North Side Pittsburgh w 2 Hey Now’s
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing today, with the last steps of a longish scuttle described in grueling detail in prior posts. Check out last week’s series for all that.
I was in the former ‘Allegheny City,’ annexed to Pittsburgh at the start of the 20th century. ‘North Side’ is how the modern day Yinzers refer to it. The Mexican War Street and Chateau historical districts are nearby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The building stock here is disturbingly heterogeneous.
Wood frame private homes sitting next to five and six story tall brick apartment buildings are a common sight. This ‘zone’ survived rapacious levels of multiple decade long urban renewal projects occurring all around it, somehow.
I’m just now ‘getting smart’ about this ‘zone.’ Reading up on it, all that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey, that’s the hospital you see on HBO’s ‘The Pitt’ medical drama.
We’ve been watching the show, which feels a lot like a sequel to ‘ER.’
Here’s where they go wrong in portraying the Steel City: virtually none of the actors uses a Pittsburgh accent, except for the head nurse character (get aht the hawse, jag off, you need go), the patients don’t wander into the ER dressed head to toe in Steelers or Pirates gear, and nobody is sipping from small containers of the locally brewed sweet tea brand.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Allegheny Commons Park, I took a different route than my normal one and walked past the lovely ‘Lake Elizabeth’ section. I was heading for that rail trench, which is smack dab in the middle of the park.
Of course, I suddenly needed to pee. I was asked recently whether or not my constant need to urinate is related to my enjoyment of local breweries. Sure, if you drink beer you need to piss, but as I had mentioned, it’s mainly a blood pressure pill which drives this dynamic for me these days. Not a drop of beer had passed my lips on this day, as it was also kind of early in the day to have a drink, to be honest. I often go two to three weeks without a drink, as a matter of fact, but I take that particular pill twice a day.
Luckily, Pittsburgh acknowledges human biology and there are Porta Potties installed around public places like this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My ‘all too human’ problem caused me to miss being stationed along that fenceline when Norfolk Southern passed by in the rail trench and I was just leaving the Porta Potty. Can’t catch them all.
I negotiated across the lawn, and got myself into position to capture the next one passing through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, since I’ve been kind of seeing the Allegheny Valley Railroad a whole bunch in recent weeks, I’m going to have to stop referring to it as ‘the white whale.’ The term refers to something rarely seen, and I’ve been seeing them a lot. Saying that…
Hey Now!
Back tomorrow.
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Concrete Devastations, indeed
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When Howard Street (which is long and fairly featureless) begins allowing you to get close to its intersection with North Avenue, some signs of human life can be discerned, or at least abundant street parking.
As described in posts all week, your humble narrator was enjoying a bit of an ‘explore’ for this scuttle. We started at the Fineview Overlook, walked over Television Hill, then down the Rising Main city steps to Toboggan Street, and then here to Howard Street.
Along the way, we’ve talked about an interstate project called the East Street Valley, and mused out loud about abandoned houses and building foundations or retaining walls jutting out of muddy but wooded slopes.
All caught up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Closed off city steps were encountered. Wonder where they go?
Pittsburgh ain’t NYC, from a budgetary POV. When New York City has a money problem, they get creative and put a one cent tax on every pound of banana – or something – sold in their domain, and the bosses can pull a million bucks a day ‘out of their ass’ to fund stuff. Ambitious politicians like to spend, they just have to know how to ratchet up a bit more of the tax cheddar out of their flock without starting a revolution.
Pittsburgh doesn’t have that many people to sell bananas to. Nutritionists opine that you should eat one or two bananas a day. Potassium. Fiber. Good for you.
NYC, of course, has an annual budget of (currently) $112.4 billion, whereas Pittsburgh’s annual nut is $721 million.
There’s a vast distance found between the size of Pittsburgh’s population and that of NYC’s to justify those numbers, of course. Saying that, NYC politicians like spending other people’s money.
‘Does the NYPD actually need to maintain multiple aircraft, armored vehicles, and even tanks’ is a question that most New Yorkers don’t ask often themselves, of course. Ever have to take a piss at City Hall? Nice toilets they got, huh? It’s like that back home.
Suffice to say that there’s likely a good reason for Pittsburgh to have those steps closed, and eventually they’ll get back to them when the budget to do so manifests. Meanwhile, Bananas are around a penny cheaper per pound around here and if the Pittsburgh Cops need a tank they borrow it from the State Cops or the National Guard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Concrete steps, leading to a home or building long gone.
There was a tarp observed here or there, up in the hills. Don’t know if they were from squats, settlements, or encampments. Could have been leave behinds from some construction project… don’t know. Didn’t seem to be currently occupied at any rate.
Wasn’t about to start climbing up there to find out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another set of City Steps was encountered, and this collection of rises and runs seemed open for business. Not sure which ones they are.
I was happy to see that pair of school shoes hanging off part of the steps, in the upper left corner. Good to know that kids still do that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Howard Street vomited me forth onto North Avenue.
The highway goes into a trench here, which presents drivers with a series of exits leading towards both the Fort Duquesne and West End Bridges as well as local streets. Whew.
Me? I was ultimately planning on using the light rail to get back to HQ, so there was still a fairly decent amount of walking ahead of me. All relatively flat, though, and mostly through a park so… win.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The remainder of this scuttle would occur in familiar territory, nearby the Allegheny Commons Park, which I often visit for railroad shots.
Hey… wait a minute… railroad shots…
Back next week with more, and a ‘Hey Now’ or two.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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As it turns out – the East St. Valley
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After beginning the effort in Pittsburgh’s Fineview neighborhood, and then walking down the Rising Main city steps, your humble narrator continued with his lonely scuttle down Howard Street.
A lack of paved sidewalk found me walking upon a grassy knoll, alongside an interstate’s noise abatement wall, securing one from possible vagary or horror behind a traffic guard rail. Didn’t matter, really, as there was no traffic of any kind which I needed to avoid – but it’s better to be proactively safe than postactively sorry.
Aphorism time: It’s easier to avoid starting a fire, than it is to put one out.
The wooded hill to the right, and Howard Street itself, used to be near the commercial center of a no longer extant Pittsburgh neighborhood which was referred to as ‘The East Street Valley.’ City and State nuked the place to make room for a highway, putting more than 800 families out of their homes in the name of progress.
I mean… they were compensated in some way… but… wow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s three high speed travel lanes in each direction heading south and north on this section of the I-579/I-279 corridor, as well as a seldomly open to traffic double ‘HOV’ lane in its center. There are just a few east/west crossings for vehicles, which are accomplished on high flying bridges or tunnels set in beneath the road, and an odd pedestrian bridge.
I’ve been referring to this road as I-579 for the last few posts. As you head north out of the City, 579 interchanges with 279 (amongst other high speed courses) before joining with ‘I-79’ itself. My inexperience with Pittsburgh’s roads is on display thereby, as I cannot currently tell or show you exactly where those interchanges are. I’ll find out, sometime.
I’ve just tipped my research lance into this East Street Valley tale quite briefly, but I’m fascinated by it.
This Reddit post has a historic photo of the area from 1960, and the ‘main drag’ in the photo is meant to be East Street itself – which is sort of where that HOV lane is today, by my reckoning. In the historic photo, the secondary street, just left of East in the photo. was the very one I was walking on in modernity, which is called ‘Howard Street’ by the City of Pittsburgh.
This video at YouTube discusses the community which was displaced. This YouTube video takes a walk with a historian photographer named Betty Muschar. Interesting stuff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A pedestrian bridge can be accessed via Howard Street, one which crosses over the highway and provides a connection to that stand of surviving homes on the other side, and the recalcitrant Catholic Church whose parish priest would not allow it to be moved or demolished.
The annoying thing to me, about this project, is when it occurred in Pittsburgh’s timeline rather than it happened at all. If this was a 1940’s or 50’s era project, I’d understand that they didn’t understand back then.
Thing is: They really got to work on this monstrosity in the late 1970’s, and thereby should have known better. The ‘official’ reason for the project was to better connect the north hills suburbs to downtown Pittsburgh (stadiums), and to alleviate commuter congestion along Route 8 (a north south secondary arterial road that feeds into the east west Route 28, which is actually pretty far away, which goes north/south and offers local street grid connections to a series of town centers).
All I can say is that Robert Moses would have loved this project and the way that that generation of highway planners ‘swung a meat axe’ at the East Street Valley.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The view from that pedestrian bridge, looking south towards Pittsburgh.
As is usually the case with roads of this size and capacity, an aura of blight travels along with it. People driving at 60-70 mph (the speed limit is actually quite a bit lower, but… Pittsburgh) don’t stop off at a mom & pop operation ‘on the way’ to buy a hot dog. They carry their money out of the City with them to somewhere else far away, at a high rate of speed. Highways like this are like knives punched into the heart of municipal economies.
Ask anyone who lives near the LIE, the BQE, or the Cross-Bronx – my NYC homies. High speed roads driven into the hearts of cities create corridors of devastation and poverty around them, so spread the word.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My eye kept on getting drawn towards all that masonry buried in the verge and mud along the cliff like hills along Howard Street. At the time I was shooting these photos, it was puzzling to me. ‘What happened here?’ is what I kept asking myself.
What a waste.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Steps, foundations, all sorts of stuff for the future’s archaeological people to dig up and discern. Fascinating.
I wonder how many family dogs are still buried up there…
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
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Toboggan St. to Howard St.
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Serendipity, I tell’s ya, is what makes all the suffering worth it.
As detailed in two prior posts, your humble narrator recently engaged in a long scuttle which carried his cadaverous form down the titanic ‘Rising Main’ city steps, which are found on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Rising Main comes to ground on what looks like an entirely condemned street called Toboggan.
This walk ended up opening up a story for me I was ignorant of, that of Pittsburgh’s ‘East Street Valley.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A highway project was rammed through this section, which ended up seeing massive numbers of residents displaced between 1962 and 1985.
Entire neighborhoods were emptied, the street grid broken, and communities erased. All that really survives from that prior incarnation is a Catholic Church, one which refused to give up its plot of land. You can see the church from the eight lane highway, while you’re driving north at sixty miles per hour.
Conversation with a friend who’s local to Pittsburgh revealed the name of this section as being ‘the East Street Valley,’ and he also mentioned knowing somebody who was displaced by the highway project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking back up Rising Main from the bottom of the steps, and standing in front of some of the condemned homes.
Some work seemed to be going on in one or two of the buildings here, but the ‘condemned’ blue signage Pittsburgh uses as a legal notice was displayed in the surviving windows. Shame.
There was no life here. Didn’t hear birds or critters ‘effing around in the woods, nothing. All you could hear was the buzzing of car tires on asphalt and the sound of engine inhibitors on semi trucks throttling down, all of which was coming from the direction of I-579.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That car had moss growing on it. Looks like it hasn’t been moved in decades.
Feeding into my Cotard delusion, there were absolutely zero other human beings encountered along this path. Perhaps… I am a phantom floating along in a filthy black raincoat.
Hey… it’s warmed up a bit here, so maybe I’ll finally wash the thing. It’s got mud all over the butt and back section after I… well…
…that’s a story for another post…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the wooded slopes, foundation stones and retaining walls can be observed. The atavist masonry I saw everywhere is what made me so curious about what happened here.
I’ve actually had to buy a book, to learn more!
One scuttled past a municipal facility that pumps drinking water, from a resovoir on high at the top of the hill, out to the neighborhoods.
The end of Toboggan Street leads out to a fairly long and largely featureless road called Howard Street. Here’s the intersection on Google Maps if you want to click around and look for yourself (the lone structure is the aforementioned pump house).
I had to follow it out, in a relatively southernly direction. To the east, or left as I was oriented, is a noise abatement wall for the high speed road, and to the west or right – a former neighborhood that was scratched off the earth around 40-50 years ago.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the noise abatement wall, which marks the border with I-579.
There was no sidewalk on the other side of the street for this section of Howard Street, so I opted for a walk in the grass, on the safe side of that guard rail pictured above. The ground was squishy, as it had rained in the last 24 hours, but that was a nice change after walking up Television Hill and then down the Rising Main.
All you can hear is the traffic. I put my headphones in, thereby, and got back to my relisten of the ‘History of Rome’ podcast (which I just discovered is on Spotify, if you roll that way). I’m listening to the episodes discussing Constantine the Great now, so what a wild thousand years it’s been. I’m a big Diocletian fan, so the last few episodes have been a Tetrarchical Joy.
If you’ve got a great history podcast I should be listening to, please drop a link to it in the comments section. I want to know more about everything, all the time.
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
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Rising Main, part 2
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gargantuan, the Rising Main City Steps on Pittsburgh’s North Side, in today’s post.
These are the fourth longest ‘City Steps’ in the city, and they are in a deleterious state of repair. The ground which their foundations rest within is subsiding, sliding, and pulling the staircase to and fro. I tried to illustrate this a few times by looking back up at where I started, so you can see the almost serpentine footprint of the things.
As longtime readers will tell you, I’ve endlessly talked about this weird mental condition regarding stairs that has taken root in my mind, ever since shattering my ankle on a set of steps at home. I freeze up, grasp for dear life at the bannister, and mistrust both my sense of walking balance and the purely mechanical propensity of walking down stairs.
It’s a kind of PTSD, and I’ve been self medicating for the last year with exposure therapy, forcing myself to seek out and expose the senses to this stimuli. It’s working, in terms of ‘normalizing,’ but still quite present.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My phobic intuitions were tantalized, thereby, by this.
At one point, the bannisters on Rising Main are literally fallen away. Some civic minded person seems to have attempted an impromptu repair, using a garden hose.
I really do wish that this was AI.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There you go. Securely attached.
The Rising Main steps connect the Fineview community at their apex to what used to be a thriving neighborhood at the bottom.
More on that is inbound.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Rising Main path is parallel to what looks like an entirely condemned and abandoned roadway called Toboggan Street, which also has its own set of stairs which seem to be in the process of being reclaimed by nature. Several fairly picturesque abandoned houses were seen along the way.
As mentioned above, it’s going to be a while before – or if – I come back here. These steps were causing me no end of anxiety.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What a shame.
Now, as mentioned yesterday, my puzzlement over this situation led to me ringing up my pal Tim Fabian, who casually threw out the phrase ‘East Street Valley’ during our conversation about my visit to the area.
I then looked that term up, and as it turns out, it refers to a generational road building project that saw an extension of I-79 (locally – I-579) rammed through this neighborhood. This ‘zone,’ as it turns out, used to be a densely populated section of the City of Pittsburgh.
The highway project played out between 1966 and 1989. Here’s that story. A bit of depth to the East Street Valley project will be offered in a subsequent post this week.
As a point of trivia, when discussing the ‘Interstate System,’ an odd numbered road is north/south whereas an even one is east/west. There’s an exception or two to this rule, in various spots around the country, but otherwise…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Y’know, sights like this abandoned building are just candy for wandering photographers. You could draw us in, trapping shutterbugs like moths attracted to a flame. Get enough of us, you’ve got a baseball team.
Saying all that, the devastation and abandonment witnessed in this section of Pittsburgh is – at it turned out – a feature, not a bug.
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 