Pittsburgh: Manchester Bridge Sculptures

Manchester Bridge 'mystery' solved

After my story in the Post-Gazette on Nov. 10 telling about "lost" city sculptures finally being reinstalled in Mellon Park, reader Marc Virostek shot me an e-mail.

He asked: Whatever happened to the sculptures from the old Manchester Bridge that used to be at the Children's Museum?

Strangely, one day later, a neighbor in the off-leash dog park asked me if I knew whatever happened to the same pieces.

The sculptures had to be moved when the Children's Museum built a parking lot a few years ago. He inquired at the museum but said he was frustrated in his effort to find out what happened to them.

The portal sculptures, by Charles Keck, show two figures on each panel kneeling on either side of the seals of the City of Pittsburgh. The figures are steelworker Joe Magarac and strike leader Jan Volkanik on one (not the portal shown above) and Chief Guyasuta and Christopher Gist, George Washington's guide, on the one that is depicted above.

Marc, a librarian and architectural history buff now at work on a photo book about Pittsburgh architecture, sent me a link to Bruce Cridlebaugh's fantastic site. Bruce is letting me show you here some old images from that site. This one is a design drawing. (Duh.)

OK, back to the search:

Chris Siefert, deputy director at the museum, put me in touch with the Steelers, whose spokesmen, Jimmie Sacco, said the works are stored at Heinz Field. They will be thus protected until the Steelers determine a way to display them on the North Shore.

The bridge, which was razed in 1970, spanned the confluence of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers right where the Fred Rogers sculpture sits now.

"There's always been an idea of incorporating them into something over here," Jimmie said. "We plan on putting them somewhere."

I hope their "plan on" doing something is not the same "plan on" doing something like my vow to, say, paint the kitchen.