Famous Pittsburgh Natives Getting Star Treatment On Garage

PITTSBURGH, PA - The abstract images of a dozen famous Pittsburghers will grace 20 large banners that will be cover a nine-story Downtown parking garage.

The Pittsburgh Planning Commission has been briefed on the public art initiative that will put the 16-foot high, 80-feet tall banners on the garage at Stanwix Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard. Funds were donated for the $145,000 project.

The banners will include images of:

• Andy Warhol, the celebrated artistic innovator whose museum is just a few blocks from the garage across the Allegheny River on the North Side.

• Roberto Clemente, the Pirates’ superstar who died tragically in a plane crash while on a relief mission to Nicaragua. His image will be on the Fort Duquesne Boulevard side of the garage and will be visible across the river from PNC Park.

• Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

• Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson.

• Novelist, poet and playwright Gertrude Stein.

• Conservationist and author Rachel Carson.

• Civil rights movement and labor leader Asa Phillip Randolph.

• Jazz singer Dakota Staton.

• Jazz drummer Art Blakey.

• Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams.

• Queen Aliquippa, the Ntive American leader of a band of MingoSeneca living along the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela rivers.

• Visual artist Thaddeous Mosley.