Alcoa Divides Corporate Interests between Pittsburgh, New York City.

Byline: Len Boselovic

Sep. 30--This is a tale of two cities.

One is the Steel City, small, affordable and friendly. The other, the Big Apple, is sprawling, expensive and, until Sept. 11's tragic events, at times almost aloof.

One offers the quiet, idyllic streets of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood; the other, the multicultural world of Sesame Street.

In one, there's a pawnshop on the corner, according to a faintly remembered tune by legendary crooner Guy Mitchell. The other was immortalized by the blue-eyed Chairman of the Board, whose vagabond shoes longed to stray to a city that doesn't sleep.

One of the cities is almost obsessively insecure about its standing in the world; the other is sure of itself and its importance.

One is a languishing corporate metropolis, demoralized by the demise of Westinghouse Electric, Gulf Oil and other ghosts of industry past. The other is the home of Wall Street and countless other frenetic byways filled with so many corporate headquarters that the departure of a Fortune 100 company would escape notice.

So which of these towns is really home to the world's biggest aluminum producer: Pittsburgh, the possessor of the Alcoa Corporate Center, or New York, where Alcoa has a 20-year lease in the landmark Lever House on Manhattan's fashionable Park Avenue?

Going by length of service and sheer numbers, …