In 1986, in response to some citizen complaints and legal action by the ACLU, the city, by order of Mayor Caliguiri, placed a plaque entitled "Salute to Liberty." and reading: "During this holiday season, the city of Pittsburgh salutes liberty. Let these festive lights remind us that we are the keepers of the flame of liberty and our legacy of freedom." Three years later, by two 5-4 decisions, the United States Supreme Court upheld in part and denied in part the city's position in "County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union". In the late 1980s, Caliguiri was diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare and serious protein disorder. Coincidentally, within a few years in the mid to late 1980s, three of Pennsylvania's most prominent political leaders were afflicted with the disorder. Caliguiri as well as longtime Erie Mayor Louis Tullio and Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey were all diagnosed with the incurable and usually fatal disease. Caliguiri refused to allow his declining health to affect his leadership and declined to step down as mayor. He died in 1988 at the age of 56, and was interred in Pittsburgh's Roman Catholic Calvary Cemetery. In October 1990, a commemorative statue of Caliguiri sculpted by Robert Berks was dedicated on the steps of the Downtown Pittsburgh City-County Building on Grant Street. According to Caliguiri's son David, previous ideas had included a renaming of Grant Street and the Pittsburgh Civic (later Mellon) Arena. Caliguiri, who graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1950, was inducted into their alumni hall of fame in 2010. The Mayor is spotlighted in a cameo playing himself in the sport/cult classic "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh" in 1979. Near the middle of the film he is seen on the extreme right introducing to a cheering crowd the city's basketball team at an indoor rally. He slips off camera for a few seconds and then is seen again patting them on the back and shaking hands with the actors and coach, before he extends across the crowd to shake Julius Erving's hand (one of the "actors" on the team) and is met warmly by a surprised Dr. J. On May 18, 1987 Caliguiri was a guest on a national broadcast of "The Today Show" as it filmed in Pittsburgh.