Three Rivers Stadium: Gone 20 Years, But Many Memories Remain

PITTSBURGH, PA - Twenty years ago this week on a cold Sunday morning, three decades of Pittsburgh sports history collapsed in seconds in clouds of smoke and tons of fractured concrete.

The date was Feb. 11, 2001. Three Rivers Stadium, home to the Pirates and Steelers since 1970 and the occasional home to the University of Pittsburgh Panthers, was imploded in spectacular fashion to usher in new eras for both teams.

The Pirates would begin play two months later a short distance away on the North Shore at PNC Park; The Steelers and Pitt would debut Heinz Field, literally feet from Three Rivers, that fall.

Three River Stadium was one of many multi-use “cookie-cutter” stadiums that were generically designed to be used for both baseball and football games. In that regard, Three Rivers was nearly identical to Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati and Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

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The $55 million stadium debuted on July 17, 1970, with the Pirates losing the opening game to the Cincinnati Reds on a night when the game wasn’t as significant as the venue in which it was being played.

Replacing antiquated Forbes Field for the Bucs and Pitt Stadium as the Steelers’ home, Three Rivers featured five levels of multicolored seats, the 300-seat Allegheny Club restaurant and a Tartan Turf playing surface that wasn’t close to resembling the color of real grass.

To convert the stadium from baseball to football, two 4,000-seat areas of ground-level seats were moved from the first and third-base lines to become premium seats around the 50-yard line.

The impending anniversary of the stadium’s demise no doubt will conjure fond memories from older fans in the city. Three Rivers was not an attractive place. But it provided a home in the 1970s for four Super Bowl winning Steelers teams, two Pirates World Championship teams and other memorable sporting and concert events.

Among them:

• Game four of the 1971 World Series, the first night game in World Series history. The Pirates delivered a come-from-behind 4-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on the way to their first championship since 1960.

• The Immaculate Reception in 1972, which gave the Steelers a playoff victory against the Oakland Raiders and was selected as the greatest play in NFL history in the NFL Network's 100 series.

• Roberto Clemente's 3,00oth - and final- hit in 1972, just three months before he tragically died in a plane crash.

• The 1976 Pitt-Penn State game, a 24-7 Panthers victory that concluded a perfect regular season and propelled the team to its first national championship in 39 years.

• The unforgettable 1979 "We Are Family" Pirates season that would conclude with the team's first World Series championship since 1971.

• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band playing before nearly 66,000 fans in 1985.

• The Penguins celebrating their second Stanley Cup win at the stadium in 1992.

• The 1995 AFC Championship game between the Steelers and Baltimore Colts, a 20-16 Steelers victory that wasn't decided until the Colts' last-second Hail Mary pass failed.

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Even though it wasn’t quite 30 years old when it was demolished, Three Rivers had become functionally obsolete in the 1990s as sports teams around the country demanded - and generally received from the cities where they played - new stadiums with luxury boxes and other revenue-generating amenities.

The Pirates and Steelers were no exceptions. Money for PNC Park and Heinz Field was cobbled together from Allegheny Regional Asset District funds, state and federal money and other sources, including the teams. Ground was broken for the new stadiums in 1999.

The Pirates played their final game at Three Rivers on Oct. 1, 2000, a 10-9 loss to the Chicago Cubs. The Steelers last hurrah at the stadium was a 24-3 win against the Washington Football Team (then called the Redskins) on Dec. 16, 2000.

Demolition workers began dismantling portions of the stadium’s interior shortly after that game in preparation for the big bang that would occur on Feb. 11.

On that cold and clear morning, an estimated 20,000 people gathered in Point State Park, on Mt. Washington and the roof of the D.L. Clark Building on the North Shore to watch the implosion.

A demolition company had spent the previous week loading the stadium with 4,800 pounds of dynamite. A 16-year-old boy who had won a contest to push the plunger to start the demolition did just that and 19 seconds later Three Rivers was gone.

The Three Rivers Gate D pylon outside of Heinz Field (Google Maps).

The monument marking the spot where the Immaculate Reception occurred (Google Maps).

The Three Rivers Gate D pylon was moved to just outside Heinz Field as a tribute; it’s near a historical marker noting many of the athletic accomplishments that occurred in the stadium. On West General Robinson Street, which was constructed after the stadium rubble was cleared, there's a monument marking the spot where Franco Harris caught The Immaculate Reception in 1972, a play that has been voted the greatest in NFL History.

But Three Rivers footprint contains office buildings, restaurants, roads and parking garages.

For all of the excitement and entertainment it brought people for three decades, today it's almost as if Three Rivers never existed.