: They set up a makeshift emergency ward in the Donora Hotel. They turned the basement into a morgue.
[BRIAN]: And uh this is uh Schwero’s funeral home. They didn’t have enough caskets to lay everybody out, so they were doing memorials, memorial flowers, um…
[NARRATION]: By the time the rain came and the smog lifted, at least 20 people had died. Over the weekend. And the death toll would keep climbing. Within weeks, it would be closer to 70.
[BRIAN]: So, one of the best quotes I think, of the whole thing is, uh, M.M. Neil, who was the superintendent of the Zinc Works, was quoted in the paper the following Monday as saying, “We do not feel our smoke and fumes are indeed harmful.” And of course, that's what the mill is going to argue, that the death smog is an act of God. It is, has nothing to do, um, with us. Um so I’m going to end it there because we could go, I could go on and on and I’m certain that somebody somewhere who, who’s got a stopwatch on me is panicking. Uh. Yes.
[MAN]: Two questions. One is: did US Steel own the Zinc Works? And the, and the second ques… — it looks like a yes. And the second question is, is there any reason to think or does anyone know that the elemental fluorine gas was a component of this smog mixture? Cause it would be severely toxic. Because it is. It’s the first cousin of chlorine.
[DR. STACEY]: Well first of all, this, this was American Steel and Wire which was a subsidiary of US Steel, so it was the same thing. But it wasn’t until later that they started to look into the fact that fluorine gasses might have been involved in this. It was first the Sulphur dioxide, Sulphur trioxide.
[MAN]: And it’s all bad.
[DR. STACEY]: All bad. That’s right. That’s why (clears throat) my bad throat. (small laugh)
[NARRATION]: This guy’s a smog survivor. Dr. Stacey. He was a kid at the time. He remembers the Halloween parade. The football game. All of it.
[DR. STACEY]: (post) Aren’t too many of us left anymore...
[NARRATION]: And as he grew up, he watched what happened as a result. It was big. There were public health investigations. This was back when Truman was President. He called the first national conference on air quality standards. Because of what happened in Donora. Air pollution was now suddenly a thing. And then of course came the Clean Air Act. Which was the game-changer… for all of us. For the first time… the federal government now had a say in what factories and mills and cars could pump into the air. Before that, it was like the wild, wild west. Anybody could do anything. It’s crazy if you think about it. We’re all connected to this little town. Like the air we breathe is better because of what happened in Donora.
[WOMAN]: Yeah, my question was um how long it took the company uh to formally acknowledge that it played a role in this and—
[DR. STACEY]: (laughs) That day hasn’t arrived yet.
[DAVE]: (inaudible) Zero. It's never happened. It's never happened.
(presentation ending)
[GUY]: Garbage…
[JML]: For me this whole… the notion that this is unresolved. Still to this day with US Steel… that… it’s just really mind-boggling.
[BRIAN]: Well, you know, United States Steel just, if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. (fade under) And they never really addressed it back in the day...
[NARRATION]: Erin and I hang around for a few minutes after the slideshow… to talk with Brian the historian. We wanna know more about what happened to this town after the smog. And what he tells us is pretty eye-opening.
Apparently, the Donora Zinc Works stayed open for almost 10 years after the disaster. When they finally shut it down, it wasn’t because of the smog, or all those people who died… it was because it wasn’t profitable anymore. The technology had become obsolete.
After the Zinc Works, they closed the blast furnaces, the rod mill, the acid plant. By 1966 it was pretty much all gone. The whole mill complex…
So basically, the company that built Donora, it filled the air with fumes that killed a bunch of people. Then it looked the other way. And left the town for dead.
[MARK]: Were you interested in one? Ok! There you go.
[NARRATION]: Mark’s in the back with his cashbox.
[MARK]: Thank you! (cash box opens, closes)
[NARRATION]: He’s selling smog souvenirs. Hats and mugs and DVDs. On our way out, we buy a t-shirt printed with their logo: a row of cartoon smokestacks… and a tagline – a kind of reminder that it ever happened at all: “Donora, Pennsylvania: Clean Air Started Here.”
[JML]: Thank you so much. Thank you for this! This is great.
[ERIN]: Yeah thank you again!
[BRIAN]: Thanks for coming!
[MARK]: That’s what we do, right?
[NARRATION]: Outside the Smog Museum, the journalists are climbing back onto the bus. Soon they’ll make the hour drive back to Pittsburgh, head to their conference hotel, and then back home to wherever they came from, wherever they live… And Erin and I will do the same. And for days afterward, I’ll just keep thinking about all of this. The dusty shoes and the boxed bras… the two guys at the bar… Mark with his cashbox. And I’ll keep thinking back to this conversation I overheard after the presentation between Dr. Stacey, the smog survivor, and this environmental journalist, where she asked him: Why did you stay in Donora? After everything that happened. You could have gone anywhere… So why did you stay?
And his answer was the same one you always get: My family’s here, my friends are here. It’s the answer you expect. And it’s not that I don’t believe it. It’s just that I don’t get it. I mean, why did your family stay? Why did your friends stay? Why did anyone? And I don’t mean this as a judgment. It’s a genuine question. I just want to understand.
[JML]: Look! (reading) “Cellar steps need stained… Stained cellar steps! Used Beaver—Busy Beaver Colonial Maple! Number 1-0-5-4. $1.65 a pint!” Good lord! I mean… This is like my favorite part.
[NARRATION]: We’re back at 113 Ida Avenue. Today’s inspection day. We’re doing it. I am determined to buy this house.
[JML]: And they replaced it with vanilla bean freeze…
[NARRATION]: I’m sitting in the dining room with my husband Alex and our realtor… We’re waiting on the inspector…
[ALEX]: 700 bucks….
[NARRATION]: …and flipping through this logbook that the current owners left behind.
[ALEX]: In ‘03.
[NARRATION]: This thing’s incredible – it dates back to the ‘70s.
[JML]: Copper… gutters need scraped… (fade under)
[NARRATION]: ...listing every leak…
[JML]: And then I love this.
[NARRATION]: …every hinge…
[JML]: Corrective action! (fade under) Scraped, painted…
[NARRATION]: ...every can of paint… where it was purchased… how much it cost down to the penny...
[JML]: Da da da. Nine total hours work!
[NARRATION]: ...every hour it took to dry…
[JML]: (laughs) We should do this for everything you do.
[ALEX]: Oh god! (fade under)
[NARRATION]: I’m very excited about this logbook…
[JML]: Oh yeah let’s see the last thing!
[NARRATION]: …about the whole thing.
[ALEX]: Chandelier replaced. Living room wall light–
[NARRATION]: My husband is less excited.
[ALEX]: (inhales)
[NARRATION]: He’s started doing his deep breathing.
[ALEX]: (exhales)
[NARRATION]: He can see where this is headed.
[ALEX]: (reading) “Seeing H2O on basement floor. Chimney crumbling.”
[NARRATION]: This isn’t the first time I’ve pulled Alex into one of my schemes. This is what I do. The coal mine. The garbage dump. I came home from that gun shop story with guns. Really big guns that he had to help me figure out how to get rid of.
[ALEX]: That is an old roof!
[NARRATION]: And he’s generally a good sport about it. But this is extreme, even for me…
[REALTOR]: I think a metal roof would look nice on these old houses.
[ALEX]: A metal roof?
[JML]: Mmhmm.
[ALEX]: It would be. Yeah. Or you know what else would look nice would be like just, um, covered with swans! (flipping pages) That would really look pretty.
[ERIN]: (laughs)
[JML]: The roof?
[ALEX]: Yeah, hon. Just–
[NARRATION]: So here’s the deal:
[JML]: Mmhmm.
[NARRATION]: Erin and I have gone all-in on Donora. We’ve decided to stick around for a while – maybe a year… at least that’s the plan… We wanna find out what it’s like to live here… how this town works… what’s gonna happen to it… And in order to do it right – like really do it right… We’re moving in. That’s where this house comes in. Assuming my husband doesn’t find an excuse to talk me out of it…
[INSPECTOR]: Uh, I’m gonna do the…
[NARRATION]: Because first we have to pass this inspection.
[INSPECTOR]: Well! Now I know—I didn’t know where we were really headed. Of why he didn’t schedule a pest report, uh, inspection. We have a concrete house.
[ALEX]: Yeah. Alright.
[INSPECTOR]: Yeah, I’m familiar with these. I’ve inspected these before.
[NARRATION]: So Erin and I looked around at a few houses – there are a lot of houses for sale in this town. But it was clear right away: This was the one.
[INSPECTOR]: Ok!
[NARRATION]: It’s Wedgewood blue with white shutters and a yellow porch swing.
[INSPECTOR]: …this is a concrete house. Now—
[NARRATION]: It’s not a big house but it’s not cute either.
[INSPECTOR]: It’s all concrete porch.
[NARRATION]: It’s cool-looking. It’s boxy with these huge overhanging eaves.
[INSPECTOR]: Back up to the chimney. Chimney is concrete.
[NARRATION]: It looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright would have built.
[INSPECTOR]: You’re framed inside the house. But, but...
[NARRATION]: Except for one thing.
[INSPECTOR]: There’s nothing there but solid concrete.
[NARRATION]: This entire house is solid concrete.
[ALEX]: But it looks like the um, that it’s all concrete.
[JML]: (fade under) Yeah. I know. Isn’t that wild?
[ALEX]: I mean even the soffit and facia is concrete.
[JML]: Which is so cool. Look at it.
[NARRATION]: It takes a while for it to really sink in…
[JML]: Now would you say this is original, this overhang?
[INSPECTOR]: Absolutely.
[JML]: Yeah…
[NARRATION]: It’s kinda hard to process.
[ALEX]: Is that wood or concrete?
[INSPECTOR]: No, that’s concrete. Everything’s concrete.
[JML]: Holy moly, seriously!
[NARRATION]: Seriously. It’s concrete… the floors, the ceilings, the roof, the porch… Some of these walls are 11 inches thick. This puppy was built to last.
[ALEX]: (Knocking on wall) Yep, see this is all, this wall is all… (knocks) concrete.
[NARRATION]: And there’s a whole story behind this house. It’s pretty fascinating.
[JML]: Well everything you need to know’s right there.
[NARRATION]: On the wall, next to the built-in bookcase, there’s a framed tear sheet from Architectural Record, 1917…
[ALEX]: Wow.
[NARRATION]: – that explains the whole thing.
[ALEX]: Read it?
[ERIN]: Mmhmm. Would you?
[NARRATION]: It’s an ad for cement.
[ALEX]: (reading) “Architects and Industrial Expansion” is the headline…
[NARRATION]: …showcasing 100 reinforced concrete houses. In Donora, Pennsylvania. In a neighborhood called Cement City.
[ALEX]: (reading) “Because tomorrow America will compete with a scientifically rebuilt Europe.”
[NARRATION]: This concrete house thing was part of a whole movement to make happier, more productive workers by giving them better places to live.
[ALEX]: (reading) “...reduced labor turnover, less sickness, contentment…”
[NARRATION]: And get this: The guy behind it all… was Thomas Edison.
[ALEX]: (reading) “No obligation is entailed. Atlas Portland Cement Company.”
[NARRATION]: It all started with a concrete factory he owned.
[ALEX]: Wow.
[NARRATION]: Which he built out of concrete…
[ALEX]: That’s saying something.
[ERIN]: (laughs)
[NARRATION]: This was Edison’s second act. After he was done inventing the lightbulb and the phonograph and the motion picture camera, he got big into concrete. And he had a lot of concrete to unload. He built one of the first concrete highways in 1912. He had designs for concrete bathtubs. Concrete couches and chairs that you could paint and put a shine on. He even designed a concrete piano.
Then came his masterpiece. The concrete house. He figured out how to pour a house: A system of interlocking molds that snapped together like an erector set. Then came the derricks and cranes that moved from plot to plot. And of course the concrete — 123 yards for every house. That’s like 12 mixer trucks full of concrete. Except of course back then they used mules to drag it all up the hill.
They poured the basement in a day. Then let it cure for three. Then they poured the first floor. And three days later the second. Twelve days total to pour a house.
There were eight models — all variations on a theme. And they were state of the art. The electrical box was factored into the pour. The phone board, the ductwork for forced air heating… These houses were wired for lighting. They even had indoor laundry hookups. There was a built-in pencil sharpener in every basement.
The Donora mill commissioned a whole neighborhood of these things. For company housing. They planted a sycamore tree in front of every one.
[ALEX]: Doesn’t matter if the water (inaudible)...
[INSPECTOR]: (interrupting) Water doesn’t matter. You’re not gonna have problems with water intrusion.
[JML]: (interrupting) That’s great!
[INSPECTOR]: There are lots of good things about a concrete house.
[NARRATION]: I’ve done home inspections before — and I actually kind of like them. But nothing compared to Alex.
[ALEX]: So this was all part of the original pour!
[NARRATION]: He’s into this. So is the inspector.
[INSPECTOR]: This is your main bearing wall…
[NARRATION]: They’re kind of geeking out, walking around and conjuring up all of the terrible things that could happen, but that probably won’t happen, because, hey, we’ve got a concrete house right here.
[INSPECTOR]: Uh, normally, with all that wood in there, we’d be advising you from a termite standpoint to get it out of there, but since I have a concrete house…
[ALEX]: Right. Right.
[INSPECTOR]: Well, normally I’d tell people don’t get up on that front roof, but that front roof is concrete. So it’s not, it’s not a big deal.
[ALEX]: Yeah.
[ALEX]: So, this is a pretty secure building from a fire point of view, wouldn’t you say?
[INSPECTOR]: Absolutely. Well fire, wind, tornado, hurricane, just about anything.
[NARRATION]: The whole time we’re going through all this, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The big crack in the foundation… or the sinkhole that’s about to swallow the whole thing up. But it seems like it really is that good.
[INSPECTOR]: Ok! We’ll go down and do a wrap-up… (footsteps on stairs)
[NARRATION]: As we’re walking down the steps for our wrap-up, I take note of the living room wall light purchased from Lowes on a Tuesday in 2013 and the carpeting from Stout’s in Charleroi, circa 2004 – Vanilla Bean Freeze… I love knowing these things. I love knowing how much someone loved this house. It’s easy to love. I think even Alex is getting there. At this point, I think we’re all just feeling happy.
[JML]: Now if 10 is the absolute best condition house you’ve ever seen in all your years of inspecting. And one is the dumpiest dump you’ve ever had to inspect. Where do you place this home?
[INSPECTOR]: Uh, I get that question a lot. Ok?
[JML]: Just like that?
[INSPECTOR]: Just like that. But I don’t answer it just like that.
[JML]: Ok.
[INSPECTOR]: The way I answer it is uh, I don’t have any structural concerns in the house. There isn’t anything we found that can’t be repaired.
[ERIN]: So for a house this age–
[INSPECTOR]: For a house this age, you’re way above the curve, just because of the construction. Best construction that was probably done.
[JML]: That’s so interesting. I wonder why they didn’t continue that cement construction?
[INSPECTOR]: Too expensive.
[JML]: Oh.
[INSPECTOR]: You’re pouring concrete. These concrete walls, you know, they go up 40 feet on the outside! So… A house built like this today, by the time you’re done, this would be a $700,000 house.
[NARRATION]: For the record, this isn’t a $700,000 house. It isn’t even a $70,000 house – not even close. Which, frankly, is why I can even consider doing this.
[JML]: Let’s go out on the porch… We’re gonna stand on the porch and…
[NARRATION]: It’s also why a lot of these houses are being bought up by absentee landlords for cheap rentals.
(screen door squeaks)
[JML]: Look! The children playing!
[NARRATION]: Looking around Cement City, you can see it… the peeling stucco, the crumbling eaves... One house on Walnut Street has a crop of weeds, two feet high, growing out of the concrete roof above the porch. Next to the doorbell, there’s a plaque: National Register of Historic Places.
[JML]: It’s just that we’re gonna really stick out…
[NARRATION]: There’s a plaque on my house too. Every time I walk in the door, I’ll look at it and I’ll think–what an optimistic vision this all was. Cement City was built to last. I guess that’s the point of concrete. At least that was the idea behind these houses, this whole town… it was a dream built to last.
[JML]: Look at the, look at the sycamores!
[ALEX]: Mmhmm.
[JML]: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight of them left. I just, I don't know why.
[ERIN]: So there was one in front of every house?
[ALEX]: Every house, yeah.
[ERIN]: Why sycamore?
[JML]: Because they last forever…
[NARRATION]: Donora’s the kind of town you pass by on the highway on your way to someplace else… You’ve never heard of it. You have no reason to go there. These towns are everywhere. All over the country. They’re just exit signs. It’s like they don’t even exist… except for that second, while you’re passing them, and then they’re gone. But what if, one day… you took the exit and went in…And what if you stayed for a while? That’s what we’re gonna find out.
[NARRATION]: This Season on Cement City: The story of one American town.
[JML]: You were just saying you think Donora is coming back.
[NARRATION]: Donora, PA will not go down without a fight.
[CINDY]: Tick tick tick goes the clock. Nineteen days and there’s an election. Tick tick tick goes the clock.
[JIM McD]: I need to do this. And they expect someone like me to do this. So I should do this. I mean, Theodore Roosevelt. “The Man in the Arena.” That’s what it is. That’s where we’re at.
[YANCEY]: That's what you gotta do. When you want to do great things for your town and community, you gotta be here from dawn to dust. I'm ready.
[JML]: We have our hero. Oh my god he’s amazing. He has no idea how good he is.
[DONNIE]: To me this is gonna be one of the most important primaries ever! I mean it’s just mind-boggling the–
[ED]: Eh, things look good this time. After everything that happened with a certain rival.
[JML]: Well, that’s sort of also the elephant in the room. I mean, he is indicted. I mean–
[BUTCHIE]: I don’t under… You know, great societies crumble from within.
[PERSON]: I know.
[BUTCHIE]: And that's all I could think of, like...
[JML]: It seems like there's like…
[CHANTAL]: It’s the corruption. It's absolute corruption. There is honestly no hope for Donora now.
[JML]: You don’t think?
[BUD COOK]: You gotta come up with a vision, guys. What do we want Donora to be?
[NICOLE]: You know what I mean, put a gas station in. Give us a grocery store… I mean–
[CINDY]: It’s jobs. It’s traffic. It’s taxes. Just come!
[SIMMI]: When they make a decision, should it locate in Donora, this would be a boomtown! I mean just–
[NIVEA]: Maybe this is just me, but maybe this topic is irrelevant. (laughs)
[KIDS]: (laugh)
[KITTY]: He likes me and so does that other boy, but um–
[JML]: Oh! Kay!
[MC]: Well, God has a reason for everything. I believe that wholeheartedly. And these kids are all I got.
[MRS. MAURO]: We love this town.
[JML]: (in the background) I know! That’s what we’re finding.
[MRS. MAURO]: We want it, we want it to grow. We want it to get better. It's home. It's—and we're proud of it. And we just keep hoping.
[JACOB]: Ok who’s gonna be it?
[NIVEA]: (fade under) (cup drops) Stop!
(music ends)
(music cue: “The Story” by Donora)
[NARRATION]: Cement City was written and produced by Erin Anderson and me, Jeanne Marie Laskas. For Audacy with Cement City Productions. Our story editor is Michael Benoist.
Sound design and engineering for Cement City is by Mike Wooley. Production Assistance by Kira Witkin. Research and fact-checking by Tim Maddox.
Additional production for the series by Caitlin Roberts and Sindhu Gnanasambandan. Music consultancy by Annie Brown. Additional research and production support by Susan Scott Peterson, Tyler McCloskey, Julianne Sato Parker, and Rachel Wilkinson. Legal services by Lawyers for Reporters.
Original music for the series by Danny Bracken, Low Lumens, and Tyler Morrissette. Additional music courtesy of APM. Our credits music is by Donora.
Cement City is an Audacy Original Podcast from Executive Producers Jenna Weiss-Berman, Leah Reece-Dennis and Maddy Sprung-Keyser.
The series was developed with support from the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Special thanks to Brian Charlton and Mark Pawelec from the Donora Historical Society for their help on this episode – and to the Society of Environmental Journalists for letting us crash their bus tour and for asking such good questions.
Thanks also to photographer Danna Singer for the beautiful photographs we used in our show art. You can check out more of Danna’s photos and learn more about our series on our website at cementcity.org. Or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and X @CementCityProductions.