Essential Pittsburgh

Donna and Steve Dzurilla live in a single-story home on a quiet street in Lincoln Place. They’re just barely in the city limits, surrounded by neighboring West Mifflin. The walls of their home are lined with photos of places not far from their house, places that mean a lot to their families: the steel mills. Three black and white prints capture the furnace and a few of Homestead Works. A blue filling cabinet in the dining room came from an office at that facility where Steve’s dad worked for 35 years. His last job there was as a plate inspector. In the same room is a shadow box filled with Steve’s father’s old mill ID and glasses. “When I was in school in the ‘70s, every male member of my family worked in one mill or another – my dad, my brother and five or six uncles on both sides of the family,” he said. The couple has been together for 16 years – married for two. Steve, 55, works at a scrap processing plant and for the United Steel Workers Union where he's been a member for 21 years