Duquesne Light is the company that flips the switch every winter on Light Up Night, a luminous holiday event bringing more than 100,000 people Downtown, the largest such gathering in Pittsburgh each year.

No one expects the pyrotechnics to disappear this year because the 103-year-old utility was sold to a New York-led group. In fact, civic and nonprofit officials predicted yesterday that Duquesne Light would keep commitments to all sorts of high-wattage community initiatives, from Light Up Night to the company's $500,000 blue-and-white architectural lighting of the Roberto Clemente Bridge -- in fact, Duquesne Light recently agreed to repair (for free) any broken bulbs on the bridge before the All-Star baseball game next Tuesday night.

"We have every indication that Duquesne Light will continue to remain a committed corporate partner," said Mary Ellen Solomon, director of marketing and communications for the nonprofit Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, which plans the Light Up Night each year. Duquesne Light is the event's biggest single sponsor, installing lights from The Point through various parts of the Golden Triangle and keeping them in place until the end of the holiday season.

City boosters yesterday cheered the decision to keep Duquesne Light's headquarters and CEO in Pittsburgh, despite the sale. In that sense, this transaction is different than the major losses Pittsburgh suffered in the 1980s and 1990s, as large corporations such as Gulf Oil, Westinghouse and Rockwell International moved headquarters out of town -- and took many local jobs with them. The most recent symbolic loss was aluminum maker Alcoa, which acknowledged this year its home is now New York City -- a disclosure that drops the number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered here from seven to six.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor argued the change in ownership at Duquesne Light -- a company that can claim a connection to Pittsburgh inventor George Westinghouse -- will not deal a blow to Pittsburgh's civic pride. If employees left the region as part of the transaction, "that would be a blow," he said. But, "this doesn't fall into that category." And with CEO Morgan O'Brien remaining in Pittsburgh, "that gives me a level of comfort that their community partnership will continue," Mr. O'Connor said.

Carnegie Mellon University history professor Joel Tarr also counseled Pittsburghers "not to read too much into this change. I think the crucial thing is: Are the jobs here?"