You stand outside the foundry and the heat comes through the walls. The heat through the walls is the furnace inside and the furnace inside is two thousand degrees and the two thousand degrees is the temperature at which iron becomes liquid and the liquid iron is the beginning of everything made of metal. The foundry is the building where you bring rock and leave with tools. The foundry is the building where ore becomes steel and steel becomes the beam and the beam becomes the bridge and the bridge becomes the way across the river. Every metal thing you have ever touched began in a foundry. The fork. The car door. The fire escape. The manhole cover under your feet.

The Bethlehem Steel foundry in Bethlehem Pennsylvania poured the structural beams for the George Washington Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge and the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center and the pouring for all of them means the foundry built the skyline of the twentieth century. Bethlehem Steel employed thirty thousand people at its peak and the thirty thousand people working in the heat was the economy of the Lehigh Valley and the economy of the Lehigh Valley was iron. The blast furnaces ran twenty four hours a day because you cannot turn off a blast furnace. You cannot let the iron cool. The iron must stay liquid. The foundry never sleeps because the metal never sleeps and the metal never sleeping is the foundry's law. Bethlehem Steel closed in nineteen ninety five and the closing in nineteen ninety five left the blast furnaces standing empty and the standing empty is the afterlife and the afterlife is a casino built inside the old ore crane bays.

In Sinclair's Detroit the foundries cast the engine blocks for every car on the road and the casting the engine blocks was the muscle of the Motor City. The Ford Rouge foundry was the largest in the world and the largest in the world meant molten iron flowed in rivers inside a building and the rivers of molten iron inside a building was the scene that Diego Rivera painted on the walls of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Rivera stood on scaffolding above the foundry floor and watched the men pour the iron and the watching the men pour the iron became the Detroit Industry Murals and the Detroit Industry Murals are the most important piece of public art in America because the most important piece of public art shows work. The foundry worker wore no protection. The foundry worker breathed the fumes. The foundry worker went deaf from the noise. The foundry worker's hands were burned and the burned hands poured the iron that became the engine that became the car that the foreman drove home.

The bell foundries of Whitechapel in London cast Big Ben in eighteen fifty eight and the casting Big Ben meant pouring thirteen tons of molten bronze into a mold and the pouring thirteen tons into a mold is the gamble because if the pour fails you start over with thirteen tons of ruined metal. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the Liberty Bell in seventeen fifty two and the Liberty Bell cracked and the cracking is the most famous failure in American history and the most famous failure is still a bell. The foundry casts and sometimes the casting cracks and sometimes the cracking becomes the symbol. The foundry at Whitechapel closed in twenty seventeen after five hundred and seven years of continuous operation and the five hundred and seven years of continuous operation ending is the foundry leaving the city and the foundry leaving the city is the heat leaving the walls.

You drive past the foundry at night and the glow comes through the windows and the glow through the windows is orange and the orange glow is the molten metal and the molten metal is the light of transformation. The foundry glows at night because the furnace runs at night and the furnace running at night means someone is standing in front of two thousand degrees at two in the morning and the standing in front of two thousand degrees at two in the morning is the work and the work makes everything. The foundry. The building that melts the earth. The building that pours the future. The glow through the walls. The heat that makes the world solid.