Thursday, January 22, 2015
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A developer has knocked over the iconic Westinghouse atom smasher east of Pittsburgh, but says he plans to preserve the structure no matter what happens to the property it was on.
Gary Silversmith, of Washington, D.C. says the brick building on the same site was in too much disrepair to save. But he plans to save and repaint the five-story, lightbulb-shaped atom smasher even if he winds up building apartments or rental storage units on the tract in Forest Hills.
Westinghouse built the atom smasher in 1937 as the nation’s first industrial nuclear generator.
Silversmith’s investment company bought the property from Westinghouse parent, CBS Corp., in 2013.
The Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh named the atom smasher one of its top 10 projects that year.