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Pre-game festivities start early

Thursday, January 17, 2002

By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Jocks and shirtless fanatics with painted faces aren't the only ones ready to go wild because the Steelers are in the playoffs.

Local filmmakers, musicians and artists as well as high-tech folks working in robotics and medical research and people who don't even live in Pittsburgh anymore are all planning special events over the next four days to take advantage of the national attention to be trained on the city because of the National Football League game here Sunday.

The pre-game parties and rallies are being coordinated and sponsored by a number of regional economic development groups, including the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors Bureau, Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, Ground Zero and Pittsburgh's Next.

"At least 54 organizations and companies have come together in just the last month to help us use this game to celebrate and promote the Pittsburgh region," Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey told a news conference yesterday.

Roddey said he, Gov. Mark Schweiker, Mayor Tom Murphy and others will be hitting the luxury boxes at Heinz Field on Sunday to talk, not to sportswriters, but to business and travel writers about the changes in Pittsburgh's economy.

Murphy said that since January 1996 -- the last time the Steelers were in the Super Bowl -- the Pittsburgh scene has changed greatly, adding such destinations as PNC Park and Heinz Field, the soon-to-open convention center, the Renaissance Hotel on Sixth Street, Downtown, new housing built on a slag heap in Squirrel Hill, riverfront housing on the South Side and the local office of a prestigious national think tank called the Rand Corp.

Roddey predicted a $10 million injection of funds into the local economy from just the single playoff game, and a similar shot if the Steelers win Sunday and play a second game here a week later.

That total covers spending by local fans and out-of-state visitors for hotels, restaurants, shopping, parking, taverns and souvenirs as well as about $250,000 in additional amusement tax revenue that goes into city coffers.

With 30-second TV commercials during the playoff game going for $450,000, Roddey said there is no way that local boosters could afford to pay for the coverage of the area that they'll get for free on Sunday.

As for public celebrations, the first event is set for tomorrow from noon to 1 p.m. in Market Square: an old-fashioned football pep rally for the Steelers game against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday at 12:30 p.m. at Heinz Field.

Other events include:

Decorating several bridges with colorful banners, including the Roberto Clemente, Seventh Street and Ninth Street bridges over the Allegheny River and the 10th Street Bridge over the Monongahela River.

"Movies on the Mount," set for tomorrow from 7 p.m. to midnight, when 20 local artists will show five-minute clips on various subjects, including some short scenes of the Steelers from their glory days in the 1970s. There also will be live music at the event, to be held in the Duquesne Heights Community Center at 406 Sweetbriar St., off Grandview Avenue.

"The Art of Myron," oversized, decorated photos of famed sportscaster Myron Cope that are to be unveiled sometime Saturday in the second- and third-floor windows of the Skinny Building at Forbes Avenue and Wood Street, Downtown.

A trade show and technology fair Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the University Center on Carnegie Mellon University's campus. It will have exhibits on medical robotics and information technology related to medicine and surgery.

The "New Pittsburgh Party," set for Saturday at 8 p.m. at Bossa Nova, a new nightclub on Seventh Street in the Cultural District. It's expected to attract a crowd of people in their 20s and 30s, but anyone who is "young at heart" is welcome, said Khari Mosley of the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, one of the sponsors.

On Sunday, ex-Pittsburghers now living in 11 cities around the nation will hold "Steeler Bar Parties," watching the game from taverns in Atlanta, Memphis, Tenn., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Orlando, Fla., Boston, Cleveland, Minneapolis and Phoenix.