Gov. Ed Rendell, in Pittsburgh for the weekend, paid a visit to the historic Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall in Carnegie yesterday, and pronounced it a fitting candidate for restoration funding under a new state program.

Yesterday's tour was part of a three-day trip to Allegheny County that included a visit to Brentwood High School Friday morning. Today, he plans to go to the Pitt-Connecticut basketball game in Oakland.

The renovation of the town of Carnegie's 102-year-old music hall and library building is expected to cost $8.6 million and the complex is in the midst of the first capital campaign in its history to raise that amount.

Rendell told a small group of people gathered at the library that he and others in the region would "figure out a way" to pay for the restoration.

"Shame on us if we let this building decay beyond the point where it can be used," said the governor, who added he had "never seen a facility like this." The complex includes a Civil War museum, 780-seat music hall, lecture hall, gymnasium, the library and a dance studio.