By Jerome Glasnovic

If you have a house with a basement and it was built before the 1980s, if you look up in your basement you may see a steel I-Beam supporting your house which is stamped with the word “Bethlehem.” Bethlehem Steel was once the largest steel factory in the world with a plant 13 miles long employing 35,000 people in Lackawanna, NY (a suburb of Buffalo) including my grandfather and two uncles.

Likewise, if you look up at the Moon there remains a part of the many vehicles that made the final leg of the Apollo journey and landed men on Moon. The Lunar Excursion Module, known as the LEM, was built in
Bethpage, NY (in the middle of Long Island) by Grumman Aerospace Corporation. Grumman landed a multibillion dollar contract to build the LEM and had 70 people dedicated to doing that.

New Yorkers’ actually landed men on the Moon! New York was once a manned mission “space state” thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of the women and men of Bethpage, NY!