The new foundry on Cherry Avenue
Source: Centrifugal Casting Company Archives
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While digging through one of Art Falk’s film boxes, Dad and I found a movie labeled “Building the Foundry, 1948.” There’s really not much to it – mostly spliced scenes of unsmiling men in hardhats gathered along a street in the center of Long Beach and watching a crane unload iron trusses and I-beams under hazy skies. Signal Hill, covered by a forest of high-rise oil derricks, looms in the background. Just before the silent movie reaches its end, the film suddenly jumps months ahead and the same men are now grinning as they admire the gleaming new metal building. On the spine of the corrugated roof is a simple blade sign that reads, in all caps, CENTRIFUGAL CASTING CO.