Levi’s Opens Jeans Factory in Braddock, PA?

Damn I must never get off campus or something. Never knew Pittsburgh had areas that looked that crazy.

For the record, the owners of Club 804 are great. They held a fundraising event for us.

Well done Team BoringPGH. I think you recognize the problems here. $1mil for a farm and to help a church is nice, but Braddock and several other mon valley communities need infrastructure development and jobs the most.

Comment from facebook I want to comment on:

“I feel bad for sounding negative–anything is better than nothing at all, and out of the whole country they discovered Braddock and it may mean other opportunities for Braddock as well. The black and white photos are really awesome, and at least they didn’t use blight as the background, but focused on the people.”

America already knows about Braddock. There’s no real call to action. Right now there’s an unfunded $29mil development plan for the hospital by the county- that has to get funded. I don’t give a shit who takes credit for it, but it has to get funded.

Our opinion is it has to include emergency care because we believe the poor deserve medical care, John doesn’t give a shit about that. He can at least pretend.

This made me sort of uneasy, having visited and reported on the people in Braddock who are the planters, builders, artists, “pioneers”, etc that Levi’s is using to sell jeans: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4938/
But who I am I to judge, having been born in Eastern PA?
I agree, where is the new Made in USA Levi’s factory?! But the Mayor and some of the people of Braddock obviously saw this as a potentially good thing – the PR, letting the public know about what is happening there – past and future. I sincerely hope the company, at the very least, made a sizable donation that helped make some progress visible.

Very nicely presented. What a sad place. These are the times I wish I had the resources to do my part in helping revitalize that town. What ever happened to the highway they’re supposed to build through Braddock?

Thanks for posting this. I get annoyed at how every July–Levis feels the need to launch yet another rash of pro-Americana advertising, but they are a mere shell of the American company they once were, if that. Great job with this!

I dont think Levi’s ever claimed to be making there jeans in Braddock. I am not a fan of Corporations exploiting cheap labor in struggling countries. …but in this case I think you should be careful with the criticisms. It seems to me like the members of this community are trying to revitalize their neighborhood through hard work and reinvention. I think if a corporation can use its power to profile something inspiring like an uphill battle for the greater good of a struggling community rather than another ad with an anorexic model being portrayed as a sex symbol; shouldnt we embrace that change?

levis is effing kidding me with that token donation..how bout factory in braddock with jobs for americans…/?bullshit ad very misleading

I grew up in the years of braddock at its greatest, I was there this year sept 2010 and was very sad as to its outcome. I saw the ad on TV and thought “Yes” there is the possibility of ” life in the community”. Our countries manufacturers have moved jobs from sooooo many sectors of our lives into other countries for cheaper labor and who is to blame??? We all are for wanting cheap not quality. It is my opinion that no one and I mean no one has reinvested time or money back into any community. This is a national problem and the only way to combat it is to not buy their products. Look at Hershey Pa. the willy wonka factory is now in mexico…. I no longer buy Hershey products… look around see if the product is made in the USA if it is not ……do without it. Levi I am embarrased at you for not putting a factory where your mouth is.

As a Pittsburgher who grew up in a town like Braddock I loved the aesthetic presentation of a landscape I know and love. Watching these ads makes me happy to be one of the folks who hasn’t left. Cheers to the mayor and others who made this happen. I think it’s crazy to hope for a large company to open a factory any where for good PR. Unless we find a way to make it profitable for them, corporations aren’t going to just swoop in and save us.

As a fan of and fellow urban renewalist I give the folks of Braddock props for their efforts. Two years ago I took on the project of purchasing, renovating, and reinventing a property which most considered the biggest eyesore in my small town. Though, not quite the scale of Braddock I faced a lot of the same issues, lack of jobs, limited retail, and few opportunities – I can now say anything is possible with vision and hard work.

Regardless of whether Levis produces jeans in Braddock, their corporate sponsorship makes a difference in achieving goals the residents have set for reinventing their community. It was an incredibly smart idea to seek corporate sponsors for their project and I hope more companies and charitable organizations will continue to do the same.

What I see is needed most is skilled laborers to rebuild the new Braddock community. With the down turn in new construction, many small time carpenters are out of work – some sort of “work for housing program” might just be what this town needs to get things rolling (of course funding to bank roll it too, but with a new work force, money will come).

I look forward to seeing what progresses in the future for this community, best of luck to the mayor and his citizens!

This is coming from a girl that grew up in her grandmother’s house in N Versailles… just down the road from Braddock. It really is difficult for me to see the area get more and more run down every time I come home, truly. Less businesses, people moving away. I agree partially with the comments that were made by Roger P because, after all, progress is really implicated by change. I look at my family for instance, who owned a bar on Lincoln Hwy. My father, nor my aunt or uncle chose to take on the family business and with my grandparents so went the bar business. And even myself, I don’t even live in the US anymore and I actually live in a country where most people are in a worse econmic situation than Braddock. Why? Because I can take my what I have learned (opportunities granted to me by the hard work of my immigrant great-grandparents) create businesses and give jobs and volunteer my time at the same time and I’m able to do that by low-governmental annoyance and no income tax. The place where I live 15 years ago had NOTHING (not an impoverished community, more like 100 people without jobs living there in wooden shacks) and by more and more farmers and farming-associated business moving in has created a need for grocery stores, clothing stores, and skilled workers. We have been able to reinvest money into the schools (something that corrupt government has completely neglected to do) and have complete classrooms with access to the internet as well. What I believe that these type of communities need to do is lower business taxes and make a favorable climate for business where the advantages for doing business there trump any other place. Government is not the answer, just as people have stated that aside from the mayor (from what I have read seems truly interested and invested in the community), but the board has neglected to do anything to help the community. Probably because the only thing he has to worry about is getting elected, but during his tenure he can kick back and make his paycheck and just blame the problems on change and not ever have to worry about a “performance evaluation”.

I would love one day to come back and work here and live here because, no matter where we come from will always be home to us, but really, come on government, let us work leave us alone, quit putting the mangifying glass over all businesses and let them create jobs and give people the dignity it is to have a job and being good at what you do.

I was born in Pittsburgh in the 60′s. I have many good memories even though I no longer live there. I’m glad Levi’s is donating the money, but don’t know if I can buy jeans made in another country. To me charity starts at home. I will always have “Pittsburgh Pride” no matter where I call home.

Oi, não sei se vocês irão entender o que escrevi mas gostaria muito de dar parabéns ao povo de Braddock, pois um prefeito como esse é muito difícil de encontrar, ser cidadão não é para todos!

i am one of those people who can remember the old braddock. one of those pictures is my old jr. high school. my family was in the area from the early 20th century. it feels strange saying that because i liked the time period myself. this is not about levi jeans. i figure the town needs the money and the mayor, call him what you want, is at least doing something. old stories about how great the town once was do nothing for it now. when i ride through and see it, i almost want to cry.

but this is about an idea. feel free to put it down. i say that because i can see we have many intelligent people involved on this blog whose ideas are far superior to mine.

i wouldn’t know how to get this started but the idea is this. braddock is a very historic place. the high school i attended stood on the very place of one of the largest battles in n. america. how can braddock, like gettysburg, or fort neccesity, or a number of other less important places become a national battlefield or something similar. underneath that cement can still be found treasures. a business could be built around tourism. there are still some stable structures that could be maintained to show the architecture of the late 19th and early 20 centuries, and later. the very first carnegie library.
now the hard part. many buildings will have to be torn down and the sites cleaned up. somebody mentioned that would cost. many people may have to be moved out. oh i know that comment has people jumping. everyone is screaming bigot, but who says that part of this new community cant be affordable housing. you have the chance to draw up a whole new town anyway you want it to look. perhaps nobody needs to leave. however you don’t want to be the southside whose draw is the bars which brings along with it the drugs. the braddock i grew up in had hundreds of those and it in many cases nurtured a culture of crime, violence, etc. you have riverfront you could work with. who said it had to look like the old braddock. i agree with many of the others. that was a special time and place and people, but it’s gone. it’s just a memory. however, you may be able to use that memory to make money and a new future. remember what pittsburgh once looked like,then look at it now. you go head mayor john.

as for the rest of the intelligencia. pardon me for offending your highness and for being an old fart. that last sentence was for those who know who i am talking about.

Now LEVI’s are doing campaigns in Berlin, although the ads aren’t as misleading as the Braddock campaign was. In agreement with the writers here, the Braddock ad made it look like LEVI’s was bringing jobs to the area or something along those subconscious lines. The Berlin ads are more artistic and trying to connect with people through the creativity in the videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLLvRjyflPw

Interesting that a jeans company like LEVI’s cannot continue simply selling jeans in their advertisement campaigns, they have to mask it behind a short film about completely irrelevant topics.

Great photos, but the premise of this article seems disingenuous. I never thought Levi’s was opening a factory in Braddock; their ads never said it, and I don’t think they ever had plans to. If you want to knock them for having their stuff made abroad, have at it, but pretending they chose Mexico over Braddock is based in nothing. You seem to go even further by suggesting that they’re allowing Braddock to continue to suffer by making this fake “choice.” And now on Facebook you’re being snarky about the benefit concert they’re throwing, that will raise tons of awareness, along with some money, for the city. So Levi’s used people from Braddock as models, and the town as a backdrop–how much more do they owe Braddock, and why?

I’ve posted two Websites so you can know where I’ve been and where I’m going. My wife, who is a ceramic artist, and I have pared down our lifestyle so that we can live on our retirement income alone. We have done this in order to concentrate our efforts toward the development of our company, Insulastics, Inc.

I moved away from Pittsburgh in 1961 and did not look back for forty-five years. I had an entertaining and creative career in California for forty of those years, and the balance was spent in an equally creative and idyllic early retirement in England. But then it came time to develop an idea I’d had many years ago, and Pittsburgh returned to my life once more. I did not return to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh returned to me when I needed it. Some time ago in this chain of comments, an individual using the name, KNOW YOUR ENEMIES, wrote “. . . Braddock is doing THEM a favor.” That absolutely nails our situation. We hope to be able to bring jobs to Braddock, but to be honest with my own selfishness, Braddock gives us more in the form of a pool of tenacious, hard working, survivors who will form the core of a 99% company that will lead the way into this Century and provide a model that the rest of America can learn from. You cannot be afraid of work and still live in Braddock. This community (like old age) ain’t for sissies.

Our first step was to buy a home in Braddock, and we love it here. As a rule, I usually avoid generalizations, but Pittsburghers are among the friendliest and most helpful to be found anywhere. If there is a flaw to be found, it is that they don’t see how special they, and their city, are. The ethnic diversity of this great river city is evident in the varied neighborhoods spread over the hills of Steel(er) Town, and we can lead the nation out of the Industrial Age. The American people are taking their destiny back. Jan and I are gambling that Historic Braddock is about to begin a whole new chapter in that history. Once again, Braddock will be at the very core of a new era – a time when people take control of their own fate in order to live free and secure.

Hang in there, Braddock.

http://www.mcallisterpaintings.com
http://www.insulastics.com