Sunday parties should be a blast

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Sunday parties should be a blast

Thursday, February 08, 2001

By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Come Sunday morning, many early risers will be flocking to breakfast bashes in Downtown office towers or Mount Washington restaurants to watch the collapse of Three Rivers Stadium.

There they are, three in a row, Pittsburgh's stadiums, PNC Park (at top), Three Rivers and the football stadium to be named later. Take a good overhead look because Sunday morning, the one in the middle, Three Rivers, where sports history was made, will be history. (John Beale, Post Gazette)

The Rev. Lou Vallone isn't going to be one of them, but he is hosting an important event: the regular 7:30 a.m. Mass at St. Mary of the Mount in Mount Washington.

The church has a small parking lot and Vallone hopes implosion viewers heading to Grandview Avenue restaurants won't put their cars there. He said there's a sign reading "parking for church only."

"We'll probably get quite a number of people up here," he said.

Michele Papakie, spokeswoman for Pittsburgh police, agreed.

"It's going to be a zoo up there," she said yesterday.

Police will keep motorists moving -- no gawking from the middle of Grandview.

"We don't want anyone just to stop and watch," Papakie said. "We are asking people to keep moving. Emergency vehicles must be able to get in and out."

She said cars left in no-parking zones will be towed "if we have to."

Overnight guests will not be welcome on Grandview Avenue or in Point State Park. The park will not open until 6 a.m. Sunday.

If you're looking for a place to stash your car Sunday morning, Mount Washington's nonprofit Community Development Corp. can help. It's come up with a way to use the implosion to raise money for its after-school programs for children.

More seats from Three Rivers to be auctioned within weeks

For $5, you can park at Duquesne Heights Community Center on Sweetbriar Street, four blocks from the western end of Grandview Avenue.

Special breakfasts and parties are planned in restaurants on Mount Washington. One prominent invitation-only event will be at Monterey Bay Fish Grotto, 1411 Grandview.

Joseph King, the high school student from Mount Washington who will push the implosion plunger at 8 a.m., will be one of those on hand for the event, called the "Implosion Breakfast Bash," starting about an hour after the stadium comes down. King will be there with his parents, Elizabeth and Mike King. Elizabeth King had the winning raffle ticket chosen out of nearly 12,000 sold by the Carnegie Science Center.

The event, expected to draw 400, is co-sponsored by two local companies that worked on the implosion, Engineering Dynamics and L. Robert Kimball & Associates, plus the Carnegie Science Center and the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce.

Because of the size of the crowd, Engineering Dynamics will host a companion party at nearby Pasquarelli's Restaurant on Grandview. That space was booked in the fall by company Vice President Mark Addlespurger."We knew what would end up happening," Addlespurger said. "It was just a gut feeling. We knew there would be a frenzy [to book space] so we reserved Pasquarelli's."

Another invitation-only bash is being thrown by Jan McCollum, president of the Mount Washington community development group. She owns a condominium at 1700 Grandview, at the far western end of the street, which "looks right down on the [Point State Park] fountain," she said.

"Everybody kept calling me and saying, 'Are you going to be home?"' she said. She took the hint and invited about 30 of her friends to her glassed-in hilltop perch.

Father Louis Vallone is concerned about parking near St. Mary of the Mount Church on Grandview Avenue on Sunday morning, but he notes the sign, “parking for church only: in its parking lot. (Joyce Mendelsohn, Post-Gazette)

The Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors Bureau is holding a private breakfast on the 31st floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower, the former Alcoa building, Downtown, which also offers a view of the North Shore. The printed invitation promises guests "a dynamite party."

The bureau's goal is to attract more out-of-towners to Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. It has sent out invitations with a color photo of Three Rivers Stadium and the statement: "It's Time to Level the Playing Field."

On the inside of the invitation is another photo of the stadium with the word "BOOM!" superimposed on it.

The staff of the Heinz Endowments will hold a small private gathering in their offices on the 30th floor of Dominion Tower on Liberty Avenue, Downtown.

Nearby, at the One Gateway Center Building, Burson-Marsteller, an advertising and public relations firm, is holding a party for employees and clients in its offices on the top, or 20th, floor, which looks down on the river and the North Side.

On the 27th floor of Fifth Avenue Place, the law firm of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis is having a private gathering for about 200 members of the firm, friends and clients, said one of its lawyers, Deborah Rouse.

"I probably have the best view of the new ballpark from my office," she said. "I can watch a game [inside PNC Park]. We have a phenomenal view of the whole North Shore."

Restaurants with a view of the North Shore, such as Top of the Triangle in the USX Tower, Downtown, and Grandview Avenue restaurants such as LeMont and the Grandview Saloon, are also hosting parties, open to the public for a price.

The Pittsburgh Hilton and Towers, Downtown, has sold package deals for its rooms that look out on the Allegheny River: $159 a person gets a room for Saturday night and a breakfast buffet Sunday morning.

Not all the celebrating will be on land. The Gateway Clipper Fleet will have four boats on the rivers for public cruises.

The boats will be kept at least 1,000 feet from the stadium. About 1,500 people have made reservations, and another boat has been privately chartered.

Another invitation-only event is being hosted by Pittsburgh Voyager, a science education organization that operates two "floating laboratory" boats in the three rivers, said Michelle Boucher, marketing director.

A group of about 65 invitees will be aboard the two boats on the far side of the Ohio River. The boats will leave their North Side dock at 7 a.m., she said.

If the rivers aren't clogged with ice, a group of kayakers will be there -- right at water level. Members of Outside Adventures, based in Tarentum, plan to put their kayaks into the Monongahela River at South Side Riverfront Park and paddle to the stadium.

Parking garages and lots run by a major operator, Alco Parking Co., will charge normal weekend rates, said the firm's president, Merrill Stabile.

Parking in the west lot at Station Square, which is closest to the stadium, will be the usual $4 a car before 10 a.m. Pittsburgh Parking Authority garages Downtown will also be available, at $3 per car.