Lori Falce: What is the best way to spend $65 million? Let us count the ways

Pittsburghers — like most Pennsylvanians and, well, people in general — are not really fond of change.

Ask for directions, and you are likely to be given turns based on businesses that aren’t there anymore.

A fair number of people still talk about Three Rivers Stadium, let alone Heinz Field, when they discuss the Steelers. The good people at Acrisure just have to deal with it. After several attempts with other monikers, the operators of the Burgettstown concert venue — originally Star Lake Amphitheater — gave up on changing people’s minds and met them halfway with the Pavilion at Star Lake.

And so it is interesting, less than two years after the Acrisure deal tested the collective ability to change gears, to see another Pittsburgh institution wading into those waters.

On Tuesday, it was announced that the Carnegie Science Center was changing its name. A $65 million gift turned it into the Daniel G. Kamin and Carole L. Kamin Science Center. It’s an incredibly large donation — the largest since legendary industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie gave the $20 million that kickstarted the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

The Kamin gift is large and certainly something other wealthy benefactors do, putting their names on hospital facilities (UPMC Hillman Cancer Center), museums (The Frick), schools (Carnegie Mellon University) and parts thereof (Heinz Chapel at Pitt).

The names are background noise we don’t even think about because they have always been there. The Carnegie name is everywhere in the area. It certainly won’t be missed on one building named after someone else — especially as the name still stays on the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh overarching organization. The museums will doubtless put the millions to good use.

But will the name on the building even matter? Not if you listen to the locals who have had fun with it on social media.

“Imagine donating $65 million for stubborn Yinzers to still call it the Carnegie Science Center,” one poster on Reddit said.

It makes you wonder if there are other things those with disposable income could name to better provide for the community.

Where do we find a millionaire — the Kamins aren’t even on the Forbes list of billionaires — who could fund a stalled school project? What about a fleet of ambulances or fire trucks? People endow professor positions at universities all of the time. Why not an endowment for a staff of police officers or nurses or elementary school teachers?

At the height of his wealth, Carnegie was worth an astonishing amount of money for the time. In today’s numbers, it’s estimated at $309 billion. For context, that means he could buy Elon Musk’s entire net worth ($203.6 billion) and still have enough money left over to be the 11th richest man in the world.

Carnegie was no saint, but he still considered hoarding his wealth to the end of his life a grave sin, saying “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” Other billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have made it a point to attempt to give away as much of their wealth as possible. (I say attempt because Buffet made $796 million Thursday, according to Forbes; Gates made $536 million.)

There are more needs in our communities than the biggest buildings with the most cachet. There is nothing wrong with giving more money to erase a previous philanthropist’s gift and write your name over it, but there may be better and more lasting ways to have a substantial impact — and the tax breaks that come with it.

But Carnegie’s legacy may say otherwise.