STOP BP from Tearing Down The Marktown Historic District
STOP BP from Tearing Down The Marktown Historic District
The Issue
Marktown is a monumental place in the Calumet region. It is a unique industrial workers village on the southern shores of Lake Michigan in East Chicago, Indiana. It was designed by Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw in 1917 for the industrialist Clayton Mark of Mark Manufacturing, later to become Youngstown Steel.
Like the Pullman district in Chicago, Marktown is on the National register of historic places. BP has expressed their interest in tearing down Marktown. Despite the fact that BP is surrounding by empty industrial brownfields. BP recently completed a $5.2 billion expansion of its Whiting refinery, the largest private sector investment in Indiana's history. The completion of the project allows BP's largest refinery in the world to process growing supplies of North American crude oil, including heavy grades from Canada, making the BP Whiting refinery the largest Tar Sands refinery in the country. The BP Whiting facility boasts of having the largest distillation tower in the world capable of 410,000 bpd, and the second largest coking unit in the world capable of handling 102,000 bpd directly across the street from Marktown.
As of February 12th, 2014, BP has purchased 22 properties, about 10% of Marktown. Today residents began to receive notices from BP that demolition is to begin in the next month. In 2008, one of the poorest minority communities in the State of Indaina awarded BP, one of the wealthiest industries in human history, $164 Million tax incentive, now BP has chosen to use that incentive to buyout and tear-down East Chicago's historic district. We can not continue to sacrifice more and more of our environment and cultural treasure to the late stages of the fossil fuel age.
We don't think there is any greater example of the real existential threat the fossil fuel industry poses than BP's brazenness to tear down a cultural icon and an entire community.
Please join Save Marktown. https://www.facebook.com/SaveMarktown
Join us, We are all in this together.
Take Action Now
Sign the petition.
Demand that BP, Mayor Anthony Copland, and East Chicago Redevelopment Commission COMMIT to the Marktown Revitalization Plan.
The Issue
Marktown is a monumental place in the Calumet region. It is a unique industrial workers village on the southern shores of Lake Michigan in East Chicago, Indiana. It was designed by Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw in 1917 for the industrialist Clayton Mark of Mark Manufacturing, later to become Youngstown Steel.
Like the Pullman district in Chicago, Marktown is on the National register of historic places. BP has expressed their interest in tearing down Marktown. Despite the fact that BP is surrounding by empty industrial brownfields. BP recently completed a $5.2 billion expansion of its Whiting refinery, the largest private sector investment in Indiana's history. The completion of the project allows BP's largest refinery in the world to process growing supplies of North American crude oil, including heavy grades from Canada, making the BP Whiting refinery the largest Tar Sands refinery in the country. The BP Whiting facility boasts of having the largest distillation tower in the world capable of 410,000 bpd, and the second largest coking unit in the world capable of handling 102,000 bpd directly across the street from Marktown.
As of February 12th, 2014, BP has purchased 22 properties, about 10% of Marktown. Today residents began to receive notices from BP that demolition is to begin in the next month. In 2008, one of the poorest minority communities in the State of Indaina awarded BP, one of the wealthiest industries in human history, $164 Million tax incentive, now BP has chosen to use that incentive to buyout and tear-down East Chicago's historic district. We can not continue to sacrifice more and more of our environment and cultural treasure to the late stages of the fossil fuel age.
We don't think there is any greater example of the real existential threat the fossil fuel industry poses than BP's brazenness to tear down a cultural icon and an entire community.
Please join Save Marktown. https://www.facebook.com/SaveMarktown
Join us, We are all in this together.
Take Action Now
Sign the petition.
Demand that BP, Mayor Anthony Copland, and East Chicago Redevelopment Commission COMMIT to the Marktown Revitalization Plan.
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Petition created on April 17, 2014