Transit system sits on gold mine

PITTSBURGH - Allegheny County's cash-strapped public transit agency apparently owns valuable works of art.

A work by Sol LeWitt, an American master of conceptual art, hangs in a downtown subway station. And the Allegheny County Port Authority has learned that a Romare Bearden mural at another subway station may be worth several million dollars.

LeWitt's

Thirteen Geometric Figures

, 203 feet long and 9 feet tall, was paid for by philanthropist Vira I. Heinz, the transit agency said.

"Any textbook will tell you that LeWitt was the father, or one of the fathers, of what is called conceptual art. His work is all across the world and in all kinds of museums," said Harry Cooper, curator of modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

The agency does not plan an appraisal of the piece by LeWitt, who died in April at age 78, but it will appraise Bearden's 60-by-13-foot tiled mural,

Pittsburgh Recollections

, port authority spokeswoman Judy McNeil said.

The appraisal is being done because the agency plans to remove the mural during construction of a new station as part of a $435 million plan to extend the subway to the city's North Shore, she said.

A preliminary estimate valued the piece at several million dollars, McNeil said. Bearden, who died in 1988 at age 76, was paid $90,000 for the mural, which was installed in 1984.

The port authority is considering a new home for the piece.

"If perhaps a foundation or organization would be interested in purchasing it and keeping it in Pittsburgh, then it would be a win-win," said Kevin Evanto, spokesman for County Executive Dan Onorato.

The county this year implemented a 10 percent tax on alcoholic drinks and a $2-per-day tax on car rentals to help pay its $30 million subsidy to the port authority.