The Guggenheim Effect On The Earth

(The following article about the Guggenheim Dynasty that has historically owned a portion of the Tribune Company’s Times-Mirror-Newsday division was written before the 2000 merger between the Tribune Company and Times-Mirror-Newsday. It appeared in the March 6, 1991 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative weekly Downtown.)

In The Guggenheims 1848-1988 book, John Davis described some of the environmental effects of the Guggenheim family’s late 19th century and early 20th century business activity:

“Piles of debris and broken rocks, and heaps of slag are all that remain of former Guggenheim operations in Colorado. In Bingham Canyon, Utah, where the Guggenheims created the world’s first open-pit copper mine, there is now a vast devastation, the earth so gouged and lacerated as to seem the scene of some cosmic disaster. Kennecott: an entire mountain destroyed in Alaska. Chuquicamata: an entire mountain destroyed in Chile. Rivers everywhere contaminated with the detritus of Guggenheim mines and smelters.”

(Downtown 3/6/91)

Next: The Guggenheim-Patterson Alliance and Newsday’s Hidden History