Family Life

09.01.11 | Sarah Harnisch

  The 108-year old Steuben Glass company will close November 29th, costing the city of Corning 60 jobs. While the jobs loss hurts, it's not as painful as the glass company's legacy. They have been a part of Corning's cultural identity for nearly 11 decades. Steuben LLC, which makes the glass pieces sought after by collectors and museums, said Wednesday its factory and the steuben store, inside the Corning Museum of Glass, have 12 weeks of business left. One glassworker told our news partner, WETM-TV,  "I venture to say, without exaggeration, there will be a lot of long faces for quite a while. It's the loss of an era. And once you loose it, you never regain it." . U.S. Presidents, beginning with Harry Truman, have commissioned Steuben to make gifts for other heads of state. But business has been slow, and the president of the company said the economy and declining sales make it impossible to stay afloat.