News

About 60 men, women and children tossed fishing lines into the Monongahela River during a recent lunch hour under the watchful eyes of Sean Brady.

Brady runs the weekly fishing program for the Western Pennsylvania Field Institute and knows exactly what he wants from Point State Park.

"There's a big, tall sea wall here," he said. "It's hard to touch the water. It would be nice to be able to dangle your feet in the water."

Brady, 35, of Regent Square, plans to make that suggestion at a public hearing Wednesday on a preliminary master plan charting the future of Point State Park. The hearing runs from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Regional Enterprise Tower, Sixth Avenue, Downtown.

"The basic thing is more-active recreation," he said. "It's too much of a passive place here now."

The Point State Park Planning Committee will review a preliminary plan designed by Marion Pressley Associates, a landscape architectural firm in Cambridge, Mass., and listen to suggestions from the public. The committee was established by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and the Riverlife Task Force.

The consultants do not want to reveal the contents of the plan before the hearing, but Tom Baxter, project coordinator, hinted at what it will contain.

"We're not just going to level the park and start all over again," he said. "We're going to make the park better, build from what's already in place."

Possible amenities include wireless Internet technology to let lunchtime visitors surf the Internet and better signs to interpret the history of the park. The plan would improve connections to the North Shore, South Side and within the park and provide better access for bicycles and small boats.

"Right now," Baxter said, "it's very difficult for someone in small boats and kayaks to get in and out."

Carol Wyrostek, 42, of Reserve, biked to the park from Washington's Landing with her daughter, Stephanie, 13, and her son, Gordon, 10. Once at the park, they took advantage of the lunchtime fishing.

"It's a beautiful view," she said, leaning on her Kawasaki mountain bike. "I wouldn't want to lose any of that. If they could just have more activities for the kids."

Franklin LaCava, curator of the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, offered this recommendation: no more regatta.

"I would say that carnivals like the regatta are detrimental to the park," he said. "It's a very poor use of 37 acres of green space that take up the most valuable real estate in the world."

The regatta is a Pittsburgh tradition that people have enjoyed for 26 years, countered Diane Greco, vice president for events for the Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta. She suggested filling in the hole that shows the original walls of Fort Pitt, providing more benches and possibly repositioning the stage.

But some visitors like the park as is.

Scott Meneely, 22, of Whitehall, practiced kung fu with a friend on the spacious lawn.

"It's a pretty nice park," he said. "You've got a beautiful shaded area, open grass, a beautiful fountain."

Cooled off by the spray of the fountain, Kate Romane, 26, stretched out on the basin and read a book. She had bicycled to the park from her home in Lawrenceville.

"I really like calm places," she said. "I think it's fine the way it is."

• Most Read
• Most E-mailed
• Latest News