Bobbing, weaving, all that
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oakland to the Monongahela River
Hey, that’s PITT’s Cathedral of Learning pictured above. Lookit that.
As described in a prior post, your humble narrator attended a walking tour of Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, conducted by the ‘bikePGH’ outfit – who are the local incarnation of the ‘bicycle people.’
In general, they’re a lot nicer in person than the analogue group you’ll encounter in NYC, the ones who styled themselves as ‘Transportation Alternatives.’ With a few exceptions, I always found the TA people to be blowhard keyboard warriors, and ideologues. They would show up looking for a fight, and would start one if they didn’t encounter opposition towards their goals. They fund raise on hostility.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying that, one of the TA ideologues in Queens is who the inspiration for my Toyota’s name comes from – the ‘Mobile Oppression Platform.’ Same person once described a driver sticking a key in the ignition of a motor vehicle as then ‘existing in a state of pre-murder.’
Honestly, they’re so good at this sort of deceptive and inflammatory political language that they should consider joining the Republican Party. Bah!
While heading for the river via Forbes Avenue, and ruminating, an unnecessarily Brutalist academic building was encountered. Whenever I see this sort of architecture, my first thought goes to ‘Conquest of the Planet of the Apes’ for some reason. Yuck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are quite a few places in Pittsburgh where taking a walk can mean a street crossing can likely end your life. To wit, this is the ‘ass end’ of Forbes Avenue, where it just sort of terminates at a highway off ramp.
Another one of the routes that I commonly drive through, that’s I-376 down there, an east/west high speed road which leads to the Squirrel Hill Tunnel on one side (it continues on, and on, after the tunnel) and to the Fort Pitt Tunnel on the other.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying all that, the TA people back home are – in fact – right about certain things. So are their analogues here in Pittsburgh.
I’ve mentioned a few times that driving the roads out here in Pittsburgh are kind of like the Wild West, with little, or no enforcement of traffic law by the local gendarmerie. It’s common for people to travel along at 80 mph, on a highway with a posted limit of 40, thereby. When drivers come to an off ramp/exit, and enter the local streets, their vehicles are often doing so at highway speeds. It’s madness.
So… notice the cross walk paint on that off ramp? Yup.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I still can’t run for any protracted distance, but I do have my ‘burst’ speed back, post ‘orthopedic incident.’ See? Haven’t mentioned it in weeks.
The ankle still hurts, all the time. It’s a dull ache sort of thing, and while out for long walks a few distinct annoyances pop up. A cramp, or some part of the affected foot will start announcing itself to my nervous system, soreness, and every now and then a clicking sensation as a tendon pulls itself over the surgically inserted metallic hardware I now own down there. When I get back to HQ and doff my shoes, that’s when it gets fun.
Saying all that, I can walk pretty long distances again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Man… me and mine always railed on about the way that the FDR drive cut New Yorkers off from their waterfront back home. Look at this… these highways and their ramps are the Theodosian Walls of cutting off any sort of access to the river. Sheesh.
Saying that, love taking pics of this sort of thing. Massing shapes and geometries…
Back next week with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Veiled scuttling
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Squirrel Hill to Oakland…
Locally, the ‘bicycle people’ in Pittsburgh style themselves as ‘bikePGH.’
A non-profit, the group is focusing some of its city-wide efforts on pedestrian concerns this year, and offering walking tours through the various neighborhoods which discuss traffic, safety, and transit issues. A recent excursion occurred in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, and your humble narrator was in attendance. Nice people, fairly short walk.
After the tour, though, I got all concerned with pedestrian concerns of my own. Getting back to HQ in Dormont!
I leaned into a five mile(ish) scuttle, during which I feared that my life would be snuffed out by some speeding car or random pickup truck no more than three times. Pretty good for Pittsburgh, that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One cut through a park, which was horrifically nice and terribly well maintained. The burning thermonuclear eye of god itself stared down at me balefully, hurling electromagnetic radiates with hateful intent. The breeze carried waveforms of airborne micro-ballista at me, in the form of needle nosed pollen missiles. My skin hurt for some other reason, maybe it was the pollen, but… For once, I didn’t urgently need to pee. My left eyebrow also hurt for some reason. The ankle was… ahhh feck… I’m all ‘effed up.
The plan was – and I did check the direction on my little compass – to head towards the Monongahela River from the central triangular peninsula of Pittsburgh, but where I was poised is pretty close to the hypotenuse. One had pondered this route the night before, and ‘step one’ would involve heading towards the big colleges, from Squirrel Hill. Specifically I was heading towards the ‘Pitt’ (University of Pittsburgh) and ‘CMU’ (Carnegie Mellon University) zone of the Oakland neighborhood.
Tall buildings that stick up over the tree line, which you can use as navigational landmarks, are indeed a plus. I used to navigate all around NYC by triangulating the World Trade Center, Empire State, and Chrysler buildings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a series of ornate bridges, found where the campuses bump up against the park. This particular bridge was closed for construction, but the bike lane remained open and I followed that course.
Can’t close a bike lane, it’s all that truly matters, the bike lane.
One feels very much out of place in this area, as a note. I’m a thousand years old, and horrible to behold in my state of decay. There I walked, scuttling past impossibly young people at the very beginning of their journey.
One must have looked like some sort of ancient mariner, trapped in his endless existential loop, marching around with a camera in a strange city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down below, in the park, there’s a set of rail tracks. I did spot a train going through, but couldn’t get a decent shot of it. Fail.
It was right around this point that I realized a new pair of shoes will be needed pretty soon, as too little of the treads on the soles of the ones I’ve been wearing are still extant. There has to be at least 500 to 1,000 miles of wear on the ones I’ve been wearing since last summer.
All this scuttling adds up, Y’know…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the bridge over the park closest to Pitt’s campus, hundreds of padlocks are on display along the fenceline.
I’m told this is a modern custom for young lovers to engage in, with the symbolism being that they are locked together. I see these all over the place on bridges, and it’s adorable, but apparently also a source of great angst for the engineers who maintain these bridges. Literally hundreds to thousands of pounds of ‘load’ are being inserted into their bridge equations due to this social media trend. Also, that chain link ain’t structural.
People, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were still miles and miles, and a river, to cross.
One leaned into it, pushed forward, adjusting the various camera and bag straps affixed to my torso as I did. A good moment to check all of my pockets, and confirm that all the small things which are secreted about my person were still there. Wallet, keys, Leatherman, cash, headphones, all the camera stuff, etc.
‘Personal Area Network’ is the underlying concept that guides me when I’m dressing to leave the house. Everything has a function, and a place.
I’ve had to expand that list since living in Pittsburgh, to include a water bottle, and a few other objects which weren’t part of the NYC version of my ‘everyday carry.’ I’m very, very embedded into the ‘EDC’ concept.
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
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A blind man describing what parrots look like
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with an exploratory scuttle along McNeilly Road in the Pittsburgh area, during which I was avoiding any contact whatsoever with the NFL Draft event happening elsewhere in Pittsburgh.
The Newtown Pentacle time warp is still in effect, btw, as I’ve somehow managed to get way ahead of schedule. These photos are from the 22nd of April, the words you’re reading were written in mid May, and you should be receiving this in late June, if I’ve got my scheduling correct.
A relatively short course of just about two to three miles, found between Route 88/Library Road and Route 19 Truck West Liberty Avenue (with a one block insertion from a street called ‘Pioneer Avenue’), McNeilly is another one of the locales where people dug holes into the earth and then spent 12 hours a day down in the dark with torches on their hats, in the company of company owned donkeys which never saw the light of day.
At the lower right hand corner of the shot above, where all those tires are stacked up behind a fence, there’s a forgotten coal mine portal which was discovered during a 2008 renovation project at the T station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the north(ish) side of the street, a series of steep hills lead up to a fairly modern real estate development of suburban style homes on a plateau. I noticed that non-stepped dirt path from ‘below to up’ there. Must be a real joy to walk during the winter, or when it’s raining.
Most of the commercial buildings found on the southerly side of the street are empty, with realtor signs displayed prominently.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I got into another argument with Google’s AI recently.
Gemini insists that this ‘clearly a tributary of Saw Mill Run’ stream is in fact part of the main body of the waterway, which in reality runs along Library Road, and then a section of a road called ‘Saw Mill Run Boulevard.’ Historically speaking, Pennsylvania has been occupied by European Busybodies for centuries, and it is culturally impossible that these tributaries haven’t been assigned individual names by either the Europeans, or the Natives before them. That’s information which likely hasn’t been digitized yet, meaning that to an AI’s POV the name doesn’t exist, and thereby it makes presumptions and pronouncements to try and please a user, even if it’s a bad or incorrect answer. Human children are told to ‘not just make something up if you don’t know an answer.’
No bueno.
I got started on this whole coal quest due to my curiosities about a stream across the street from HQ in Dormont, which seems to not have a name. Despite it being on maps, and being part of larger storm water drainage strategy here in Dormont and the surrounding communities, no name. It appears on maps as ‘a “UNT” or unnamed tributary of Saw Mill Run.’ I’ve been around a LOT of governmental conversations about water, and believe me when I tell you that the stream has a name or at least a number. Aquifers have names, even though they’re found deep in the ground, as an example.
The coal guys litigated mineral rights for every square inch of surface land around here, and then down a thousand feet. It’s IMPOSSIBLE that this water is ‘unnamed.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A lot of the older residential buildings along McNeilly appear to be ‘Miner’s homes,’ a style of dwelling which I mentioned a few posts ago, when discussing Bethel Park. This is a pretty standard model of house, hereabouts, although in modernity additions and renovations have altered the homogeneity once on display. The presence of this model of house, in numbers, indicates that mining used to take place nearby during an era when people walked to work.
McNeilly Road begins angling upwards midway, forming into a fairly gentle but long upslope grade away from ‘down here.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
McNeilly Road continues past a couple of secondary schools, one religious and one public, and is lined with residences for the last mile of its regency.
Now… the plan for the rest of my day was to meet up with Our Lady of the Pentacle, and some friends, at a local brewery to have a drink and listen to a local band play some tunes.
One decided that it might be interesting to see what Google’s Gemini might offer to me as the shortest walking route between ‘here’ and ‘there.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the title offers, it was like asking a blind man to describe what a parrot looks like, as this was the route it suggested using.
GPS directions in Pittsburgh always require some interpretation because of the terrain, as that factor doesn’t seem to be something that AI’s ‘see.’ The path pictured above does, indeed, go directly to my destination in the shortest sense of ‘how the crow flies,’ but the orthographic overview of the street map doesn’t calculate the hills and valleys – at all.
The real world, and Pittsburgh in particular, is three dimensional.
Y’know how I always offer that I’m safeguarding myself against getting ‘cul-de-sac’d’ while walking about in Pittsburgh by figuring out a route before I take a walk? This is what I mean, and avoid.
I walked a couple of extra blocks, made a left, and followed a ridge line to get to where I was going rather than enduring those ups and downs. Bah!
Back tomorrow with something different.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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McNeilly Station
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another day, another walk in search of extant evidence of coal mining in the South Hills section of Pittsburgh, while avoiding any contact whatsoever with the NFL Draft at the end of April here in Pittsburgh.
This outing required me to transfer lines on the T, which was a new experience for one such as myself. The Red Line was ridden to the South Hills Junction stop, where a Blue Line T unit was boarded. This line runs along the Saw Mill Run waterbody, and to a section I was keen to visit, traveling on tracks that are cantilevered out from a hillside/heavy rail berm which in turn overlooks the busy Route 88/Library Road corridor.
I’ve been doing a bit of reading about coal. It’s been decided that in order to wrap my head around the complexities of Pittsburgh’s history, it’s best to start at the beginning – before glass, iron, or steel. Start where they started, basically.
The latter industries of glass and steel are consequential of the available fuel supply, so that’s where I’m trying to develop some understanding.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This T station is about two or so miles from HQ in Dormont, and is found at a two lane local road’s intersection with Library Road. This is a route which I routinely find myself driving along, called McNeilly Road, but this was the first time I walked it.
This is a tertiary arterial road, connecting traffic from Route 19 Truck/West Liberty Avenue to Route 88/Library Road, and at it’s intersection with Library Road is the T station that is dubbed as ‘McNeilly Station,’
So… coal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The reason that the freight railway was built through here, and the berm which it rides atop that this T station is cantilevered out from, was coal.
A now defunct coal business’s railroad built this right of way a century ago, with tracks that ultimately led into a rail tunnel punched through the prominence of Mount Washington, about six or seven miles away. The mined fuel would be railroaded out thusly, to the Monongahela River shoreline, and delivered to the riverfront piers and rail yards.
McNeilly Road was another one of the ‘corridors’ where historic coal mining took place in Pittsburgh’s South Hills. In 2008, a nearby property owner was surprised when a renovation project at the T station revealed an open mine portal extant on their property. McNeilly, like nearby Bridgeville, was one of the spots where the coal seams were relatively close to the surface.
The entrance to a mine is called a portal. I learned that.
See… I’m smart, not dumb, like everybody says…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Saw Mill Run waterway snakes along at the base of the elevated station, through concrete channels and then under a 1931 vintage road bridge, at the intersection with Library Road.
All of this coal talk has also made me quite aware of the Saw Mill Run’s ‘watershed.’ Said watershed is highly contaminated with urban street runoff, sewage, and a truly staggering amount of acidic mine water.
No bueno.
Yes, I do plan on returning here with the whole kit and getting all artsy fartsy in the future. Near future, I think.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The metal structure is the trestle which the T runs on, and the masonry structure is part of the forementioned berm which heavy rail uses. It’s quite a monumental structure, I’d add.
Pedestrian concerns seem to be an afterthought in this area.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Notice the sidewalk in the tunnel… sigh.
My plan for the rest of this scuttle was to push up McNeilly Road, from Library Road to West Liberty Avenue. As it turns out, there’s a significant change in elevation between the two sides, something you’re not really aware of while driving along it in a car. Part of Saw Mill Run mirrors this road, flowing behind commercial properties on its (mostly) southern flank.
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Overbrook Junction
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described last week, your humble narrator (who cares nothing for the sporting world, and pathologically hates crowds) was avoiding Pittsburgh’s ‘Big Show’ on the North Shore, where the NFL Draft event was playing out.
Weirdo that I am, I decided that it would be a great interval to go look for remnants of large scale coal mining operations that were once extant in the Bethel Park (and here at the tippy tip of Castle Shannon) suburb, and also visit Andy Warhol’s grave.
Today’s post is from the end of that day’s efforts, when I was heading back to HQ via mass transit – specifically on the ‘T’ Light Rail.
Overbrook Junction, thereby, is pictured today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I should mention, in accordance with a long standing critique I’ve been offering about how bad Pittsburgh people are at signage and predictive wayfinding, that there are actually two platforms here at Overbrook.
One for the Red Line, and one for the Blue and Silver lines. You won’t know that unless you already know that, as the tiny and out of the way signage delineating the two stations has long ago had their pigment faded away by sunlight. Everybody knows where to go…
It has been mentioned that an annnoying cultural ‘custom’ in Pittsburgh is referring to modern locales through the contextual filter of times past, or landmarks which no longer exist, due to the presumption that the person you’re instructing has the same cultural/social background that you do.
Allow me to explain, then, from the perspective of a former Brooklynite, who is often confused by them:
‘Hey, I’ll meet you after lunch, around the corner from where Smith’s used to be, by the statue.’ That’s what the Yinzer might say.
The Brooklyn born response would be:
‘you’re an icehole, I don’t have any ‘effin clue what ‘effin time you eat ‘effin lunch, or where something ‘effin used to be during the ‘effin 1970’s. In the rest of the ‘effin world, we use – y’know- actual clock based ‘effin times, and the same sorts of ‘effin street addresses that the ‘effin Post Office and the rest of the motha ‘effin world does.’
Then you’d hiss at them like a surprised stray cat, and think about maybe punching them in the head to knock some sense loose in there, but don’t. At least I do, the hissing I mean, not the hitting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s an elevated freight rail trestle nearby, used by the Wheeling & Lake Erie RR outfit, and the road pictured above is a tertiary arterial street which intersects with the secondary arterial Route 88/Library Road nearby, and also heads northwest towards Mount Lebanon, and eventually Dormont, in the other direction. There’s multiple street grade crossings of the T here every hour, where the light rail units exit the station.
I’m absolutely ‘hep’ to get a shot of the W&LE crossing through on that trestle, but haven’t figured out a good time of day to lurk there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one looks back at Library Road, a scene which caught my eye for some reason. Again, I’m currently enrapt by this coal story. These areas, where I’m spotting unnatural or artificial shaping of the ground, are on my radar and are something I’m ‘looking for.’
I’m not trying to ‘blow the lid off’ or expose anything hidden, I’m actually just tying to understand. The past harvest of bituminous fuel hereabouts is hardly a secret. The locals really don’t seem to want to talk about it, which is also odd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While waiting for my ride, I became fascinated by this broken window at the station. What can I say, I’m nearly sixty and I still run after fire trucks while yelling ‘firemen, firemen.’ Shiny.
One roughly shambled over to the correct platform for the Red Line light rail, photographically sated for the moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It took about ten or so minutes, after the south bound T pictured above passed by, before a north bound rail set arrived and carried my carcass back to Dormont.
This was the first of several ‘coal explores’ which occurred the week of the NFL Draft.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 