Comments on: The Great Wall embraces Wall Street http://www.marcgunther.com/2009/09/23/the-great-wall-embraces-wall-street/ This blog is about the impact of business on society. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:14:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: mara http://www.marcgunther.com/2009/09/23/the-great-wall-embraces-wall-street/comment-page-1/#comment-1027019 mara Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:47:04 +0000 http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=2064#comment-1027019 Don't know why but your name popped into my head on a walk along the Potomac River today. Thought I'd look you up...God you may not even remember me!!! Or it may not even be you!!! :) At any rate, if you're the same Darren Toth who opened my mind with the likes of The Residents and They Might Be Giants circa 1992....hit me up!! If not, LOVED the article...I always liked Bigelow Blvd...:) Don’t know why but your name popped into my head on a walk along the Potomac River today. Thought I’d look you up…God you may not even remember me!!! Or it may not even be you!!! :) At any rate, if you’re the same Darren Toth who opened my mind with the likes of The Residents and They Might Be Giants circa 1992….hit me up!! If not, LOVED the article…I always liked Bigelow Blvd…:)

]]> By: Darren Toth http://www.marcgunther.com/2009/09/23/the-great-wall-embraces-wall-street/comment-page-1/#comment-283661 Darren Toth Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:10:15 +0000 http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=2064#comment-283661 I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and I went to the University of Pittsburgh, where I minored in History, my specific attention was on the history of local Vaudeville... (don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this) In my studies, I spent a lot of time in archives, reading old newspapers, and this man, Edward Manning Bigelow, kept popping up on the front pages of newspapers. Bigelow, a slight, reportedly under-spoken man, served as the Director of Public Works in Pittsburgh from 1888 to 1900, and is now mostly known to current Pittsburghers as a guy they named a Boulevard after, and a statue in the park. However, Bigelow had an understanding that we sorely need to recognize. Bigelow knew that no matter the strength of the resources a particular area, if the area becomes polluted to the point that no one wants to do business in it, those local resources are useless, or at least diminish in value. Bigelow pushed major landholders like Mary Schenley to donate swaths of land for parks, parks that still exist to this day. Nice ones too. He took advantage of George Westinghouse's "half day Saturdays", and encouraged locals to take the trains out to the cleaner suburbs, like Kenny Wood and West View Park. The point of my history lesson is that Bigelow pushed business to understand that their environmental effects could damage commerce, aside from any ethical standpoint or concept of social responsibility. If your workers are unhealthy, you ultimately lose production; if the place where you manufacture is filthy, workers will move on, especially the skilled and educated ones, and new business will dry up. Bigelow died in 1916, Pittsburgh still cloaked in soot, but Pittsburgh went on to become one of America's greenest and most livable cities. We need to remember that for all the government regulations we put on businesses and corporations, THEY need to understand their impact, they need to not take for granted that at the very bottom of their success is a population that is relatively healthy and prosperous enough to buy what the Economy is selling. Basically, you don't s**t where you eat. In a global economy, we really need to think about what that last colorful cliche means on a broad scale. I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and I went to the University of Pittsburgh, where I minored in History, my specific attention was on the history of local Vaudeville… (don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this)
In my studies, I spent a lot of time in archives, reading old newspapers, and this man, Edward Manning Bigelow, kept popping up on the front pages of newspapers. Bigelow, a slight, reportedly under-spoken man, served as the Director of Public Works in Pittsburgh from 1888 to 1900, and is now mostly known to current Pittsburghers as a guy they named a Boulevard after, and a statue in the park. However, Bigelow had an understanding that we sorely need to recognize. Bigelow knew that no matter the strength of the resources a particular area, if the area becomes polluted to the point that no one wants to do business in it, those local resources are useless, or at least diminish in value.

Bigelow pushed major landholders like Mary Schenley to donate swaths of land for parks, parks that still exist to this day. Nice ones too. He took advantage of George Westinghouse’s “half day Saturdays”, and encouraged locals to take the trains out to the cleaner suburbs, like Kenny Wood and West View Park.

The point of my history lesson is that Bigelow pushed business to understand that their environmental effects could damage commerce, aside from any ethical standpoint or concept of social responsibility. If your workers are unhealthy, you ultimately lose production; if the place where you manufacture is filthy, workers will move on, especially the skilled and educated ones, and new business will dry up.
Bigelow died in 1916, Pittsburgh still cloaked in soot, but Pittsburgh went on to become one of America’s greenest and most livable cities. We need to remember that for all the government regulations we put on businesses and corporations, THEY need to understand their impact, they need to not take for granted that at the very bottom of their success is a population that is relatively healthy and prosperous enough to buy what the Economy is selling. Basically, you don’t s**t where you eat. In a global economy, we really need to think about what that last colorful cliche means on a broad scale.

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