What should be Pittsburgh's top priorities in sprucing up for hosting the G-20 summit?

Pittsburgh has begun a wide-ranging, summer-long effort to spruce up, secure and show off the city for hosting the G-20 summit of global heads of state and finance ministers Sept. 24 and 25.

What should be the top priorities in preparing Pittsburgh for its two days in the global spotlight?

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 Ways I think Pittsburgh should spruce up:

1. Enforce littering fines more and more leading up to the G-20 especially in Downtown.           

2. Have beat cops patroling Downtown by foot.

3. Clean up some of the dirty sidewalks; especially on LIberty Ave and Wood St.

4. Get businesses to stay open later during those days.

5. Open a temporary store to help the people here get around.

6. Get the SWAT team and cops to prepare for possibly violent protestors.

 Clearly Governor Ed Rendell should deploy the PA National Guard into Pittsburgh's most violent neighborhoods like Homewood and East Liberty while suspending Habius Corpus. City Council should also place a ban on supermarkets selling any pork products what so ever as these may offend our muslim visitors. It would also be a good idea to bulldoze any empty Chrysler dealerships and replace them with giant oak trees and park benches, ACORN  headquarters, or Chinese linguistics schools. This will demonstrate City diversity and how far "we" will go to appease and become more politically correct. There will be millions in bailout cash, so let's get moving. This is after all the City of Champions!

A serious thought.

1) Finally get around to patching those pesky potholes.

And some less serious ones.

2) Have "What Not To Wear" do a special yinzer edition on WQED so everyone is more photogenic.

3) Consider high-powered halogens on Mt. Washington in case of cloudiness.

4) Ask Zambelli for a beautiful display that ends with the world going up in smoke.

5) Line the Parkway West with dancing Tamburitzans.

6) Clean up Homestead for a fantastic pro-labor photo op. Pinkerton costumes would be a nice touch.  

7) Have Primanti's go for a world-record attempt to build the world record largest sandwich.

8) Encourage the G20 leaders to suit up for an old-fashioned Mrs. T's Pierogi race...

9) Contrast London's customer-unfriendly policy of taping over officer's name badges by branding a welcome message into the batons: "Welcome to Pittsburgh! Your skull has been cracked by Officer Smith. If I didn't smile while doing this, please call 1-800-U-BEAT-ME." [no disrespect intended to Pittsburgh cops ... more a point about the fearmongering London bobbies]

Very seriously though, London shows that there are two super-clear priorities for the city. The security of the attendees and the security of Pittsburgh's own people/property. Everything else will be worthless if something goes wrong on that level ... they have been overzealous, but that is more easily forgiven and/or forgotten than any of the leaders being harmed.   

It would be good for the city to provide a liaison service for property insurance (at least for those in the "strike zone"). Policies could be reviewed by those specialised in the risk-assessment of these events. If the current coverage carried by the property owner is insufficient, the city could take the lead in bundling all those needing short-term coverage (with very specific terms) to get a lower rate.

The rest of the PR stuff is standard media management, taking advantage of the attention to push existing messages and priorities. It's just the scale that's larger ... the city just needs to polish its shoes, make sure the fridge is full and keep most interesting storytellers in town.   

 1. Streets should be spotless

2. Light up downtown like light up night

3. Somehow keep attendees from going anywhere near 4th, 5th & Wood (unless their looking for a wig).

4. Have goodwill ambassadors strategically placed on foot and in kiosks

5. Live entertainment in Mellon Square with fountain on 24 hours

Forgot one. Utilize the nearby beautiful August Wilson Center for concerts, presentations, etc. 

xsm941f:

 1. Streets should be spotless

2. Light up downtown like light up night

3. Somehow keep attendees from going anywhere near 4th, 5th & Wood (unless their looking for a wig).

4. Have goodwill ambassadors strategically placed on foot and in kiosks

5. Live entertainment in Mellon Square with fountain on 24 hours

 Utilize the nearby beautiful August Wilson Center for concerts, presentations, etc. 

Agree with all of the above.  Good list

Can't emphasize cleanliness enough.  Downtown is pretty dirty and agree with another poster who suggested ticketing those that litter.

Visitors going beyond the cultural district don't have much to see.

Pittsburghers don't spruce up -- we redd up!

So, to redd up Pittsburgh, I would:

- Drape hot pink fabric over the UPMC sign, the casino parking garage, the orange seats at Heinz Field, the parking lot where the Syria Mosque used to be, and other local eyesores.  Out of towners will think they're cutting-edge art installations.

- Lay fresh flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Bowler.

- Buy a bunch of those $1000 Ravenstahl garbage cans.  They're sure to impress. 

- Ticket aggressively for littering AND yakking on cell phones at high volume.   Our visitors need protection from noise pollution, too.

- Clean up the trash and goose poop on our roadways, parks and riverbanks. Everything could be quickly stashed in the tunnel beneath the Allegheny to hide it from our visitors.  (Pittsburghers normally do this sort of thing when they redd up for company.) 

- Replace our ratty black-and-gold Steeler banners with spiffy new "City of Champions" ones.  (Penguins, you need to do your part here!)  Sophie Masloff has some leftover banners from 1979 in her basement, just in case.

- Finish some of those interminable road construction projects, or declare orange barrels the official Pittsburgh city tree and be done with it.

- Stock the food court at the convention center with our favorite local delicacies: Iron City and East End beer, "O" fries, Primanti sandwiches, pierogies, haluski, Wholey Whalers, Natrona Bottling Company pop, and deep fried Klondikes.  Every order comes with a free roll of Tums.

Can we please, please, get money to fix our worst bridges? They are seriously unsafe...

 Agree with the common sense redd up reply as to cleaning up trash and fixing potholes.  The thought that entered my mind tho is that we're talking about showing off our city when we can't even  keep a part of our history open.  I'm referring to the potential closing of the Fort Pitt museum.  Keep it open for G-20 and maybe we can find the money to not lose this part of us permanently.

 Chillax man!! Can't we all just get along!!

1) Get the fountain working!!! (Even if it takes a generator... )

2) HOSPITALITY of our world guests is crucial. We need to have  multi-cultural ambassadors stationed at key areas to assist in every facet imaginable.

3) As most of the procedings will take place at the DL Convention Center, I would go above and beyond to beautify the Allegheny River bank of debris and wild foliage growing in the concrete within eye shot. This place should GLEAM on the inside as well.

4)The  PJ Mcardle Expressway from the Liberty Bridge needs to be repaired ---FAST

5) Some sections of Grandview Ave in Mount Washington overlooking the point are overgrown with wild sycamore trees and the view is obstructed. 

1. PLEASE --- exterminate the pigeons!!!  I love animals - and I STILL say get ride of every single last pigeon downtown. So many other cities I've been to (San Francisco being the all-time cleanest city) haven't had such a disgusting number of these flying, disease-ridden rats scuffling about. It's really unsanitary. Not even NYC is as bad!

2. No More Yinzers! These "old-fashioned/old school" Pittsburghers are really a blight on the city and you need to face reality: if you want to progress and be apart of the modern world you need to speak clear english and have the most opened of minds. Being a simple-minded person with conservative views on social issues (because of your devout Christian ways) is a real turn-off to real world individuals.

3. Clean up Market Square, Wood Street, the Wood Street Galleries Bldg and Liberty Ave from the pollution, bums, drug dealers and out-right vagrants that are the BIGGEST EYESORE. It's very unfortunate that a Port Authority police car is permanant in this location because it's that bad. I mean, come on, get rid of gang-related clothing stores. The message is clear: GET OUT!

4. Light-Up Night II: keep downtown stores open later on these evenings and keep office tower lights on later. Let's make a nice attempt @ not shutting down @ 4pm, ok? 

5. Give the G-20 visitors booklets or pamphlets on various projects w/ illustrations, descriptions, etc that cannot be seen but are on the drawing board. Make sure they know that the new developments they are seeing aren't the only ones in the pipeline. 

6. Makeovers for ALL: cities w/ people who take care of themselves get much more respect. Get that haircut, say goodbye to the mullet - basically, embrace the metro-sexual you! :)

Good Luck, Pittsburgh!

 To: JRGraff08

You know your're a real a$$ comin on here and sayin rude stuff like that.  You shouldn't judge people by their accent nor their hairstyle and espcially their religion.  You should leave Pittsburgh and move to San Francisco if you love it so much.  This is Pittsburgh, not San Fran, not New York.  We have our own history and our own lifestyle and most Pittsburghers/Yinzers are proud of it.  You insulted a lot of people in your statement.

You can have your own beliefs and own lifestyle.  That is fine.  Just don't insult other people's beliefs and lifestyle.  That won't get you very far around here.  Pittsburgh is accepting to most people as long as you accept them.

The Mayor:

 To: JRGraff08

You know your're a real a$ comin on here and sayin rude stuff like that.  You shouldn't judge people by their accent nor their hairstyle and espcially their religion.  You should leave Pittsburgh and move to San Francisco if you love it so much.  This is Pittsburgh, not San Fran, not New York.  We have our own history and our own lifestyle and most Pittsburghers/Yinzers are proud of it.  You insulted a lot of people in your statement.

You can have your own beliefs and own lifestyle.  That is fine.  Just don't insult other people's beliefs and lifestyle.  That won't get you very far around here.  Pittsburgh is accepting to most people as long as you accept them.

 

LOL! You must be sportn' a mullet. 

Pittsburgh's a dump, plain and simple.  Get it cleaned up. Frankly, I'm suprised at whatever world body picked Pittsburgh to host this conference.