Tour-Ed Mine and Museum, Tarentum PA

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This particular location has been ‘on my list’ for a while now, and were it not for having shattered my left ankle a while back, it would have already been visited.

Our Lady of the Pentacle joined me for this trip, which involved a not so long drive to one of Pittsburgh’s neighboring communities – Tarentum.

Tarentum is where the Tour-Ed Mine and Museum is found.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The conceit of this experience begins with a short lecture, which is followed by a visit to a former coal mine, which is found some 160 feet below the surface. They sell tickets, and it’s a popular attraction.

We all piled into a ‘Man Riding Car’ which would carry us down to the depths. It was an interesting group, one which included families with young children. A cool vibe was in the air.

Yep, when I get interested in something, I’m ‘all in.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After piling into the tracked vehicle, it was all ‘shake, rattle, and roll’ on the way down. One of the things I soon discerned on this trip was that I wouldn’t have lasted a half hour at this job.

A blossom of existential horror was constantly unfolding, along with an illogical sense of paranoid terror that was stalking around at the edge of thought, polluting the environment between the ears and behind the eyes. I’m a little bit claustrophobic, it seems.

Our guide through these stygian depths under Tarentum was a retired coal miner, named ‘Bob.’

50 years on the job, he said. 12 hours a day, and six days a week. Bob mentioned that if even if you were having open heart surgery at six in the morning, the boss would still expect you to come in after lunch or lose ‘your place.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As you can see above, the ‘Man Riding Car’ is rather shallow in terms of verticality, and it took a bit of a wiggle to get my fat butt in and out of it.

Historically: the coal industry would send recruiting agents to Southern and Eastern Europe, mainly, bringing people over who were Serfs in their home countries. They’d emigrate, and join the coal extraction work force in Appalachia, and along the way become Americans. The promise.

The agents and the bosses promised these people freedom, and a chance at fortune, and then when they arrived here… some of the darkest forms of capitalism awaited them, many of which which made the feudal system back home seem comparatively liberal and progressive… the company store, the Coal and Iron Police, the unincorporated company towns…

Another day older, and deeper in debt… huh?

Good old captains of industry, what a bunch of coy rascals they were. Definitely not Robber Barons.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

You are obliged to wear a hard hat down in the Tour-Ed mine, as even a no more than five foot and nine inches tall but humble narrator kept accidentally bopping his head on the roof.

Bob continued with his demonstrations of the equipment installed down here, and regaled the crowd with tales of working in the extraction industry, spiced up with witty commentary and all ages jokes. I got the sense that Bob also answers to ‘Grandpa.’ He had that vibe about him.

The Pittsburgh Coal Seam forms a narrow band in the Appalachian soil’s Layer Cake, sometimes stretching less than five feet from top to bottom, but more often it’s around ten feet in depth. The economics of mining involve ascertaining just how far down you can afford to follow the seam, and transport the coal back to the surface, while maintaining your profit margin.

If you dig too deep, all sorts of problems can emerge.

Tour-Ed is what’s called a ‘Drift Mine,’ as the original miners back in the 19th century were able to start digging in at the surface level, and then they followed the coal seam into, and down the side of, the hill.

The entrance to a coal mine is called a ‘Portal,’ incidentally.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Bob demonstrated the actual task of freeing the coal from the seam, which involved lying on his side and picking at the seam to create small holes, into which explosive charges would then be inserted.

Once you collapsed a section with the boom sticks, you’d shovel the freed coal into a cart, and attach your ‘chit’ (a metal disc with your employee ID number on it, used for accounting purposes) to a hook installed on the thing, and a donkey would then pull the cart and coal up and out of the mine, where it would be weighed and then recorded into a ledger alongside your chit ID. That’s how what you’d get paid for the day was calculated. ‘16 tons, and what do you get?’

Piece work.

For 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. That’s how those ‘Captains of Industry’ got it done, back when ‘America was Great.’ Bootstraps. All that.

There’s a song.

Bob said you could expect to pull 80-90K a year as a coal miner, but that’s in modern times, and it’s due to unionization. Further, he asserted that if you followed the Union’s safety rules to the letter, you’d be just fine working down below.

As mentioned above, I wouldn’t last a half hour down here. These people are made of far sterner stuff than I am.

Back tomorrow with more.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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2 ‘Hey Now’s,’ price of 1

Thursday October 8

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After arriving on the south shore of the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh, via the T light rail from the Downtown area, your humble narrator scuttled towards a familiar destination – a brewery that sits alongside the CSX Pittsburgh Subdivision tracks.

The plan was to grab a beer, but just one on this day, as it was still kind of early (around 2 pm). I was on my way to the brewery when the signal arms descended and the chimes began ringing.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Hey Now!

CSX #3028 hurled past. Heading away from Pittsburgh, in a southeasterly direction.

Historically, the space I was walking through used to be a part of an enormous train yard operated by the PLERR – ‘P&LE” or the ‘Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad.’

That trivia would matter, when the next one appeared.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One was heading towards the usual spot at the brewery, and that cold beer I had been dreaming about for a few miles now. So was #3028 and the line of mixed rail cars that it was hauling behind it.

Managed to get to the brewery, inspect the porcelain, and order a drink.

Just as I was securing my gear around the outdoor table which I’d be occupying, the signal chimes lit up again and the RR’s wooden barrier arms descended at the street intersections.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Next up was CSX #1875.

Hey Now! – This is the 15th train which the CSX people have painted up with ‘heritage’ color ways and branding for this year’s July 4th dealie.

Here’s their press release.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I wish there was some way I could convey how loud the experience is, having a fright train shoot past you about ten to twenty feet away – at speed – while it’s passing through a space wherein it’s entirely surrounded by brick walls. Sound bounces, and reflects, and… scalar effects, that’s what they’re called.

Suffice to say that I could be listening to Black Sabbath – at maximum volume – through headphones jammed tightly in my ears, and I would not be able to hear a single note of it. Lord of this world, indeed.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Similarly to #3028, #1875 was heading in a southeasterly direction and towards the ‘Mon Valley,’ a highly industrialized series of communities which hug the shorelines of the Monongahela River all the way through PA, and then into West Virginia.

To sum this area up simply – it’s the rust belt.

Back tomorrow with something that’s WAY different.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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“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.

Art Deco, always catches my eye

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Pittsburgh’s Grant Street hosts a catalogue of truly monumental and architecturally important buildings. City Hall and the Allegheny Courthouse are just down the block, as is the US Steel Building and several other skyscrapers.

Also important to my tale is that there’s a station for the T light rail just a few blocks away from Grant’s intersection with Liberty Avenue, which is more or less where these shots were gathered.

On Grant Street, there’s a ‘Federal’ Building, a big 1930’s style Post Office, and a giant hotel or two. Lots of the ‘big,’ and ‘important,’ and ‘power elite’ in the business and governmental world types of people spend their days along this stretch who make random decisions that the rest of us have to figure out how to live with.

The ‘Big Shots’ work on Grant Street, basically.

Click here for a Google Maps waypoint, centered on Grant Street, and have a look around using the street view feature. That’s how I remotely scout out an area which is unfamiliar. An interesting urban corridor.

As mentioned in previous posts, it was a fairly hot summer day when these shots were gathered, and one was forced to abandon the idea of walking in direct sunlight for hours and hours. After shaving a couple of miles off my walk by riding a bus on one of the busways, your humble narrator was soon roughly shambling towards a T light rail station to do the same on the way to the next destination.

Along the way, the ‘Drury Plaza Hotel Pittsburgh Downtown’ pictured above and below caught my eye, or at least parts of it did.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Federal Eagles? New Deal style construction…. Hmm… as it turned out, this is the former Federal Reserve Bank of Pittsburgh’s building.

Luckily, regarding the suffering of Our Lady of the Pentacle, I didn’t need to become obsessed with researching this one as the Drury people offer a fantastic and detailed account of this building, and its purpose prior to their renovation of the place which turned it into a hotelier space.

Neat!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Three of these capitols really caught my eye.

These are all mythological/allegorical characters, and I wonder if that one might be Pluto, the Roman God of the Underworld who was known for his fortune. The term ‘Plutocracy’ means Government of and for the wealthy, after all. As far as the other capitols, since I only had room for one in today’s missive; here is one which I think is meant to represent either Artemis or Ceres, and another which looks like it represents Mercury- here.

Again… neat.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Handsome structure, but I had spent too much time nearby a medium high security Federal Building while waving a camera around, and so rejoined my efforts to get to the train. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.

The amended plan would involve debarking the light rail at the Station Square stop, whereupon I’d again be walking directly beneath the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself for a spell.

There’d be about 15 minutes of air conditioning though, once I got into the station, so…

Up and over!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle – that’s me.

Always going somewhere, with no actual place to go.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Liminal Spaces like this just keep on popping up for me lately.

Wait till you see what’s coming your way in just a few posts… whew!

There’s spaces like this all over Pittsburgh, which feel like walking through and into the Backrooms.

Empty, but with exquisitely maintained space. Floors are clean and clear of litter, glass is polished, all the lights work, air conditioning on. Not dusty, floors mopped. No visible commercial or human activity whatsoever, though.

Back tomorrow, with a big bunch of hey now!

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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Mass trans-sitting

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One of the historical curatives, embraced during the City of Pittsburgh’s steel industry apocalypse and subsequent multi-decade economic recovery period, involved the conversion of former railroad and industrial property’s ‘right of way’ over to an alternative purpose.

Some of these rights of way were converted over to ‘rail trails’ for active, and often waterfront facing, recreation purposes.

Several others were converted over to ‘Busways.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

These are municipal vehicle only high speed roads.

You see Cops, Firemen, Ambulances, even the sundry fleets of agency vehicles associated with City or State, using these ‘back door’ routes. The agency which ultimately administers this system is called the ‘PRT,’ and they are the master agency behind both the T light Rail and the extensive bus system which replaced Pittsburgh’s historical network of trolleys.

PRT is Pennsylvania’s counterpart to the MTA, back in NY.

The transit agency people claim that their buses can move as fast at 50mph on these private roads.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There are three of these busways, and I’m planning on getting to know where they all go this autumn and winter.

Seems like a good choice, weather wise. The busways interface with local streets, obviously, where the buses leave their private roadways to do the usual thing on the shared public streets.

This was literally the first time I’d darkened the pavement of this system with my odious presence.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One was taking this shot when my downtown focused bus arrived. Paid my fare with a special fare card they use here – the Pittsburgh version of the OMNY or Metrocard used for the NYC Subway and Bus system.

It was standing room only on the bus, but this was a short hop and the air conditioning was welcome after walking about in ‘the hot.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The bus, whose routing indicated it as a ‘P1,’ dropped myself and others off alongside what used to be one of the most important locations in the United States – the HQ of the Pennsylvania Rail Road.

Said HQ is now an expensive condo, with the train station run by Amtrak below, and it looks like a Soviet Orthodontist’s office.

Having enjoyed my retreat from the heat, and desirous of photographing some railroad action, a new and cunning plan emerged from within the head noodle.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One would make his way over to the T light Rail station associated with the U.S. Steel Building, and use that to cross the Monongahela River.

That would put me where I wanted to be, on the south side of the river, where CSX’s frequent travels have been documented before.

The irony of my stated purpose for this walk as ‘getting some cardio in’ devolving factually down to riding a bus, and then a train – this fact does not escape me. What can I say?

You have to ‘go with the flow,’ and as sweat was oozing freely from your humble narrator’s skinvelope on this super hot day, there was the ‘flow’ part for you.

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.

Run and gun through Skunk Hollow

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

You may recall that – on Friday last – your humble narrator had involved himself the latest medium length scuttle here in Pittsburgh.

The walk began on the Bloomfield Bridge, and routed into the Bloomfield neighborhood, which posits itself as ‘Little Italy.’ The very day that I was moving through here was the start of an Italian heritage focused street fair called ‘Little Italy Days’ and a terrific amount of activity was underway to prepare for the event. I wanted nothing to do with all that, and my toes were pointed away from the festivities.

As also mentioned last week, this walk had a purpose, namely ‘cardio’ and I was attempting to move a bit faster than normal while kicking the dirt. Unfortunately it was terrifically hot out, which changed my plans.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My route diverted away from the population center, and down into Skunk Hollow.

This is a ravine, found between the prominences of the Polish Hill and Bloomfield sections, which returns visitors to the ‘grid’ of streets at the edge of the Lawrenceville section on its western side. The street is sharply graded, heading downwards.

I wouldn’t have complained if any trains had appeared while moving through here, but no ‘Hey Now!’ for me on this part of the scuttle.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As also mentioned above, it was ungodly hot out.

Additionally: The Newtown Pentacle time warp is very much still in effect, as a note. These shots are from the 13th of August, and the words are being inscribed at the end of the same month.

I waved the camera about a bit, but again – this outing was about making my ‘body’ work – rather than my ‘head.‘

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The path through Skunk Hollow is largely an industrial zone, with railroad tracks and neighboring contractor yards. Several times along the route, I had to take up a safe position as heavy trucks rolled past.

I mention ‘safety’ a bunch, and having been invited onto several industrial sites during my Newtown Creek years, one has received several ‘OSHA’ focused training sessions. Some of these sessions were only an hour or two in length, with others playing out over multiple days.

One of the facts embedded in my brain by the safety people is to stop moving, after acquiring a safe spot, and waiting until being acknowledged by the driver when a heavy truck is moving past you.

The whole trick to the ‘tradie’ world is expectations. What does a truck driver ‘expect’ you to do? What do you expect the truck will do? You ain’t gonna win a fight with a loaded dump truck moving at thirty plus miles per hour… so…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Admittedly, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t catch a shot of a train moving through the hollow, but there we are. It was too hot to stand around and wait. My big problem at this point revolved around a multi mile path in front of me that offered zero cover from the radiates of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. Shvitz!

What to do, what to do?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Back on the street grid… and wait a minute… that’s the Herron Avenue Bridge leading down from Polish Hill… which overflies… one of the busways! Salvation!

One of my stated goals has been to get ‘all familiar’ with Pittsburgh’s busway transit system, right? I’ve said that multiple times, right?

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.