The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 13

The Pittsburgh Press Section Wednesday, July 3, 1991 Housing, marinas planned at LTV's S. Side site a $3.5 million to $4 million tax base. Carroll said it would take about 18 months to clear the property. In addition, state and federal regulations would require environmental studies and cleanup. Carroll and Gustine emphasized that the announcement did not constitute a done deal, and that they want to work with the South Side Local Development Co.

Rebecca Flora, the development company's executive director, said her organization has not endorsed the plan but supports the efforts. The development group, with other neighborhood organizations, has drafted 10 recommendations eyesore," said David Carroll, LTVs vice president of public affairs. "Even in the best of steel conditions, we concluded that it is better to look elsewhere if we are going to use this property effectively." Steel analyst John Jacobson agreed. "If Pittsburgh and the region are looking for a source of employment, they can do better than try to resurrect that works. It's a very capital-intensive business and it's been a very difficult business to make money in," said Jacobson, managing director of AUS Consultants in Philadelphia.

By Ellen M. Perlmutter The Pittsburgh Press In the six years since the closing of LTV Steel South Side Works, community groups never gave up their dreams of restarting the electric furnaces. Until yesterday, i The steel company announced that it will begin tearing down the mills by the end of the year for a proposed $50 million development called Southside Harbor Port. "Npw is the time to turn this prim piece of property into a community asset, not a community The Steel Valley Authority, which has been trying to save the furnaces, appeared ready to accept the change. "We'd like the furnaces to be left intact," said Robert Erickson, project coordinator for the Steel Valley Authority, "but we're not in the business to try to obstruct or do anything to delay something that has a chance." Carroll spoke enthusiastically of plans to turn the 106 acres into a development that would include housing, retail, office and light industrial uses.

At a news conference yesterday at the Birmingham Lofts on the for developing the LTV site. Among its recommendations are that the property should be rezoned as a Special Planned District to allow for greater public input in the review process; the development should not overburden local streets or public services; long-term development should be favored over short-term projects or interim uses; and the public should have access to the riverfront. "We have to get off the dime," said City Council President Jack Wagner at the news conference. "This may be one of the finest pieces of real estate in the city." South Side, Carroll introduced real estate developer Frank Gustine who sat next to a drawing of his plan for 150 condominiums, 200 townhomes, three acres for retail shops, eight acres for marinas, 10 acres for a park and riverfront walk, 30 acres for light industry and 18 acres for heavy industry. The plan includes a public boat launch and dry dock and conversion of the two-level railroad bridge over the Monongahela River.

The bridge, which leads to Bates Street in Oakland, would have one level for cars and one for pedestrians. Gustine said his five-year plan would create 1,600 jobs and provide Oakland proposal aimed at halting 'cruising' by gays By Dan Donovan The Pittsburgh Press Residents of the South Craig Street section of Oakland have proposed an "anti-cruising" ordinance to prevent gay men from circling their neighborhood looking for sex partners. The ordinance would require the posting of signs reading: "No cruising zone, midnight to 5 a.m." City Council, which received a petition signed by 186 residents, will schedule a public hearing on the issue at a later date. Sue Hughes, a Winthrop Street resident, said noise, trespassing and sex acts in parked cars are the issue, not the gay lifestyle. "Gay neighbors have signed the petition," Ms.

Hughes said. "This is not a gay issue it's a public nuisance issue. We would feel the same way if this this was college students cruising the neighborhood." Previously, the neighborhood tried to get the city to limit travel on the street after midnight to local residents, but city officials said that was unworkable. Ms. Hughes said the neighbors researched the issue and found several anti-cruising ordinances in the state, some aimed at limiting travel by college students.

Some of those ordinances limit the number of times a car can pass a certain point during a set time; She said the group is requesting a similar ordinance for her neighborhood. But the ordinance is really an anti-gay ordinance, according to Randal G. Forrester, director of Persad Center a gay counseling center in Shadyside, and head of the city Human Relations Commission. Forrester said there already are ordinances against noise and tres-. passing that, if enforced, would satisfy the residents' complaints.

Please see Cruising, B4 tPMNVf ll i Council gives first OK to Shadyside helistop John HellerThe Pittsburgh Press Workers installed lights and completed other finishing touches as West End Bridge reopened Its 'go9 for the West End Bridge New traffic patterns at West End Bridge, Page B4. By Eleanor Chute The Pittsburgh Press City Council today gave tentative approval to a controversial helicopter stop at Shadyside Hospital. The vote was close 5 to 4 and the opposition vowed it hasn't given up. With the final council vote set for Tuesday, Roger Klein, a Shadyside resident and a member of the Committee to Stop the Helistop, said, "We're thrilled as many people supported us as they did. We're very optimistic we can change this vote next week." City Councilman Dan Cohen, who represents Shadyside and urged his fellow members to vote against the helistop, said, "I'm not giving up hope.

I am disappointed by today's vote." In addition to Cohen, members Michelle Madoff, Bernard "Baldy" Regan and Jake Milliones voted against the helistop. Members Michael Coyne, Dwayne Darkins, Jim Ferlo, Gene Ricciardi and Jack Wagner voted for it. The proposal has been so controversial that a public hearing on the matter last week took about eight hours, with supporters saying the helistop would save lives and opponents saying it would be noisy and damage the neighborhood's quality of life. Cohen said he doesn't believe there is a medical necessity for the helistop, noting that Shadyside Hospital doesn't have a trauma or burn center. Please see Helistop, B8 Dick Enterprises had a $46 million contract to repair the bridge.

New ramps eventually will go to and from Ohio River Boulevard and Western Avenue on the North Side. For now, motorists have to use Chateau Street to reach Ohio River Boulevard northbound from the bridge. To Ohio River Boulevard southbound, motorists will have to "double-back" via Beaver Avenue. About 30,000 cars are expected to use the bridge daily. After a 13-month shutdown, the West End' Bridge reopened today with no traffic restrictions.

Before the bridge underwent a rehabilitation, trucks were not allowed to ride in the right-hand lane. But traffic flowed freely this morning as the bridge, considered a vital commuter link, reopened to traffic. Police were stationed at both ends of the-bridge to allow smooth access to the span. Also open were the last parts of the West End Circle and West Carson Street affected by construction. Workers were still installing some lights and traffic signs as the bridge opened this morning.

The 59-year-old bridge over the Ohio River was finished almost three months ahead of the projected Oct. 1 completion date. Mysterious telephone problem here mirrored in many cities utilizes a system of computers that trade information at lightning-quick speeds to find the fastest and most efficient ways to route telephone calls. When a person makes a call with the computerized signaling system, information about the call is transmitted over lines that are reserved for data transmissions. The system Please see Telephones, B8 causes for its outages, "including hardware failure, hackers, viruses and all those kinds of things." An FBI spokeswoman, Sharon Smith, said in Washington that federal investigators would look into the matter if it appeared that sabotage caused the outages.

The problems locally lie within Bell of Pennsylvania's Common Channel Signaling Network, which The three-hour outage yesterday was almost an exact rerun of the service disruption Monday that left about 1.3 million customers in the 412 area code with disrupted telephone service. Calling it "a frustrating and difficult problem for us," Richards said service was lost about 10 a.m. yesterday and was restored about 1 p.m., or about half as long as By Matthew P. Smith The Pittsburgh Press It was back to the circuit board for Bell of Pennsylvania telephone technicians, who remained stymied by computer problems that paralyzed pnone lines for a second consecutive day. And even though the company Monday's outage.

Similar problems also have occurred in recent days in Maryland, California, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, parts of West Virginia and Washington, D.C. Larry Plumb, a spokesman for Bell Atlantic the parent company of Bell of Pennsylvania, said in Pittsburgh that the company was investigating a number of possible modified the troublesome computer software to minimize the chances of a recurrence, company officials said the disruption could happen again. "I cannot stand here and guarantee we won't have the problem tomorrow," Tom Richards, Bell of Pennsylvania vice president of operations, said at a news conference yesterday. Government does so much wrong it's a great scapegoat O'Neill buy a burger with your shoes on or off. Nor does it have rules on the return of bathing suits to stores.

(Though maybe it should.) No-return policies and "no shirts, no shoes, no service" policies are set by stores, but they often pass the buck to the government because everyone is so ready to believe Big Brother is watching everything. When I went back to the dry cleaner yesterday and told a clerk what I had found out, she was indignant. How would I like to work on pants, particularly ones with a broken zipper, that hadn't been washed? I told her I wouldn't. I just would rather be told it was store policy, rather than being told something that wasn't true. "Aw, you just want to write a story," she said.

Well, she got something right anyway. Caren Mariani, deputy attorney general in charge of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Consumer Protection, said, "Stores are free to set their own policies as long as the policy is disclosed clearly and conspicuously, and then the store must honor that policy. But they shouldn't misrepresent the source of the policy." The bureau tries to mediate complaints. I didn't want my money back. All I wanted from the dry cleaners was a simple: "I'm sorry.

We were mistaken. It won't happen again." They were the ones making a federal case of it (Brian O'Neill's column appears in The Pittsburgh Press every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.) one beat all. Wouldn't you have loved to have heard the debate when the dirty-torn-britches bill came through Washington? "Fellow senators, it is unconscionable that thousands of brave American seamstresses are exposed daily to ring around the collar and worse. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to form a more perfect pocket, so the pants are altogether fitting and proper, the right of the merchant to pick up a few extra bucks on the dry cleaning should not perish from the earth." Or something. Now, I have no complaint about the work done by this merchant.

I'm wearing the mended britches now, and I type with the confidence of a writer unafraid of exposure. But the alleged federal law? It's a myth. I GO INTO A DOWNTOWN dry cleaner with pants to be mended. The right front pocket is torn. I put the pants on the counter and tell the clerk what I want She asks if I want the pants laundered, too.

I start to say "no," but then I see a smudge at the bottom of one leg. So I say, "OK." That's when the woman tells me that, if pants are dirty, there's no choice. They must be laundered before any mending. "It's a federal law," she says. I chuckle and repeat her statement, only with a question mark on my end.

little indignantly, she stands firm and adds that the seamstress won't work on these pants unless they're cleaned first. The older I get, the more I tend to believe this country has too many laws, not too few. This same thing. This law doesn't exist. The state Health Department, in particular, is used to being the scapegoat for any policy a consumer might not necessarily like.

For instance, do you know those signs about having to wear shoes and shirts into a store or restaurant, "By Order of the State Health They're lies. The Health Department couldn't care less whether you The Federal Information Center in Cumberland, says there is no law about washing before mending in Pennsylvania. "It's simply a store policy that should be posted," said Susan Knisley, who told me she had spoken with the state attorney general's Bureau of Consumer Protection in Pittsburgh. By then I also had contacted the Allegheny County and state health departments about this pressing issue. They told me the.