Return of the Battlin Buccos?

[PghUSA]

Bucco's are at .500 for the first time this late in the season since 1999 (when they finished 3rd in the division)!

I know that last year some of the restaurants and sports bars on the northshore were struggling and one even closed. Finally I think the PNC park area will start to experience the kind of random energy and pathos the Heinz Field side experiences with Pitt and Steeler games. PNC Park really is the better facility IMHO and its long been due for a PacBell Park or Camden Yards feel to it with the kind of fans group energy.

[Death To Johnstown]

PNC Park has held up it's part of the bargin concerning "Plan B", IMO. It's averaged at least about 22,000 ever since it's debut, and it regularly gets walkups of 5-7,000 numerous times every season - something that was unheard of at Three Rivers.

Blame the team not PNC Park. Although, the Buccos are finally turning the corner on rebuilding...seems they may hold up their end of the deal, yet.

On another subject, wonder if the Pirates & Equitable ever considered lighting their part of the Allegheny shoreline (at night) blue to match PNC & the upper trim of the Clemente Bridge? It certaintly would look sharp on TV during nght games when a player bounces a long drive into the river.

[PghUSA]

Yeah that lighting project would be awesome, also I wish Equitable and Del Monte would build higher then 6 floors, possibly 10 or so would be nice though I understand there is a height restriction near the rivers.

Also lighting the Andy Warhol and 9th Street Bridges was discussed last year, I hope that happens soon too.

[TheGerbil]

I would love to see more bridges lighted. And I have been thinking, they named 2 of the "three sisters" bridges after famous Pittsburghers.... They should name the third one too! Some possible names for it: Marie Cassat Bridge, Rachel Carson Bridge, Stephen Foster Bridge, Gene Kelly Bridge.... There a a ton of names that would work.

[PghUSA]

Not to get too far off topic (goooo buccos) . . .

The 9th street has a bit of a problem among the "three twins" (by the way the only three identical bridges together in the world!).

The 9th unlike the Warhol (AW Gallery to the Cultural District) and the Clemente (PNC Park) doesn't take you to anyplace special to any possible namesake--yet. Would be interesting though.

Another possibility is the northshore native Gertude Stein, something though about "the Getrude Stein bridge" might give visions of her life of intimate extremes in Paris though .

Then again from what I've heard AW would have made Hugh Hefner blush some, so why not GS Bridge.

[TheGerbil]

The 9th unlike the Warhol (AW Gallery to the Cultural District) and the Clemente (PNC Park) doesn't take you to anyplace special to any possible namesake--yet.  Would be interesting though.

Yes, that had occcurred to me. The other two derive their names from a desitnation that is near the bridge.

What is Downtown near the third one, I wonder? There may not be anything on the North Side, but maybe the Downtown side?

I just think it is silly to name two of them but not the third. Maybe we could try to do this by process of elimination. One is named for an athelete, one for an artist. So the third should be something else, like an actor, a thinker, a writer, a musician. And it should not be a name that is already all over the city (so no Carnegie, Frick, etc). I would also like to see it named for a woman.

[PghUSA]

I'd say Sophie Masloff, or since she is "hip" in many circles but her Pittsburgh connections are unknown I'd say Gertude Stein. Christina Aguleria is a good choice as well but that's from a dude's perspective.

[TheGerbil]

I'd say Sophie Masloff, or since she is "hip" in many circles but her Pittsburgh connections are unknown I'd say Gertude Stein.  Christina Aguleria is a good choice as well but that's from a dude's perspective.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ha, I would be embarassed to name it after Christina! And I don't want to see it named for a mayor, because they won't be known to out-of-towners.

Gertrude Stein or Rachel Carson would be good I think. I'd say Marie Cassat but we already have one named for an artist. What other famous women are from here?

[PghUSA]

Deserving women I'm sure we could get a pretty big list, but as you mentioned Gerb, they'd have to be recognizable to out of towners, in a way the Clemente (big for hispanics, south Americans and avid sports fans to recall his Pittsburgh connections) and the AW (big for arts, counter-culture, and baby boomers to realize that Pittsburgh is indeed that hip) both kind of spill cold water on the idea that Pittsburgh is the "pitts" so its a great civic billboard for what we want to be. In that way it would be neat to name it for Christina (though I can appreciate the "cheapening" of the other two in that way, plus she has many many years to go do an OJ or Dana Plato or something and screw things up which is why you name things after they pass).

Rachel Carson and Marie Cassatt (who's dad was actually mayor of the northside before it was consolidated into Pittsburgh!) would be great choices but outside of a narrow focus of academia they aren't widely known. Every teen-twenty something rebellious artsy or theater dabbler knows about Gertude Stein though. Very very few even realize she was not French not Parisian and actually an American, and in fact a Pittsburgher! No other female with as much contemporary appeal comes to mind really.

[TheGerbil]

I don't think I even knew Gertrude Stein was from here. You learn something new every day!

[PghUSA]

Exactly my point, she is a cultural beacon still in many circles, yet her Pittsburgh roots are mainly forgotten by the 2005 world.