Historic Westinghouse Atom Smasher to be disassembled and moved

Westinghouse is disassembling and moving its historic atom smasher after nearly 90 years in Forest Hills, where it was part of a facility whose research laid the foundation for what would eventually be nuclear power. 

The atom smasher will be put back together at Westinghouse's nuclear headquarters in Cranberry Township, according to Gary Silversmith, who owns the Forest Hills property where the atom smasher opened in 1937.

For the past decade, the pear-shaped atom smasher has lain on its side on an otherwise vacant property, as the remaining building was torn down in 2015.

"It is kind of an eyesore right now," neighbor Alexis Winegarner said. "It's dilapidated, graffiti's everywhere. It would be nice to see it cleaned up."

Walt Chambers has spent the past year owning Tugboats, the bar across the street from the atom smasher. He said he's walked through the site and admired it.

"It's history right in front of us," Chambers said. "It's a historic monument, and to see it get dismantled and go is pretty, pretty disheartening."

The smasher was the world's first industrial Van de Graaff generator.

"I'm glad that someone is preserving it," Patricia DeMarco, the mayor of Forest Hills, said. "I wish it were being done here. It's an appropriate location for it to be."

There have been a variety of proposals to keep the atom smasher on the site over the years as part of a larger development, but none came to fruition, DeMarco said. 

"Everybody says, 'Oh yes, we'll stand it back up and paint it. It'll be fine.' But the logistics of dealing with it have been considerably challenging," DeMarco said. 

The borough itself has tried to save the atom smasher with plans drawn up to move it down the street next to the borough building. But, as DeMarco explained, leaders realized it would be too expensive, with costs at the time reaching around $250,000.

"I tried getting Westinghouse to give us funding to move it into a location when we were doing the borough building, but they weren't interested in doing it at that time," DeMarco said. 

DeMarco knows more than the average person about the important work that took place on the site. She's had a 50-year career in energy and environmental policy and is currently a professor. She explained research at the site led to the development of x-ray and radar.

"It's an important part of history because of significant physics advances [that] were made at that facility," DeMarco said. "Studying basic elementary behavior of particles was pretty obscure. This facility really enlightened the physics of that operation considerably." 

DeMarco said she understands that the property is now for sale. KDKA-TV reached out to Westinghouse to ask if, in its new location, the atom smasher could be publicly viewed, but did not hear back on Wednesday.