Hey Now, yet again
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was Palm Sunday, and… well, what do y’all think us Jews do when you Goyem are in your churches, communing with your god?
This ‘hebe’ was out taking pictures of trains.
After having captured shots of another Norfolk Southern freight unit hurtling past from a point of elevation over the tracks (yesterday’s post), one scuttled about a city block east at the edge of the South Side Flats zone, and then found a pile of big rocks to sit on while waiting for #872 up there to arrive.
Sated, I moved on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t have any sort of plan for this part of the walk, just following my nose and kicking my feet around. Eventually, I’d need to get back to the T Light Rail’s Station Square stop, which is about a mile or so from the spot pictured above. Movement, that’s what I was after.
Hey, I don’t think I’ve walked that way yet, wonder what’s there?
As usual, I was the singular pedestrian.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Street Furniture was encountered, and somebody must seriously regret not dealing with this couch prior to a rainstorm which blew through Pittsburgh the previous night. Sheesh. Hell, back in NYC, this sofa would already be in somebody else’s living room. A lot of people don’t lock their cars up here, or even their houses when they go out. Can you imagine?
My toes were pointed, in the direction I needed to go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another view of the South Tenth Street Bridge, complimenting yesterday’s more aerial POV from those high flying City Steps up in the South Side Slopes. I’ve noticed a serious drop off in foot traffic in this area in the last few months. Wonder why?
I figured on being RR greedy, and headed down towards the trackage of CSX, but they weren’t busy – at all. Nothing was coming through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More street furniture was encountered.
Littering and dumping in Brooklyn and Queens was always done in a somewhat artistic way. You wouldn’t just abandon a couch like this, you’d need to ‘eff it up a bit,’ maybe even set it on fire before abandoning it. Paint some obscene graffiti on it. Maybe include a sort of explosive into the plan… something… give the couch a Viking funeral. It’s been loyal.
That sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I keep on reminding myself that ‘every walk doesn’t have to be an exodus,’ and accordingly kept on heading back towards transit. There’s a T light rail unit crossing the Monongahela River via the Panhandle Bridge, which was the last shot from this one.
Back next week with something – completely – different.
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Descending to… Hey Now!
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start this one off: the peculiarities of the Newtown Pentacle time warp are still in effect, as the shots in today’s post were gathered back on the 29th of March. Just in case you’re wondering why you’re seeing bare trees and all that in mid May.
Your humble narrator had resolved, at the end of the hostile frigid season, to really lean into things when it warmed up and another one of my little aphorisms to simplify life is ‘do what you say, say what you do.’
One found himself, thereby, in the South Side Slopes section of Pittsburgh and scuttling down a steeply graded road called Arlington Avenue. The main goal of this walk was to exercise the big muscle found in the center of my chest, so I was scuttling along at a pretty good clip.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Didn’t have much of a plan, and this walk played out through an area that’s become fairly familiar territory for me. I used the ‘Lauer Way’ City Steps to descend down to the ‘flats,’ rather than following the measured parabola of Arlington Avenue.
The PTSD thing about steps is continuing to recede into an emotional ‘Davy Jones locker’ that I maintain – deep within a section of the brain where I store things away I don’t want to think about anymore. That memory is now neatly tucked away, right between my Dad’s Pancreatic Cancer and my Mom’s end stage Dementia. I’ve got a whole folder of events in there for all the times I’ve been punched in the face, or when I said something stupid or hateful too.
All the fun stuff, it’s found in my box of psychic pain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I wasn’t so much scuttling here, it was a lot more like shambling. Occasionally, one would turn stiffly at the waist and then gesture the camera at something, while making a sound like ‘urhhhnnnn.’
That’s the South 10th street bridge, over the Monongahela River, pictured above. The location within these hills that I was walking down from would be analogous to Pittsburgh’s South 12th street, if I was standing on the flood plain below where the South Side Flats neighborhood is found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was heading for an ‘ole reliable.’
That’s the 12th street pedestrian bridge pictured above, overflying the Norfolk Southern RR trackage which snakes along the side of Mount Washington on the landform’s Monongahela facing side. I’ve come to understand that Norfolk Southern uses the former tracks and right of way of the Pennsylvania Rail Road. I walk by this spot a lot.
I was outfitted with a ‘railfan’ scanner radio for this one, and radio chatter suggested that ‘something’ was coming this way, so I found an opportune spot and then switched lenses over to something that could easily poke through chain link fencing without occlusion.
Specifically, an 85mm f2 prime lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now!
Norfolk Southern #4600 thundered past, hauling a line of empty mineral cars. An attempt at squirreling out its model typology and build history ended up getting squished by a more historic NS Freight Train that once bore the same number. Again, not a railfan, I just like taking pictures of trains.
Saying that, of course, there I stood with a scanner radio on a Sunday…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan was to head a block or two away to the east, after achieving flat ground, and hope for another train sighting, specifically of one coming from the opposite direction. It seems that when a train is observed going one way, it’s likely that another one is coming from the counter direction shortly afterwards. Guess they try and time it out that way to avoid roadway disruptions.
Back tomorrow.
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Hey Now!, Bottoms Up
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Topsburgh to Bottomsburgh part seven:
Your humble narrator has been keen to capture a shot of a CSX train running through that little bridge seen above for quite a while now.
The Carson Street Rail Bridges is what this dual span is called, just for the curious.
Really, this was a pretty lucky shot to get. I was hoping for it, but… Y’know… it’s just like fishing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s CSX #3141, incidentally.
It was hauling minerals, probably coke or coal. These are the same course of CSX tracks which I often shoot along, whether it’s from that recently shuttered brewery, or from up on the West End Bridge, or along the trails which line the banks of the Monongahela River. When pointing out that a train is heading north-westerly, that means it’s heading in this direction.
Hey Now!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I stuck with the train for a minute. The light was good.
Saying that, this was the final ‘wish’ on my shot list for the day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One still had to ‘walk out’ of the industrial area and find a safe spot where I’d be able to ‘chill’ while waiting for a ride home. Another three or four miles to the east was a T light rail stop, but the walk there would involve walking along the side of a highway, and marching my mud covered butt right through another scary vehicle interchange.
I consider myself lucky for having not gotten squished by a truck back at that Ohio River Blvd.’s crossing, onto the McKees Rocks Bridge.
Nope.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s a closeup of the rail bridge. Neat.
An amalgamation of adolescents were observed, who were congealing into a mob of unfocused energy nearby, so one skipped along his path a bit quicker.
Teenagers… brrr… no impulse control.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, that’s Chartiers Creek, which winds its way through the South Hills on its way to the Ohio River. Just out of frame, a couple of guys were fishing.
About a block away is a car wash, where I summoned a rideshare cab to come scoop me up and carry the bloated monstrosity my brain is trapped within back to HQ, where Our Lady of the Pentacle and Moe the Dog awaited.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“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.
Intermodal Scuttle
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Topsburgh to Bottomsburgh part seven:
This section of road, here in McKees Rocks Bottoms (which I’m referring to as ‘Bottomsburgh’), goes by the super romantic nomen of ‘Intermodal Way.’ Sexy, no? This photo was captured right about here, if you wanted to poke about in the neighborhood via Google Maps.
One of the things which photographers do that drives me absolutely batshit revolves around closely guarding ‘their spots.’ There’s a lot of that sort of gatekeeping, and it’s annoying, so I just give out GPS coordinates to the world and hope that somebody goes there to get better shots than me sometime in the future. You’re welcome.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All along the tracks, devastation. Collapsing warehouses, busted windows, all kinds of trouble. I’m kind of ‘interested’ in this area, so will definitely be paying a bit of attention to whatever is on the other side of those structures sometime soon.
Saying that, I ain’t an ‘urbex’ kind of guy. I always remind people that ‘I’m like a Vampire and need to be invited in to do my work.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure that there’s ‘great’ shots inside of there, but it’s also dangerous, and one seems to have become accidental prone in his old age – apparently.
It had only been a few hours since I had slipped on a patch of ice and then slammed down onto the pavement, but now in addition to my neck and shoulders feeling stiff, I was feeling a bit weird in the teeth (my jaw snapped shut during the fall, causing my teeth to ‘clack.’ I haven’t mentioned this previously, but my dentition is an ongoing and lifetime medical drama, and has been ever since I was a kid. Didn’t win the genetic lottery there, either, I guess.).
Grandma Sarah also told me that ‘you were put on this earth to suffer.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking up the hill towards where the people live, up in the slopes.
That newish industrial building in the fore was a bit of a mystery to me, but a quick Google search suggests that it’s home to an outfit called ‘American Steel Span’ which offers steel outbuilding kits.
Quonset my hut, then, and there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s an example of the world’s smartest thing – cut the rail spur off and then create a truck based shipping yard, right alongside the rail yard instead. Might as well cut the piers away at the river and drop them into the water… oh… they did that one too. Sheiste.
This post is the penultimate of this series, I’d mention.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More abandonment, but this one seemed to have work crews getting up to something inside, so hopefully some productive usage of this land might occur in the future.
Back tomorrow, to say ‘Hey Now!’
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Hitting Bottoms
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Topsburgh to Bottomsburgh part six:
At the southern end of the McKees Rocks Bridge, one enters that eponymous municipality which the bridge is named for. On the other side, you’re within the City of Pittsburgh.
There’s several different sections and styles of life found in McKees Rocks – normal ‘urban’ streets with wood frame homes, private suburb style development can be found up in the hills, there’s a bunch of ‘worker cottage’ style dwellings in a flood plain section that is called ‘the Bottoms.’
There’s lots and lots of commercial activity: warehousing, light and heavy industry, and a fairly enormous railyard which is operated by the CSX Railroading outfit. Saying that, there’s also a good number of abandoned industrial and commercial buildings here too.
The rest of my walk played out in these ‘bottoms.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d be debarking the bridge nearby that first line of houses at the left of the shot above, and then negotiating myself into the industrial zone. Those aren’t ‘mill town’ houses, incidentally. That’s something else entirely. Worker cottages are also a different banana.
Ain’t so pedestrian friendly down there, I’d mention.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan involved following that long road parallel to the rail tracks. People just cross back and forth across these tracks all the time. I don’t.
My old pal Bernie Ente once cautioned me about being wary of the active tracks nearby Newtown Creek, as a switch could remotely trigger and trap your foot. As with everything else Bernie told me all those years ago, it was good advice and I stick to it.
I also don’t text while I drive, but that has nothing to do with Bernie. I just try to not do stupid things, although I do stupid things all the time. I do try, though.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that if you need to park a semi in the Pittsburgh area overnight, there’s a parking lot in McKees Rocks just for that. It’s connected to a fairly large gas station, with multiple diesel ‘stalls’ for truckers to fill their tanks.
Finally, I negotiated myself over to that road without the sidewalks pictured above, and started heading away from the bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A line of warehouse and light industrial buildings lined the tracks, as you’d expect. The steeple of that church caught my eye.
Economically speaking, things didn’t look so hot along the rails. More on that observation coming up tomorrow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, this is where all that walking led me to.
I still had to walk ‘out’ and find a spot where I could summon a rideshare to get back to HQ, but that section of the walk ‘out’ involved another one of my ‘shot list’ objectives. I really wanted that rail shot…
More on that tomorrow, and the end of this particular scuttle.
“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 