Cloud Factory
Encyclopedia
Heat-only boiler station
A heat-only boiler station generates thermal energy in the form of hot water for use in district heating applications. Unlike combined heat and power installations which produce thermal energy as a by-product of electricity generation, heat-only boiler stations are dedicated to generating heat.The...
which billows steam from below its single smoke stack in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a 1988 novel by American author Michael Chabon. The story is a coming-of-age tale set during the early 1980s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
, the 1988 debut novel
Debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...
by the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon born May 24, 1963) is an American author and "one of the most celebrated writers of his generation", according to The Virginia Quarterly Review....
. Bellefield Boiler Plant, the actual name of the facility, is located in Junction Hollow
Junction Hollow
Junction Hollow is a small wooded valley bordering the west flanks of Schenley Park and the campus of Carnegie Mellon University and the southern edge of the University of Pittsburgh's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
(affectionately known as "The Lost Neighborhood" also in Chabon's book) behind Carnegie Mellon University in the Oakland
Oakland (Pittsburgh)
Oakland is the academic, cultural, and healthcare center of Pittsburgh and is Pennsylvania's third largest "Downtown". Only Center City Philadelphia and Downtown Pittsburgh can claim more economic and social activity than Oakland...
district of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
.
Built in 1907 to provide steam heat for Carnegie Museum, it was designed in the Romanesque Revival style by the architectural firm Longfellow, Alden & Harlow
Longfellow, Alden & Harlow
Longfellow, Alden & Harlow , of Boston, Massachusetts, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was the architectural firm of Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Jr. , Frank Ellis Alden , and Alfred Branch Harlow . The firm, successors to H. H...
. One of the smoke stacks measures 150 feet and the other more than 200 feet. The plant has burned both coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
and natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
but stopped burning coal on July 1, 2009. Its steam system expanded in the 1930s to service the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
's Cathedral of Learning
Cathedral of Learning
The Cathedral of Learning, a Pittsburgh landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh's main campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States...
. Today it pumps heat to most of the major buildings in Oakland. It is owned by a consortium made up of the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is an $9 billion integrated global nonprofit health enterprise that has 54,000 employees, 20 hospitals, 4,200 licensed beds, 400 outpatient sites and doctors’ offices, a 1.5 million-member health insurance division, as well as commercial and...
, Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
, the Carnegie Museum, the City of Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Public Schools
Pittsburgh Public Schools
Pittsburgh Public Schools is the public school district in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and adjacent Mount Oliver.The combined land area of these municipalities is with a population of 342,503 according to the 2000 census. In August 2005, the superintendent became Mark Roosevelt. His tenure ends...
.
According to reporting by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the "PG," is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.-Early history:...
, however, the 2007 film of the novel does not use the actual Bellefield Boiler Plant, but at what remains of the Carrie Furnace
Carrie Furnace
Carrie Furnace is a derelict former blast furnace located along the Monongahela River in the Pittsburgh area industrial town of Rankin, Pennsylvania. It had formed a part of the Homestead Steel Works. The Carrie Furnaces were built in 1884 and they operated until 1982. During its peak, the site...
, a storied blast furnace that was part of US Steel's Homestead Works, a few miles south in Rankin, Pennsylvania
Rankin, Pennsylvania
Rankin is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, south of Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River. Early in the 20th century, Rankin specialized in manufacturing steel and wire goods...
. As of 2010, one of the two stacks has been removed.
Source of the phrase
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
. It appears in Thoreau's essay Ktaadn and the Maine Woods, which was first published in five serialized installments in Sartain's
John Sartain
John Sartain was an artist who pioneered mezzotint engraving in the United States.-Biography:John Sartain was born in London, England on October 24, 1808. He learned line engraving, and produced several of the plates in William Young Ottley's Early Florentine School . In 1828, he began to do...
Union Magazine in 1848. The piece describes a transcendental
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian...
, "mountain-top" experience Thoreau had in the summer of 1846 while hiking Mount Katahdin
Mount Katahdin
Mount Katahdin is the highest mountain in Maine at . Named Katahdin by the Penobscot Indians, the term means "The Greatest Mountain". Katahdin is the centerpiece of Baxter State Park: a steep, tall mountain formed from underground magma. The flora and fauna on the mountain are typical of those...
in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
:
Sometimes it seemed as if the summit would be cleared in a few moments, and smile in sunshine; but what was gained on one side was lost on another. It was like sitting in a chimney and waiting for the smoke to blow away. It was, in fact, a cloud factory—these were the cloud-works, and the wind turned them off done from the cool, bare rocks.