Predicted temperatures as low as zero degrees are no excuse for missing out on today's lunchtime Steelers rally at the county courthouse, at least for those who know how to travel underground.
With a warren of underground hallways, subway tunnels and skywalks in Downtown Pittsburgh, it is possible to go from Point State Park to Grant Street, with only one brief interlude outside. Along the way, one can get a haircut, a massage and drop the kids off at day care, not to mention a mortgage, a workout, a Steelers jersey or a passion fruit mojito.
The key to this florescent-lit voyage is 57-year-old Gateway Center and the maze of tunnels connecting its four buildings and 23 acres at the end of Penn and Liberty avenues. Leaving Point State Park, one can enter the Pittsburgh Hilton and Towers, cross through its lobby, and drop like Alice right into the rabbit hole.
Go straight, and it's the 400-plus seat Gateway Cafe, Joe Ciniello's barbershop or a massage therapy center. Go right, and one drops into a tunnel to the Gateway Center garage across the street and, following the signs, to Gateway Four. After walking through two sets of automatic doors right out of "Get Smart" one is at the foot of Palomino restaurant at Liberty and Stanwix avenues.
Not that it's easy for first-timers.
"The first time I did it, it was 20 minutes of sheer confusion," said Eric Kowalczyk, 31, the project manager for the Gateway Center garage. "But it was worth the 20 minutes."
It is 40 paces from the Palomino door to the entrance to the Gateway Center subway station -- the only completely outdoor portion of the trip. From there it is two trolley stops to the underground Steel Plaza station. To the north is a mural-lined tunnel to the U.S. Steel Tower basement, and its food shops, day care center and YMCA.
Go south and one is in One Mellon Center -- just across Forbes Avenue is an entrance to the courthouse courtyard, the site of today's noon "Roast the Ravens" rally in advance of Sunday's AFC Championship game.
Before 2002, the public was allowed to wander the underground hallways connecting the courthouse, the County Office Building, the then-coroner's office, the City-County Building and the privately managed Grant Building a block away. They started closing in 2000 after metal detectors were installed at the courthouse entrances.
(A tunnel from One Mellon Center to the former Mellon Bank and Lord & Taylor store on Smithfield Street was also closed.)
In the old days, one could go through the tunnel exit at the Grant Building, run across Grant Street to One Oxford Centre and then take a second-story skywalk through a garage to Kaufmann's department store. From the northeast corner of the now-Macy's -- the section selling Steelers merchandise -- it is just a half-block away from One Mellon Center, to start the journey back to the Hilton and the Point.
Bloomfield's John Cullen, who has worked Downtown for 12 years, commonly takes the tunnel and subway route.
"I don't want to walk around Downtown," said Mr. Cullen, standing in the Steel Plaza station. "It's depressing enough as it is. I'd rather be underground."
There is one other major tunnel to go. If and when the light rail extension under the Allegheny River is completed, perhaps by 2011, one will be able to travel directly between Grant Street Steelers rallies and Heinz Field.
First Published: January 16, 2009, 5:00 a.m.
