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  They wear Steelers name, smoky image By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer -- September 6, 1998 Ostrava's American-style football team is named after the Steelers. It's not the only name the Czech "Metal City" shares with America's "Steel City." Neither can totally shake the "Smoky City" cloak that was hung on them, even though both are cleaner than they've been in a century. "Ostrava is a green city now. You can see that if you look out from the top of the City Hall tower," said Mojmir Sonnek, Ostrava's architect and planner. "We have lots of parks and the slag piles are all green." "It will take 20 years to clean the town up completely, but even then, people in Prague will say that we are dirty," said Josef Vrazel, Ostrava's deputy mayor. "There's a big difference between image and reality. No one in Prague knows what Ostrava has become." "Under the previous regime the pictures that appeared in the newspapers were all of smoky chimneys, so it's easy to see why people from elsewhere have the impression they do," said Hana Santariusova, an environmental consultant working on the Heinz-funded Nice Place to Live Program. "It will take more than 20 years to change that." If Pittsburgh's experience counts for anything, a Super Bowl victory could come quicker.
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