Hey Now! White Whale edition
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I really have to stop referring to these guys ‘the White Whale,’ as I’ve figured out several places to regularly catch their comings and goings at this stage of my residency in Pittsburgh. Melville references can only be used when something is an extraordinarily rare sight.
Allegheny Valley Rail Road is the name of the service’s corporate owner, and their branding on the Pittsburgh section is ‘Carload Express.’ Basically, the ‘big guys’ like CSX or Norfolk Southern handle the long distance transport of a rail car, whereas AVRR handles the ‘last mile’ of travel to the end customer.
Seriously though, that shot above is one of the top five rail shots which I’ve gathered since living out here in Pittsburgh. Zoom in on those wheels. You can see just how little of the wheel touches the rail, which is a very cool thing. NERD! NERD! NERD!
Yeah… but how often do you get to see a creep shot of a freight train, looking up a locomotive’s skirt, gaddammit?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The berm which their tracks ride upon was around 8-10 feet high relative to the level of the street I was standing on, and it continued on towards downtown, paralleling a major vehicle thoroughfare and local street called ‘Penn Avenue’ for a spell.
Me? I just stood there, shooting and shooting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Surprisingly, I’ve seen this sort of thing multiple times in the last few weeks, specifically that the locomotive engines were running without a train of cargo cars attached to them. A violation of the first rule of freight, which is ‘don’t go anywhere empty.’ If you’ve ever had a job at a restaurant, this concept is related to the ‘empty hands do not go into or out of the kitchen’ rule.
As always seems to be the case, while this scene was playing out, a strong desire to urinate manifested.
I enjoy a variety of Doctor’s prescriptions related to my cardiac functions and circulatory health, it should be mentioned, and one of those pills happens to be a blood pressure medication. Said pill offers the label warning that ‘you may experience a sudden and immediate need to urinate.’ I can confirm this side effect.
I’ve realized that an ongoing theme here at Newtown Pentacle has revolved around me mentioning the need to suddenly have a piss while out in the wild, and that pill is why. I always try to describe the existential side of visiting these sorts of places, what I’m thinking or feeling, and so on. Ignoring basic biological function is silly and childish, to me. I’m not the City of Greater New York, after all.
That blood pressure pill does put me into real pickles, sometimes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the train had passed, and some of the local plants had been watered, one decided to straighten out the straps for the camera and bag. I was about to enter a populated area again, and didn’t want to look all janky to the passerby. One leaned forward and resumed his herky jerky approximation of human locomotion.
Hey! Forgot to mention this, but I’ve finally regained the spring in my step, post orthopedic incident. I was moving at between 2.8 and 3.4 mph on this scuttle, according to the heath app on my phone. The upper margin is very near what’s considered ‘running’ speed.
Consider that nine months ago I was walking at 1.3 mph, and in the postural manner of the Batman villain Penguin, so that’s some good news right there lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One more shot looking back over my shoulder, at where I had just walked through, under the Bloomfield Avenue Bridge. Neville Street transforms into Sassafras Street nearby, which parallels the fencelines of the old Iron City Brewery – an ‘abandoned’ property which seems to have an owner that’s experiencing a development dilemma.
Don’t know much about its story, but this brewery is a gargantuan former industrial property, plopped right at the edge of a ‘hot’ real estate area called Lawrenceville that seems to be trapped in ‘development hell.’
Think Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, or Williamsburg, around 1995-2000.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The uphill route, out of the Skunk Hollow zone, shadowed.
Again, where is everybody? Maybe I am dead, just a wandering phantom with a camera… an animated but filthy black raincoat with no one inside…
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Hey Now! In Skunk Hollow
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described last week, your humble narrator found himself scuttling through a ravine in Pittsburgh that’s called ‘Skunk Hollow.’
Mostly deserted, but I like that, as it makes me wonder whether or not I’m a ghost. This scuttle was originally meant to revolve around just scouting, but I ended up back at HQ with hundreds of shots from the walk.
I knew rail moved through here, but this was a Sunday afternoon and I wasn’t expecting to see anything.
As I’ve stalked the various RR’s, a bit of experiential knowledge has begun to infest the brain box, and discernment of the movements of rail through Pittsburgh has creeped in – just a bit. I’ve found several ‘choke points.’
‘When’ they’re likely on the move, and ‘where’ to look. It’s pretty much the same mentality as hunting and stalking a game animal, really.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Out of nowhere, Norfolk Southern #4012 appeared. Prey!
As intoned in the past, you hear a freight train before you see it. Sometimes you’ll get faked out by a heavy truck’s engine while it’s going up a hill, but there’s an unmistakable shimmer of vibration in the air when a freight train gets close to you.
Given the location, my guess would be that this train is heading straight through the ‘Golden Triangle’ peninsular section of Pittsburgh, and will then be rolling through the Amtrak/former Pennsylvania RR station downtown on its way to points north and west via the Fort Wayne rail bridge, but that’s a surmise and an assumption too. Guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Norfolk Southern unit was hauling mineral cars, presumptively full of coal or coke, but I can’t say for sure.
I’ve been doing no historic research at all here in Pittsburgh, of course, but have been doing some light reading on the coal industry. Fascinating world, that.
I’ll be talking about that subject here in about a month, which should let you know that once again these posts are going to be scheduled well in advance of publication date. I allowed my ‘lead time’ to evaporate a bit to catch the photos up with the seasons so you’re not looking at snow in April, and whereas these photos were captured on the first of March, the words being attached to them are being typed on the 16th of the month.
I’ve had three distinct ‘adventures’ since then.
Lots and lots of cool photos are in the pipeline, and I think I’ll have most of April’s ‘content’ covered pretty soon.
No intention exists for rehashing those routes I was forced into by the ice and snow anytime soon, although I did walk through that ‘north side near Allegheny Commons Park’ side of the city just yesterday. Had to get home via the Light Rail, and that’s where the nearest station is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At this bend in the road, Lorrigan Street transmogrifies into Neville Street for a spell. It’s uncommented upon by signage. There’s a contracting company down here, and based on what’s was in their vehicle fleet, I’d guess that they’re in the earth moving business.
One was as happy as I could be, it was all downhill from here, after all. I had just seen a train, which I was hoping for… so ‘win.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had resigned myself to just waving the camera around, when I heard it coming, over my shoulder.
The air started to vibrate, a thrumming sound pulsed into the local vicinity, and a screaming high pitched metal sound echoed.
‘Steel on steel, the worst sound around,’ is another of my little aphorisms.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now! That’s the White Whale! Allegheny Valley RR in the house!
I should mention, regarding the shots in tomorrow’s post, of this rail unit, that I was very pleased with myself soon after this particular interval.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Skunk Hollow
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One had been desirous of perpetrating this scuttle before the verge grows back, as vegetative cover obscures detail and annoys me.
This is Lorrigan Street, looking back and up the hill at the area discussed yesterday. You can take the boy out of Brooklyn, but the Brooklyn boy is always going to spin on his heels occasionally to see if he’s being followed by some creature of the streets.
Disappointingly, I was all alone. So lonely…
As you’ll see in the coming weeks, one has fully reactivated himself. A maelstrom wrapped up in a filthy black raincoat has been observed blasting about Pittsburgh, in all sorts of unseemly places.
I’ve seen things… wonders… I tell you… wonders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Ella Street Steps were encountered.
Apparently there’s a bit of local affection for these stairs from what I’ve seen online, but oh my goodness were they in a bad state of repair. One of the series of posts coming your way in coming weeks will show off a set of steps which look closer to collapse than these, but ‘jeez louise.’
Spalling, cracking, separation of structural members, subsidence, shifting foundation moving out of ‘plum’… this structure had it all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Look at that. The only thing holding this set of stairs together is gravity. All the pieces are just resting on each other, which is why it still stands. Bah!
As described in the past, the City Steps of Pittsburgh enjoy the legal status of being streets or sidewalks, and provide pedestrian access between the shifts of elevation common in the Appalachian landscape.
I can recommend Laura Zurowski, Matthew Jacob, and Charles Succop’s recent ‘City Steps of Pittsburgh’ book for a cogent history of this unique infrastructure, a publication which builds upon earlier volumes on the subject by author Bob Regan, with photos by my pal Tim Fabian.
Laura Z is quite active on Instagram under the handle ‘Mis.Steps.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Glorious, that’s how I’d describe this part of my long scuttle. I had outfitted the camera with an omnivore lens – my 24-240mm one. Glad I did, as I was constantly dialing back and forth between the wide and telephoto range.
Little did I know what awaited me at the bottom of this incline.
Well… I kind of did know, since I had clicked through here on the Google Maps street view before leaving HQ, and had previously walked through the other path through the ravine, but I’m also just trying to build some dramatic tension there for Monday and Tuesday’s posts…
Let’s just say ‘Hey Now!,’ and leave it at that for the moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are multiple rail ‘rights of way’ laid down in Skunk Hollow, along with one of the bus ways. Three of the area’s four major freight rail operations roll through here, as does Amtrak. If only there was a brewery with out door seating and a view nearby…
I was hoping for trains, which… well, once again… that’s for Monday and Tuesday next week, yo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Very, very interesting place for one such as myself, but I’m known for my love of insalubrious valleys, concretized devastations, and urban wastelands.
Back next week with lots of Choo-choo – including what I consider to be one of the best locomotive shots which I’ve captured since living here in Pittsburgh.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Over the top and down into
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described in yesterday’s transmission, your humble narrator was on a mission. After an intriguing walk – more than month prior – along a path that threads though a valley/ravine which is found in the more or less dead center of Pittsburgh, I wanted to return and explore this ‘zone.’
Problem in the interim was ice and snow, and the sure knowledge that this out of the way industrial focused strip was likely the very last place to have gained the attentions of the plow and salt brigades.
Had to wait for the melt, so I tried to do a little bit of reading on the subject, and this place seems to be another one of Pittsburgh’s historical black holes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obviously, I’ve got a lot more experience with the ‘black hole’ thing back home, so let’s use that as an example for what I mean.
The history of NYC is almost entirely written from the perspective of and about Manhattan. There’s also a lot of Brooklyn ‘stuff,’ but it’s a very specific part of the Borough which is well documented. Slavery in NYC during the Dutch vs. British periods, and the financing of the slave trade by insurance underwriters on Wall Street? Crickets. Anti immigrant riots? Mentioned, but mostly crickets, except in the case of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. NYC’s ethnic neighborhoods being consciously created by Tammany to build ethnic voting blocs? Crickets. Newtown Creek…
The historic record of Pittsburgh is one punctuated by groups of oligarchs deciding to spend some of their moolah on churches, libraries, or schools, and the historic record thereby speaks glowingly about the Mellons or Fricks as being great and generous human beings, as well as public benefactors. Ignore their strike breaking and rapacious income levels.
The ‘record’ generally skips past spots like Skunk Hollow, whose scant mentions (which I’ve been able to find) include that ‘it’s a place where the low people gather to listen to jazz and drink.’ The low people were specifically described as ‘Negroes, Jews, and the Irish.’
My kind of spot, then.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The funny thing about all that, is what’s down here was and is super important, and especially so to the history of 20th century Pittsburgh. Another abandoned home is seen on the hill, behind that massive retaining wall.
For this section of the day, the street I was walking on was called ‘Juniper Street,’ which invisibly transmogrifies into ‘Lorrigan Street,’ then ‘Neville Street,’ and it eventually becomes ‘Sassafras Street’ as it rejoins the local grid at an angle between Lawrenceville and Bloomfield.
For any new readers, I refer to an area which isn’t in one neighborhood or another as existing in the ‘angle’ between them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking back over my shoulder, and as usual – where is everyone?
I’m currently nurturing a fun delusion that I’m dead, and exist only as a phantom blowing along the empty streets while dissipating into the atmosphere, but that idea’s just Cotarded.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The path began shedding altitude as the Bloomfield Avenue Bridge came into view. The businesses along this route were light and medium industrial.
As you’ve probably discerned, at the top of this hill is an auto mechanic who has a small junkyard worth of spare parts and ‘beaters’ arrayed about their property. Further down the road, there were material handlers, dump trucks, back hoes and other heavy gear parked here and there, so likely some sort of construction and earth moving outfit. Neat.
The ravine started to plunge in altitude, as the plateau which Bloomfield squats upon really came into focus. This is fairly obviously a hydrological valley, but the only water flowing through – which I could observe – was a drainage channel set in along the bottom of that giant hill.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yet another abandoned home.
Pittsburgh experienced a full on demographic collapse after the steel industry began pulling up stakes here. Many of these abandoned structures are in deleterious condition, as a note.
The theory which I’ve been offered – by local knowledge – is that the house belonged to a parent or grandparent, and the modern day inheritor of the property had long ago left Pittsburgh and hasn’t looked back. The abandoned property likely owes back taxes, or the cost of upkeep for the building is too much, or the modern day owner has just disappeared and there’s no one else to contact about upkeep. I’m told that Pittsburgh has a condemnation procedure which is incredibly bureaucratic, time consuming, and expensive to navigate, so…
Lots of abandoned homes with no line of clear property ownership to pursue for a condemnation.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Begin it, in Bloomfield
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator is ruled by obeisance to several aphorisms of his own creation, one of which is ‘say what you do and do what you say.’
The first part of that is about being honest and frank when the subject involves personal failings, whereas the latter revolves around getting shit done. Back before all that arctic weather had taken over Pittsburgh for a month – with the ice walls, slush lakes, and treacherous pavement – one had declared that he would return to a certain place for a deeper look, and to explore a secondary lower pathway through the landform.
Last time through this landform, I had followed the upper Gold Way and Melwood Avenue path, which clings to the side of Polish Hill and looks down into a ravine, which I later learned bears the wonderful nomen of ‘Skunk Hollow.’ I said I’d be back, and I do what I say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This scuttle, which ended up being about ten miles all told, started along Baum Boulevard, in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield. First stop was called ‘Gross Street,’ and Y’know what? It kind of was.
This point of access to that ravine is blocked off by some sort of secure site, all fenced with cameras and signs and all of the ‘stay out’ sort of stuff. The street grade here would be surprisingly steep anywhere else, but it’s Pittsburgh. It was climatologically lovely out, with temperatures in the high 40’s and a clear sky. Nearly all of the ice and snow had rotted away.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The steel structures pictured are the support piers of the Millvale Avenue bridge, spanning the ravine. It’s a pretty simple truss bridge, carrying local traffic high above. I didn’t see much point in heading all the way down there on this walk, since I was in ‘scouting mode.’
As an aside, it is just so joyous to me that I can actually walk like this again. After the ‘orthopedic incident,’ wherein my left ankle was shattered in an accident at home, it wasn’t entirely certain what my capabilities would be afterwards. It still hurts, all the time, but there we are.
I’ve also got arthritis in the joint now, and that’s also a joy, but at least I know when it’s going to rain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Abandoned houses… you start not noticing them as there’s so many.
A new Mayor has been elected to lead Pittsburgh, and declarations have been made that the abandoned building problem is a high priority for the new administration, and expensive solutions have been offered. Apparently, it’s all about the budget, as it costs the city about $35k to demolish a house and cart away its remains. Estimates by the new administration state that there are north of 3,000 such properties just within the municipal borders of Pittsburgh, and that ends up being a whole lot of municipal cheddar which they can’t spend on far more sympathetic groups like widows and orphans instead.
I spent a lot of time trying to get the politicians to care about sewers and garbage back in Queens. They’d much rather cut the ribbon on a new park or school, than one on a new sewer plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bloomfield, which I’m told was historically Pittsburgh’s ‘little italy’ section, uses every single inch of space that a property lot defines.
The NYC way of describing the setup out here would say ‘they live ‘cheek by jowl’ with each other.’ The residential setups in this part of Bloomfield are small one and two story private homes, of the type called ‘mill worker’ housing, which you’ll see all over Pittsburgh. These aren’t ‘coal town’ houses, as that’s a different category. Gotta imagine that this neighborhood must have been a fun place to be a kid, and it reminds me a bit of the part of Flatlands/Canarsie where I grew up back in the world’s one ‘true’ place – Brooklyn.
Onwards, ever onwards…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Where Edmond Street meets Juniper Street, that’s where I’d be leaving what passes for a street grid in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield, and heading down into the Skunk Hollow Ravine for a bit of low core exploring.
As is my habit, I had clicked through the route in advance using Google Maps’ street view function, to know what to expect and to ensure that I wasn’t walking into a ‘cul-de-sac’ with a steep price of exit.
More 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 