With crews still working on the new section of riverfront park near the SouthSide Works, Riverlife took a few people on a tour to show of its creation. A piazza at street level overlooks the park and an amphitheater that flows 30 feet down to a stage. Cutting through the entire 790-foot length of the park is the riverfront hiking and biking trail. Along with views of the river and the Pittsburgh skyline, the stage will be backed by a steel and fabric sculpture.
Riverlife civil engineer Edward Patton says the $12.5 million dollar park will incorporate artifacts found on the site including a 160 thousand pound ladle and an old pump house. “Inside here were all the major pumps that provided water to the steel mill, says Patton. “There is an old discharge pipe where there is actually going to be a lenses put on there and the inside is going to be lit so you can actually walk up and look inside and see what was inside the pump house.” The top of the pump house will be used as an overlook.
Five rusty steel ingots were also found on the site during construction and will be set upright at the down-river entrance to the park. “It is unusual to have these kinds of ingots laying around and primarily why you would find then on a steel mill is that perhaps somebody perished in an accident and may have been cast in one of the ingots,” says Patton. The smaller ingots weigh about 10 thousand pounds and the larger are twice that. The final phase of the project is still under design and will include boat docks for private and commercial craft.
Rendering by EPD, image courtesy of Riverlife
Watch an audio tour and slideshow of the park here.
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