Ten years ago, you could stand Downtown and still see the smoke, rising some four miles away. It collected in plumes above Beth Shalom, the synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Bob O'Connor's neighborhood.

In part of because of what Mr. O'Connor did that day, after he stood Downtown and saw smoke, another man will stand today on Grant Street and pay his respects. The mayor's hearse will pass the City-County Building. And Ira Frank will watch.

On Oct. 8, 1996, when a fire started at Beth Shalom, Mr. O'Connor left his Downtown City Council office and sped toward the scene. Fire officials already flooded the area, same with a few congregation members and executives. He spotted one of them, Mr. Frank, at the sanctuary doors.

"What can I do for you?" Mr. O'Connor asked.

Mr. Frank told him about the congregation's two-dozen Torah scrolls, placed throughout the building.

And that set into motion everything that would follow, the story Mr. Frank would tell a decade later. He remembered how Mr. O'Connor rushed to the fire official on scene and started talking. And how, minutes later, a group of four -- Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Frank among them -- sped into the sanctuary, grabbing as many Torah scrolls as possible, escorting them out of the building in a relay. And how Mr. O'Connor stayed inside the building for 15 minutes, maybe more, moving to the first floor and helping to save the temple's documents from water damage.

One fire captain kept shouting at the small group to leave the building. They had no helmets, no breathing gear. They left after saving 21 of Beth Shalom's Torah scrolls.

"He didn't do it for political gain or because he'd get two votes out of it," said Mr. Frank, now Beth Shalom's executive vice president. "The [Torah scrolls] were valuable to us, but it's not like he was going after burning babies. But he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. He was absolutely there for us."

No matter the starting point, most stories about Mr. O'Connor end at that general point: He was involved.

He was involved with people, involved with projects, involved with ideas that reached beyond his job description. For 15 consecutive years, he hosted the Cookie Cruise fundraiser, a riverboat gala attended by nuns and rabbis and labor leaders and politicos. Well before being sworn in as mayor in January, Mr. O'Connor maintained a mayoral public presence. Board meetings, committees, ballfields, fires: He showed up.

That is largely why thousands will show up today.

Michael Pryor Sr. recalled the job he worked in 1984 at a Roy Rogers chain, one operated at the time by Mr. O'Connor. At the end of the year, numerous Roy Rogers restaurants within the region held a competition for cleanliness. Three or four nights before judging, Mr. Pryor stayed late, cleaning gunk and grease from the fryer, until, he said, "you could eat off of it."

Mr. O'Connor then performed the inspection and named Mr. Pryor's restaurant the cleanest. Mr. Pryor, as a result, talked for a few minutes with Mr. O'Connor and told him about life as a young University of Pittsburgh student.

The two saw one another a dozen years later on a ballfield in Carrick. Mr. Pryor was coaching his son's all-star team.

"After the game," Mr. Pryor remembered, "Bob came up to me and said, 'How you doing, Mike?' Ten years later! He remembered my name ...

"That impressed me so much about the man. He could have been mayor even if he was a Green Party candidate, because he was so personable."

He harnessed the skill, too. Like most on the board of the Highmark Caring Foundation, he showed up at the necessary meetings. But only Mr. O'Connor brought out-of-towners and dignitaries to the center after hours, sometimes soliciting donations and sometimes just offering a tour. "He was just always present, always involved," said Terese Vorsheck, the Caring Place's director.

Five years ago, Mr. O'Connor finished a golf round with Jack Wagner, now the state's auditor general. After the round, Mr. Wagner left for another commitment. Mr. O'Connor, though, stuck around at the clubhouse -- long enough to hear that Mr. Wagner had won a raffle drawing for a 25-inch television.

Mr. O'Connor took the television from the golf course and drove it that night back to the Wagner home.

When Wayne Fontana was sworn in June 2005 as a state senator, he contacted Mr. O'Connor. "First person I called," Mr. Fontana said. And though Mr. O'Connor had yet to win the mayoral election, and though he needed time to rehab a leg injury, he still wanted to meet on his back deck and talk. So they sipped sodas and shared ideas about how they could help the city.

"He didn't say, 'Wait 'til my knee feels better.' I guess I was surprised to some degree," Mr. Fontana said. "When I left him that day, I really felt like Pittsburgh had the right man."