Today PNC Park is regularly considered one of the best in major league baseball. But back between 1970 and 2001 we had Three Rivers Stadium, which was NOT a good baseball park. In early 1999 as a long time Pirate fan and season ticket holder, I watched the preparations for PNC Park with great interest. I had seen Jacob's Field in Cleveland and knew how breathtaking and beautiful a new baseball park could be. I couldn't wait to see what we would get in Pittsburgh. I got up in the early dawn to watch to first site clearing and later to watch Three Rivers Stadium go down. At the time I took pictures and videos every now and then to track the progress, and I thought I would post some of them here, many years later to relive the excitement of getting a new park.
It was a cold winter morning in March and my father and I went over early to get a good spot on the seventh street bridge for to watch the controlled demolition of an old senior citizens high rise. It was standing approximately where the left field entrance and stands are in PNC Park today. The Post Gazette article (found here), says that the demolition was scheduled for 7am, and that sounds right, because I remember it was pretty early to get up for a Sunday morning.
Took these few pictures on the walk from parking on the North Side over to Three Rivers to see the Pirates play during the summer of 1999. A few interesting things to note. You can see the Science Center in the background before it had its big Science Center letters on it. In one shot you can see the big sign the Pirates had erected counting down the days to the first pitch. And you can see the now iconic view of the Roberto Clemente Bridge (then still known as the Seventh Street bridge) from General Robinson Street, before it was visible in Center Field.
Images of later in the construction of PNC Park. You can see all the familiar structural elements now. I have a few pictures where you can see the brief time when the North Shore had three stadiums; from left right Heinz Field, Three Rivers Stadium and PNC Park. And finally I have a view of PNC Park from inside Three Rivers Stadium.
