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Two moves too many for those in stadium's path
Tuesday, December 01, 1998 By Marylynne Pitz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
To Dorothy Degonish, Three Rivers Plaza is a clean, safe and hospitable community in a North Side apartment building that she and her fellow tenants do not want to leave.
To Mayor Murphy and the Stadium Authority, Degonish's home is an obstacle in the path of PNC Park, the baseball stadium the Pirates want to open in 2001.
Three Rivers Plaza, a six-story building just off Federal Street, is one of several properties at the northern end of the Sixth Street Bridge that the city is acquiring as part of the ballpark site preparation.
While Gov. Ridge said yesterday that he will veto legislation that would have generated tens of millions of dollars in state subsidies, he plans to resume the fight for capital funding for sports stadiums next year.
So, as city officials and state legislators continue their fights to fund those stadiums, uncertainty dogs the lives of more than 100 senior citizens in Three Rivers Plaza.
"You can't plan. You can't say, 'Well, in the spring, we'll be able to do this,"' Degonish said.
While she reads the papers, Degonish still does not know when she will move to Allegheny Center.
"We're the most affected by the stadium and we're the last ones to know. We haven't heard anything from the mayor's office or the URA," she said.
That distresses Degonish because she knows she will be uprooted twice.
"We have to move twice. That does not make us happy campers," she said.
Residents of Three Rivers Plaza are supposed to move in January to Allegheny Center. Once a new apartment building goes up on the site of the North Side farmer's market, the senior citizens will have to move again.
"They are supposed to break ground this week for the new building," Degonish said.
But to her, that is small consolation.
"Moving is traumatic, even for a young person. We're doing everything to try to keep them calm, but they're scared," she said, referring to her fellow residents.
The move will keep some senior citizens from looking after each other, Degonish said.
"This is more like a community," she said. "We're going to be shifted around. We're going to be split up. That's hard.
On Nov. 4, Degonish said, residents of the building were told that individuals from the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority would be in touch with each of them. So far, Degonish said, she has not been contacted by anyone.
Craig Kwiecinski, a spokesman for Murphy, said the mayor was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Mary Lee Barnes, 65, said she loves living in Three Rivers Plaza and thought the building was going to be her "last stop."
"You have people all pumped up to move and now there ain't nothing happening. You don't know what to do. I can't sleep," she said.
Recently, Barnes packed some dishes, clothes and knickknacks. She said yesterday that she is afraid if she unpacks those boxes, she'll just have to repack them.
The news just confuses her.
"You listen to the TV but you don't know what's going on," Barnes said.
Degonish has no trouble explaining why she likes Three Rivers Plaza.
"The size of the rooms is terrific. It's well kept. We have a good manager. It's convenient to Downtown Pittsburgh. It's very convenient to buses. They stop right in front of our building," she said.
Ron Neuf, who manages Three Rivers Plaza for Westgate Management, predicts that some people will not survive the move.
"I have 90-year-old people in this building. To uproot them twice and move them twice, that's a terrible thing," he said. "At that age, it's just too hard."
Neuf said city officials are not realistic about the impact moving has on older people.
"The mayor and the Urban Redevelopment Authority come in and say, 'Well, we'll pack them,' " he said.
That offer misses the point, he insisted.
"It's removing them from their surroundings and putting them in a strange place and doing that again a year later," he said.
Three Rivers Plaza is a haven, Neuf said.
"They come in here and they feel safe here. Nobody seems to care about that. All they say is we must make progress. It seems like the mayor doesn't care at whose expense he makes the progress," he said.
Edward Herrmann, a retired police officer, said that he and his wife are diabetics who are happy at Three Rivers Plaza because they are close to their doctor and two blocks from a post office.
"I think they're shafting us," Herrmann said, referring to the two moves.
"That's no good for old people. You can't go on moving two times, changing your address and checking account. That's rough, you know what I mean."
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