NFL Draft cleanup efforts are underway after three full days of action in Pittsburgh’s North Shore and Downtown.
The NFL said this year’s draft set a total attendance record of 805,000, a figure that combines visitors each day between Thursday and Saturday.
City officials took to Facebook to announce public works crews were working on reopening roads and complete other tasks.
Despite the large crowds concentrated in the draft area, Pittsburgh Public Safety officials reported a total of 20 arrests were made and 18 non-traffic citations were issued during the three-day event.
EMS responded to 229 calls for service and transported 45 people to hospitals.
There was one fire due to hot ashes from a grill on day three.
State police made one misdemeanor arrest throughout the event.
One engagement ring was recovered from a sewer grate and one firearm was recovered, both on the first day of the Draft.
PennDOT officials announced several bridges and ramps in Pittsburgh were reopened Sunday. They included Northbound I-279 to northbound Route 65, Smithfield Street Bridge, Southbound Route 65 to the Fort Duquesne Bridge, Allegheny Avenue/Ridge Avenue ramp to the Fort Duquesne Bridge and Eastbound I-376 ramp to Liberty Avenue (Exit 70A) and Liberty Avenue to the Fort Pitt Bridge.
On Sunday, the fountain at Point State Park was open, but a lot of the grounds were closed to the public as crews worked to dismantle a stage and other areas part of the NFL Draft Experience.
University of Pittsburgh seniors Patrick Schneider and Tara Wittlinger were out for a Sunday morning jog that took them to Point State Park. They were training for the Pittsburgh Marathon on May 3.
“It’s definitely funny to see,” Schneider said of the quick turnaround from celebration to construction.
The pair were at the draft on Saturday, which had partly cloudy skies with off-and-on rain showers most of the day. “I’m glad all the tourists got a taste of the real Pittsburgh weather yesterday,” Wittlinger said.
Schneider called the draft crowd very energetic. “There was a lot more people than I thought was going to be there,” he said.”The traffic was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. But the prices for beer were crazy.”
Point Park University freshmen Cora Palanski and Jasmine Ogawa celebrated the end of a weekend with their friend, Alison Henry of Rochester, N.Y. The trio had picked up goodies from La Gourmadine and settled in Point State Park to snack late Sunday morning.
Palanski said they had no interest in attending the draft.
“We were told that a lot of people were going to be coming and Downtown was going to be absolutely flooded,” Palanski said. “Our in-person classes were canceled this week. That’s how seriously they were taking it. I wanted to avoid the crowd.”
Ogawa said she is not into football but went people-watching in Market Square during the event.
Henry, who drove into Pittsburgh on Friday, found it easy to get around despite the draft crowds.
Shorty’s Pins X Pints on the North Shore was one of the more popular spots during the NFL Draft and leading up to it. It hosted parties following performances by artists Steve Aoki, Nelly and 2Chainz. Parent company Legacy Hospitality Group also owns The Plaza at North Shore where the concerts took place.
Operating partner Matt Minichino said more than 25,000 people partied Wednesday through Saturday.
“It was overall an absolute great experience,” he said. “We’re in that area where the draft brought a tremendous amount of people. We really leaned into it as a company with our additional programming.”
Shorty’s received a temporary permit from the city to open their expansion at the former Voodoo Brewing. Its grand opening is expected to be some time late May.
Minichino said operations are already back to normal. He likened the day after the draft to a Monday following a Sunday Steelers game.
“It’s pretty easy to recover because we are pretty used to it,” Minichino said. “The Pittsburgh fan base is such an amazing fan base.”
Correction: This story has been updated with numbers for all three days of the draft combined.