Hey Now!, North Side Pittsburgh
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another one of my ‘short walk’ days occurred, and one soon found himself shambling up the hill and towards the T light rail station in Pittsburgh’s Dormont. The transit service soon deposited my pre-corpse onto a platform at its terminal stop, nearby Acrisure Stadium, on the city’s north side.
Your humble narrator slopped out onto the platform, in the style of a bucket of guts being poured into a pig’s pen. After gathering myself together and arranging the various bag and camera straps about my fecund torso, one scuttled forth – a localized condition of entropy autonomously moving about on a sunny day, while wrapped in a filthy black raincoat. Don’t look, you won’t like what you see. I don’t.
It had warmed up in Pittsburgh, finally, which saw those omnipresent occlusions of ice and snow which had been annoying me finally dissolve away and go down the drain. Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My first instinct was to follow the river path, and cross one of the bridges over the Allegheny, but instead I headed north. Have to follow your nose sometimes. As it would turn out, this ended up being a pretty lucky outing for a creature as malefic and horrible to behold as myself. I caught my reflection in a car window, and then that pane of safety glass cracked as the gustation and sensory stalk jutting out of my T-Shirt was turned towards it. ‘Hissss,’ I said, and moved on.
My toes were pointed northwards, and then I suddenly had to urinate.
Such is life, huh? In between seasons for the sports enthusiasts, Pittsburgh does not stock the streets hereabout with Port-a-Potties, as they do during the months when the athletes gambol and toss balls to each other.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I headed off to a spot where I might find the 90 seconds of privacy required to ‘water the plants.’ Luckily, that was in a parking lot nearby the Clark Building, which has been mentioned here before, along with the neighboring Merchant Street Rail Bridge. A few very frustrating attempts to roam around this ‘zone’ in prior weeks were blocked by ice conditions on the pavement.
One leaned into it and soon found himself looking at the Merchant Street Rail Bridge, and that’s when I heard that particular diesel ‘thrumming’ sound which indicates a freight train is getting close.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now!
Norfolk Southern #7001 appeared, with somebody inside the operator’s cabin keeping an eye on something external to the train. Any ideas, railfan types? The train was moving extremely slowly, if that means anything. I’m told that it’s a rebuilt EMD SD60E model locomotive, one which is a combination of two older models. Neat!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was the first of several times I’d get lucky with trains on this particular scuttle. I’d like to think that I’ve finally figured something out regarding the subject and its habits, but the reality is that I just got lucky with my timing. Serendipity, as I often say.
Saying that, I often lose when playing Solitaire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The train was heading more or less eastwards, towards Etna or one of the multiple rail bridge interchanges which the rail company maintains along those tracks which provide egress to the central peninsular section of Pittsburgh.
After #7001 passed through, I spun on my heels and decided to be all greedy. I wanted more.
One headed over to the rail trench in Allegheny Commons Park, which is where 7001 had just came from, and sat down to wait and see if anything else was going to happen. It did.
More on all that tomorrow.
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Down under, and duck
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another view of the neato lighting encountered along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh recently, while moving beneath the Fort Pitt Bridge on a waterfront trail through a ‘zone’ found along and under an interstate highway. Your humble narrator was executing a purely constitutional walk through this wintry palace at Pittsburgh’s edge.
Gotta keep moving or I’ll stop moving.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The trail follows into and joins with a commercial parking lot, in an area colloquially referred to as ‘the bathtub.’ Known for regularly flooding during springtime high tides which carry melt water from the hills and mountains of West Virginia, this spot is really interesting.
From a modern day city planning point of view, it is a nightmare.
They locked away miles of the waterfront, in the downtown area, from ever docking a boat or allowing public access to their river in the name of installing an elevated highway, and a parking lot beneath it? That’s some Robert Moses sized bullshit right there.
This walking and bike trail was an afterthought, and you can tell that while walking along the shoreline. It’s all about the automobile hereabouts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, your humble narrator has a weird relationship with cars.
Necessary to modern life, even so inside a transit rich area like NYC or Chicago, automobiles nevertheless require vast infrastructure. The necessity of this infrastructure crowds out the other stuff which a functioning city requires. Specifically docks. You always lose the docks when these highways get built. Manhattan screwed itself thusly with the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway, Brooklyn with the BQE and Belt Parkway, Philadelphia with the Schuylkill… the list is endless.
Saying all that, I ain’t one of them snarly bicycle people who blame cars for an unhappy memory, or some childhood disappointment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Birds are assholes, I think I’ve mentioned that a couple of times in the past. Most of my bird problems are Canada Goose related.
I’m a fan of what the Audubon Society says it is, but not so much of their actuality. During my years in the ‘non-profit industrial complex,’ I discovered that the most fractious of the various ‘do-gooder’ factions were not – in fact – the bicycle people, instead it was the animal people. The ‘TNR’ (trap neuter release) groups were odd but doing good stuff for the masses of feral and wild cats that you see in industrial areas.
Members of the Audubons whom I encountered were in favor of liberally spreading poisoned traps around, to eliminate the population of feral cats around Newtown Creek because cats predate birds.
I stood there with my mouth hanging open, saying ‘but it’s an ecosystem.’ To me, the fact that there was an actual ecosystem at Newtown Creek, with wild animals and predator/prey relationships at all, was an absolute joy. Especially so that it wasn’t just rats eating garbage, but the cats ate the rats and then the raccoons ate the cats and what was left of the rats. I don’t pick and choose my affections for those that are tough enough to survive the death hungry embrace of the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d imagine that these things were ducks, but unless I know specifically what kind of a bird that a bird is, I just make something up as otherwise I inevitably get it wrong (and used to get scolded about it by Audubons.) Thereby…
Three eyed Tallow Hens, that’s what they were.
The third eye is hidden, you’d need to look for it by palpating the bird’s butt. The bird won’t like this, and neither would the Audubon Society.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a herd of these three eyed bastards, just hanging out. Pfft. Get a job.
Back tomorrow with something – hopefully – different.
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Pinion point, Pittsburgh
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the south shore of the Monongahela River, beneath Pittsburgh’s ‘Fort Pitt Bridge,’ you’ll notice two locomotives transiting through the shot above, in the lower section of the photo above.
A CSX unit is moving eastwards directly on the shoreline, and up on a raised berm on the hill, a Norfolk Southern unit was heading west. Neat, and this one got a ‘hey now.’
This is the latest in a series of astoundingly short walks which endemic ice and snow conditions have boxed me into. Essentially, all within reach of mass transit, so I didn’t have to dig the car out of the driveway again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d be heading along one of the waterfront trails for the remainder of this walk, through an area referred to colloquially as ‘the bath tub.’ It got that nickname due to its certain tendency to flood during the spring melts, which raises the water level of the Monongahela.
I’ve got a weird relationship with driving, I’d mention. Love having the freedom it offers, but hate having to ‘mind the car’ and detest having to loop back to wherever I parked it on a walk.
Serendipity is mentioned a lot around here, as a descriptor for those random concurrencies which sometimes assemble before the camera while scuttling. Having the car along with me tends to cancel out any chance of such random events occurring, as I have to mind the vehicle rather than my surroundings. Also, you can’t ‘see’ anything from a car as you’re moving too quickly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve got a lot of rules. No conscious trespass for instance. I operate within the sure knowledge (and experience) that eventually I’ll be invited in, and like a vampire, I need that invite to properly ‘do my thing.’
This part of the waterfront trail has recently undergone a cycle of repairs, and it was blocked off by construction equipment for most of the first year I’ve was out here in Pittsburgh, and just as it opened to the public – that’s when I shattered my ankle.
Back on all of my feet now, and I’m glad to have this pathway available, especially so on rainy days when you’re pretty much walking under the elevated ramps of an interstate and using it as a concrete umbrella..
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the first post of this series, this was during the initial ‘melt days’ after several weeks of sub freezing temperatures. Everything was dripping and oozing with some sort of latent horror. I had worn the leather fedora as a prophylactic for this day, anticipating that ice and snow might be crashing down on me from on high. It ain’t a hard hat, but it does offer a half inch of thick cow hide as a buffer twixt the outside world and ‘me gulliver.’
Yes, ‘A Clockwork Orange’s’ made up ‘future slang’ is a core part of my brain. Hear me, my dear droogie?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A series of interesting compositions are available under the on-ramp of the Fort Pitt bridge, for the itineraries of visiting photographers to the Paris of Appalachia. Lots of interesting massing shapes, all crushing up against other, while transferring massive amounts of weight and ‘load’ just all over the place. I spent a little time down here, and resolved to add this spot to my growing list of ‘come back with a tripod’ for night time or low light shots in the future.
There’s multiple ‘to-do’ lists at this stage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wasn’t walking on the highway, despite appearances. The trail threads along in parallel to the ‘parkway east,’ aka I-376.
Back tomorrow with boids.
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Pushing out to the point
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A brief interval in the unending torment caused by the cold and snow which encapsulated life here in Pittsburgh – or at least my own – from the last week of January through most of the month of February, arrived.
Bands of snow, some heavy, had been omnipresent for weeks. Temperatures plunged outside, but lasagnas and meats were roasted within HQ. When an afternoon in the high fifty degree range was predicted, one sprang forth once more unto ruin and the world’s end.
One scuttled up the hill from HQ to the T light Rail Station. Soon, your humble narrator found his pre corpse standing on a platform at the T’s Potomac Station, heading for downtown Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This station (Gateway) is where I debarked the T, and it’s within that downtown part of the T service which operates as a subway, utilizing an old freight line’s subterranean tunnel which has been retrofitted to accommodate a modern mission and the needs of the rolling stock.
Luckily, there’s escalators down here. There’s a kind of a brutalist approach to a transit station going on here architecturally speaking, with big slabs of concrete tossing massing shapes about. It’s a pretty steep set of stairs leading down here from street level, which always triggers my weird PTSD step related thing.
I mean… it’s not that weird, I broke my ankle on a set of steps… so… it’s not like I’m irrationally afraid of flying or getting eaten by sharks… at least, not beyond any sort of normal level of concern that one should display about that sort of thing… what can I tell you?
I’m all ‘effed up.
One uses the elevator, thereby, while going down to the platforms here, instead of those triggering stairs. In the context of this post, I was heading ‘up,’ so I rode the escalator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan for this scuttle was born out of frustrations during my prior outing, as described in last Friday’s missive.
Point State Park was the next destination.
Normally, I’d walk over either the Fort Pitt or Fort Duquesne Bridge’s from there, but I had zero trust that the foot paths might be clear of snow and ice due to recent experience. Instead, I’d head ‘up’ the Monongahela River and cross over to the South Side at Smithfield Street.
It’s great to wander about but you really need to have some sort of destination and plan in mind.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one looks back at ‘Downtown’ from the path in the prior shot.
Weather conditions and this utter municipal failure to clean up snow and ice, writ large, have reduced me down to walking in a park – damn it. I’m pretty tired of being constantly thwarted by the weather, at this stage of unending winter. Bah! What the hell, Pittsburgh…
Who can I talk to? Who would I call? Fixable… is this fixable?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I could always just stay at home and walk on a treadmill or something, but I’d soon grow so bored with that… I’d pluck out my own eyes just for ‘lulz.’
Honestly, my intrinsic nature is to just sit on my butt reading comic books. Scuttling about is often motivated by an artistic ‘need’ to go shoot photos. Maybe it’s an autistic need… I don’t know… but the point is… bored, boredy, bored and taking a walk punctures boredom nicely. Beyond boredom, I also need to move and exercise in order to keep the plumbing within the pre-corpse chugging along. The meat tuxedo requires regular shake down cruises.
Saying that, this is my annual challenge – getting out and about despite an inclement climate. As mentioned in an earlier post, you’d be hard pressed to find, should you click through the years and years of archived missives here at Newtown Pentacle (links to the right of the page), any series of posts from January or February in which I was not complaining about cold weather in a similar manner, so maybe this set of frustrations is something meta-thematic?
Rise above. Fix the world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Point State Park, ramps allow pedestrian and bike egress to both the Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne bridges. I was tempted by the Fort Pitt one, but given that I was in the ‘zone’ where the ramp touches down on the south side just a couple of days previously and it was completely impassable… I decided to go with a more reliable path.
I’d hang a left instead!
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Hungry Frustrarian Empire
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once again, your humble narrator finds himself locked firmly in your past, as the very moment these words are being typed it is currently the 24th of February as far as these words go, but the photos were shot back on Friday the 13th of the same month.
You’re seeing this mid March, if I’ve got my scheduling correct. These shots represent the part of February when you wondered if it would ever stop snowing, and pondered if the Fimbulvetr was finally underway. The cool thing is that as you’re reading this, we both know how things turned out.
It’s been really, really difficult to find a walking path not blocked by ice and snow. Mentioned many times, Pittsburgh ‘shit the bed’ on snow removal. Not just the city, but the private entities hereabouts too.
Disappointing. Fixable, but I don’t want to fix things anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The original plan was to ride the T light rail to the very ‘developed’ Monongahela Waterfront nearby the Station Square Stop. I’d ride the incline up to the top of Mt. Washington, I thought, but the Incline was out of service.
Ok! ‘Plan B’ took the form of me walking in the street, along a de facto highway, because some bunch of goofballs decided to pile snow on the sidewalks, forming eight foot high mounds. This pathway delivered me to a parking lot, which was expertly plowed, shoveled, and treated for ice. The parking lot leads to an entrance to one of the river trails.
It just ‘has to’ have a path, I thought, given that the trail abuts one of the Crown Jewels hereabouts – Riverhounds Soccer Stadium. I mean…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news is that I saw a Towboat towing something. It was navigating easterly along the Monongahela River. Yay!
I cannot express how bored I’ve recently been. As mentioned above, we’re still deep in the wintertime here in Pittsburgh, at the time of this writing at the end of February. No Bueno, indeed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was the condition of the trail, the one I was hoping would be cleared, incidentally.
These shots were gathered on the first actual ‘melt’ day, with temperatures above freezing, that had occurred in about a two to three week interval, since a big snow maker had dumped 18 or so inches across the region. It shut down a lot of options for me.
I was stuck sloshing through this, which kind of ‘pissed off’ my bad ankle a bit. Wasn’t awful, but the organelle definitely made its displeasures known.
Fixable. This snow business is fixable. Easily so, and everybody who participated in fixing the problem would get to see themselves on the tv.
Fixable…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, given the condition of the trail, an enormous multi acre for pay parking lot was neatly cleared of snow and ice. I walked around there for a bit, and luckily spotted CSX #3155 as it tried to sneak past me while passing under the Fort Pitt Bridge. Imagine…
The trail on the other side of the parking lot was clad in deep snow similarly to the section detailed in the previous shot. Flarn!
Hands were thrown up in disgust, I fell to my knees and decried cruel fate. Imagine that… it was cold and snowy out in early February… and since I was largely unlucky in my pursuits – no incline, no sidewalk, no access – I could blame it on… Friday the 13th!
Dun dun dunnnnn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I back tracked through the well shoveled parking lot, walked across the blocked sidewalk street, and then just boarded a T back to Dormont. Real short walk, this one, maybe three miles all told. At least the camera got up off its butt, and did something. Hmmphf.
Back tomorrow.
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