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(Second of two parts. Part 1 appeared Monday.)

(For a better look, download the above illustration in PDF form.)

Local officials and staff from Blueroof Technologies today are breaking ground on the city-based non-profit's new "research cottage."

The single-family frame home, similar in appearance to Blueroof's "model cottage" on Spring Avenue, will be equipped with more than 80 sensors that enable gerontology researchers to remotely gather data on the occupants' health and quality of life.

It's one of three new buildings Blueroof will erect this summer; the others are another single-family home and a group home for the disabled, which will be operated by Mon-Yough Community Services.

Though the model cottage is equipped with the same technology, it's not being used as a residence, so there's no long-term monitoring, says John Bertoty, executive director of Blueroof.

"To get real data, we need people living there full-time, and we need multiples of these," he says. "Our objective is to put 15 of these in this zone."

Blueroof is working with the McKeesport Housing Authority to find qualified senior citizens interested in occupying the houses. The houses will start as rentals, but will likely be sold eventually to their occupants.

. . .

As City Administrator Dennis Pittman points out, the Blueroof development is part of a much larger, ongoing effort to rehabilitate the Third Ward.

New housing is being built near the former St. Mary's German School by McKeesport Housing Corp.

Preliminary negotiations are underway with a large grocery chain to place a supermarket on Walnut Street, Pittman says, while the site of the former Tube City Brewing Co. is being seriously eyed as a location for a new regional courthouse.

"Thirty-three municipalities would be using a facility in an area right now that's blighted," Mayor Jim Brewster says.

The courthouse would replace a half-finished building that was to be used by defunct Capco Contracting. (The company folded after its owner pleaded guilty to defrauding the federal government.)

Although the proposed courthouse would not pay property taxes, the mayor and others hope that related businesses will move onto Walnut Street to serve workers and visitors --- like restaurants.

City officials are also discussing a proposal to erect a new public safety center in the Third Ward to replace the cramped fire and police stations at the former municipal building on Lysle Boulevard. Pittman and Brewster reported at this month's council meeting that the city is actively looking for tenants to either rent or buy the 1959 structure. Several have already toured the facility.

"Where we were talking about demolition, we may be talking about a lease down the road," Brewster says.

"All of these things are going to come together," Pittman says, "and taken separately, they're small, but together there's a synergy. Good news breeds good news."

. . .

It's the most good news in a long time for the Third Ward, which has been one of the city's most depressed neighborhoods since the 1960s.

Once bisected by railroad tracks and the home to "Brick Alley," the Mon Valley's notorious red-light district, the ward was full of slum housing by the 1970s.

Open-air drug markets thrived along Walnut Street; gangs battled in a nearby high-rise at the Harrison Village housing complex.

One of the two problem-plagued high-rises has since been demolished, along with dozens of dilapidated stores and houses --- part of a decade-long, continuing effort to rid the city of abandoned buildings.

Although many of the buildings have disappeared, not much has replaced them, and the Third Ward remains desperately poor. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 52 percent of the neighborhood lives below the poverty line.

About 60 percent of the approximately 1,600 residents are African-American. The neighborhood is also demographically old; more than 38 percent of residents are 65 and older. The U.S. average is about 12 percent.

Most of the homes are older as well, with a median construction date of 1940.

If there's a silver lining, it's that the majority of the people in the neighborhood have lived there for 20 years or more, which may indicate a willingness by residents to stay tough through the bad times.

Maybe their patience is finally going to be rewarded.

. . .

At the heart of the Third Ward's struggle to return from the dead is Blueroof.

"We want to bring quality of life back to the neighborhood," Bertoty says. "We also wanted to create something that could be replicated anywhere in the state."

Bertoty, Robert Walters and Gerry Gesmond had economic redevelopment in mind when they founded the corporation. (The name "Blueroof" refers not to the houses, but to the blue-roofed buildings at the former U.S. Steel National Works.)

Walters is an engineering professor at Penn State's Greater Allegheny Campus, while Gesmond, a contractor, and Bertoty, retired principal of McKeesport Area High School, are both lifelong city residents. Also on Blueroof's executive committee is Judith Bookhammer, another educator and president of the Pennsylvania School Counselors Association.

Bertoty and Walters were frustrated. Time and again, they watched as students graduated from MAHS or Penn State, but then were forced to leave the area to find work.

It was especially galling for Bertoty, who served for a year as acting vocational director of McKeesport Area Technology Center (the former vo-tech, or "Voke" in McKeesportese), and who thus saw first hand the quality of students pursuing technological or vocational educations in McKeesport.

The MATC has one of the nation's first high school vocational training programs in building construction.

"Bob was the real visionary," Bertoty says. "We really wanted to start a company that would hire these kids, so that we could hire kids coming right out of the technical programs ... the company really does focus on McKeesport."

. . .

For now, the walls and structural components of Blueroof's "smart houses" for senior citizens and the disabled are being fabricated by a company in Clarion County. Blueroof's goal is to open a manufacturing facility in the Third Ward soon, probably on a vacant lot along Walnut Street near Spring Avenue.

Though Blueroof is constantly seeking funding to support its activities, an ongoing research grant ensures the corporation will continue its work for the next eight years.

And a partnership with the Quality of Life Technology Center, a joint venture between the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, is bringing faculty and students to the city to conduct research into Blueroof's assistive technology for seniors and the disabled.

. . .

There is a strong possibility that some of the new homes being built in the Third Ward will be used as low-cost housing for CMU and Pitt personnel. They could then conduct their research within walking distance of their residences.

Shuttle buses would enable them to commute to the universities' Oakland campuses.

Bertoty says Brewster, Pittman and other city officials have "been marvelous" at cutting through red tape and offering other assistance.

"If it becomes a more desirable place to live, you're going to see people want to own a home here," Bertoty says, though he admits "it's not the kind of turnaround that's going to take place immediately."

But the decline of the Third Ward didn't happen immediately, either. And the current activity indicates that a section of the city that was neglected for far too long is finally getting the attention its residents deserve.

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