Yinz confuse me, yo
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part seven.
That’s the same Norfolk Southern train seen in yesterday’s post, transiting over Pittsburgh’s Merchant Street Bridge, on the city’s North Side. There’s been a decent number of bridges seen during this scuttle, huh?
When these shots were gathered, specifically on the 9th of April, a great tumult had seized Pittsburgh, in advance of the forthcoming NFL Draft event. Workers were everywhere; obliterating graffiti, painting things, filling potholes, etc., and a large number of street closures here on the North Shore, where the Draft would play out, were enacted. Lots and lots of wind blown garbage was collected, from both highways and river fronts/
The powers that be called it ‘the immaculate collection.’
Even we happy pedestrians were ejected from our tenancy over the sidewalks during this interval, on these affected streets, and many detours were introduced.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now, this pathway which the ‘detour’ signage directed me towards is one that is commonly transited by scores of people, but there are explicit ‘Private Property’ and separate ‘no trespassing’ signboards seen all over the place back here.
In accordance with my normal policy of respecting that sort of thing, I’ve not walked through here once during all of my scuttles. There’s a proper ‘street’ path you can take instead, which is actually a lot more direct, so why trespass if you don’t need to?
This time – though – the government’s signage people were telling me to trespass, so… gotta follow the law, right?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some members of the Urbex crowd think me timid. That’s ok, but I don’t have a Police record. You?
I’ve got a lot of ‘rules’ based on lived experience.
The ‘youngins’ don’t remember when packs of wild dogs prowled around in Brooklyn, for instance, but I do. Don’t want to mess with the junk yard dogs, and the Mafia isn’t just a thing in the movies. It’s real.
Just the other day, during a scuttle which I’ll be discussing in a few posts from this one, I turned a corner and saw some guy dancing around with a knife in his hand behind a building, and near a waterway that I was interested in grabbing a shot of. ‘Noped’ out of that one, right quick.
When you spend your time in potentially dangerous places, you’ll often meet potentially dangerous people.
Also, yes – the Newtown Pentacle time warp is still in effect – as I’d really been ‘hitting the bricks’ and ranging all over the place in March and April.
As stated above, these shots were gathered on the 9th of April, and the posts are being written on the 27th of that same month. If I’ve got my scheduling right, you’re reading this in early June.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… this was the pedestrian detour path.
It’s running through one of the ‘overflow’ parking lots nearby the stadiums. The ramps above are a combination of Route 28 and the various bridge ramps that it feeds into.
The big wall on the left is a rail berm, carrying tracks which lead back to the Merchant Street Bridge, and that rail trench in Allegheny Commons Park, and eventually back to the Conway Rail Yard and beyond. Whew.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This area is regularly transited by street people, which is something I can report from observation. It ‘ain’t so nice’ under these ramps, lots of highway noise, and you can observe little piles of ‘precipitant’ from auto exhaust soot which is lurking everywhere. Blech!
This shot looks back at where I was.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One got to walk through a decent amount of that sooty zone under the highways before sunlight began factoring back in. An Allegheny Valley RR unit was just idling up on the tracks, for a long while. I hung around to see if anything was going to happen and then got bored.
Back tomorrow with the end of this one.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Lake Elizabeth, and 2 Hey Now’s
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part six.
After walking down from Federal Street, here in Pittsburgh, and then through a section of the Mexican War Streets neighborhood, your humble narrator soon found himself loathsomely occupying a two cubic meter patch of the space at Allegheny Commons Park.
They’ve got a manmade lake in there, dubbed ‘Lake Elizabeth.’
I was just passing through, on my way to a rail trench which bisects the park. This is a cool location for railfanning, and there’s usually a few guys (it’s always guys, you don’t meet many lady rail fans, or at least I don’t) sticking a lens through the fences here. I’m often one of these guys.
That horrible thing with the camera, over there, too terrible to behold – that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now!
Norfolk Southern’s #4309 appeared. It was a train. That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter.
Also, I very nearly fumbled these shots, due to being a clumsy idiot.
I’d spend the rest of the afternoon in a broad ranging self critique after nearly fumbling them, as that’s all it takes to set me off into a spell.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the ‘things’ which you have to manage, when wandering about American Cities with a camera, are the various straps, pouches, and cases that the ‘gear’ lives in. It’s important to pat down your pockets periodically to ensure that everything – lens caps, etc. – are where you think they are. A little bit of ‘OCD’ is actually helpful.
I was right in the middle of doing all that when this train showed up, which meant that I had to position the camera and set the exposure triangle in just under a second or two to ‘catch the shot.’
Whew!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One moved to another position, on the bridge which carries local streets over these trenched tracks in the park, and another Norfolk Southern train appeared, heading in the opposite direction to the former one.
Hey Now!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator was ‘enroute’ to a light rail station where a ride back to HQ awaited, and given the peculiarities of Pittsburgh’s street layouts and river crossings, the path that brought me here is one which I commonly transit through.
Lucky for me, this train trench turns this ‘zone’ into what I call ‘a feature rich environment.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I still can’t run, but I did ‘quick step’ across the bridge to other side to get a shot of the train’s transit. Black minerals, likely coal or coke.
Back tomorrow with the penultimate steps of this scuttle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Where other people live
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part five.
Yet another abandoned residential building, seen on Pittsburgh’s North Side, and captured while mid scuttle on a medium length walk. That blue sticker on the door is what a Pittsburgh condemnation notice looks like.
Much of the building stock in this ‘zone’ miraculously avoided demolition, during two 20th century seismic waves of urban renewal, which ravaged nearby blocks and neighborhoods. The ‘zone’ used to be part of a separate municipality called Allegheny City, which Pittsburgh annexed at the start of the 20th century.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having written about the Borough of Queens back in NYC, endlessly documenting how the warnings of LIC’s last Mayor – Patrick ‘Battle Axe’ Gleason – that ‘if the Manhattan people ever get a hold of us, the first thing they’ll do is export all their dirty industries to LIC’ – played out.
Looking around LIC, at the Midtown Tunnel, and the LIE, and the train yards that serve Manhattan and not Queens, and the waste transfer stations and the rendering plants and… and… yeah, we can state that Gleason was right in his assessment.
A similar process played out in Pittsburgh. Need a highway? North Side. Prison? North Side.
Now… here’s where some ‘nitty gritty’ that I’m not a hundred percent sure about begins to come into play. I was cutting down what turned out to be Eloise Street. Eloise is a bit more of an alley than it is a street, but what I was wondering was ‘am I in the Mexican War Streets historic district?’ I used to be able to point to the exact border between Astoria and Woodside or Sunnyside, so this sort of pedantry means a lot to me.
According to Google AI:
- The Mexican War Streets in Pittsburgh’s Central Northside is a historic district renowned for its restored 19th-century Victorian row houses and tree-lined streets. Developed in the 1840s, the area features streets named after Mexican-American War battles and figures, including Buena Vista and Monterey. It is a vibrant residential neighborhood, featuring community gardens, the Mattress Factory art museum, and proximity to Allegheny Commons.
- Key Aspects of the District
- Location: Situated in the Central Northside, adjacent to Allegheny Commons, and within walking distance to Downtown.
- Architecture: Characterized by restored late Victorian, Greek Revival, and Italianate row houses, often with unique architectural details.
- History: Originally the “Buena Vista Tract,” the neighborhood was developed for residential use in the mid-19th century and is recognized for its successful urban preservation efforts in the 1970s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ‘main drag’ is a block away, and facing Allegheny Commons Park. There’s retail businesses there, and that hospital which you see on the HBO TV show ‘The Pitt.’ Medical offices, retail businesses, one truly great pizza joint. It’s nice.
Me?
I don’t navigate through this section often, as I’m usually moving a lot closer to the river, and I generally tend to avoid residential streets. It’s never good if- the humans notice me slopping along, and pointing a camera at their homes.
Additionally, driving wise, it wouldn’t make sense to interact with these narrow streets unless you had to. One scuttled along, with the eventual goal of connecting to the T Light Rail, for a ride back to HQ at the end of this walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Interesting housing stock, have to say. ‘Disturbingly heterogeneous’ is how I’d describe what’s on display. Again – just like Western Queens.
This area is easy walking, as a note. Mostly flat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s quite few ‘gems’ back in here, and this is quite a desirable neighborhood to live within, if you can afford it. It’s a bit more ‘urban’ than I’d want these days, but when we were moving out here from NYC nearly four years ago, this neighborhood was actually one of the places we considered living.
Thing is, I’ve got a strong desire not to share a wall with anyone anymore.
This is something realized when end stage planning the move from Astoria, and it’s why we ended up in ‘the burbs.’
I don’t have to worry about the old lady/cat hoarder who lived next door to me in Astoria having a fire anymore, or why the common wall we shared with her was always wetly bulging in from her side. Nor am I still concerned about my upstairs neighbor falling asleep while drunk, forgetting that she was deep frying something on the stove (same neighbor once fired up a BBQ – in the house). Nor do I have a bookie pulling up in front of my house at seven in the morning, every day, yelling ‘Mario, where’s my money, Mario,’ anymore.
Haven’t had a roach or a mouse randomly turn up in the house for nearly 40 months, either. That’s a record for this ex-New Yorker.
Yeah, there’s a lot of things I don’t miss…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That one is a beauty, I tell’s ya. Turns out it’s all kinds of historic.
According to Google AI:
The cottages located at the intersection of Resaca Place and Eloise Street (formerly known as Civil Alley) in the Mexican War Streets Historic District are classic examples of the neighborhood’s mid-to-late 19th-century architecture.
- Architectural Features Scale and Material: Most homes in this area are approximately 20 feet wide and two stories high, constructed primarily of brick, though some rare wood-frame structures exist.
- Design Styles: The district showcases a mix of styles, predominantly Italianate and Second Empire, characterized by ornate woodwork, stone or marble fireplaces, and high ceilings.
- Independence: Unlike row houses in other cities that were built as unified blocks, these cottages were often constructed independently, leading to subtle variations in height and detail between neighbors.
- Neighborhood Context Historic Significance: The streets were named by William Robinson Jr. in 1847 to commemorate battles and generals of the Mexican-American War (e.g., Resaca de la Palma).
- Preservation: Saved from demolition in the 1970s by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, many of these cottages have been meticulously restored from a state of disrepair into “refined beauties”.
- Layout: The district is known for its walkable, tree-lined streets and narrow alleyways like Eloise Street, which often house smaller carriage houses or modest cottages originally intended for workers or as auxiliary structures.
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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All downhill, buddy boy
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part four.
Continuing with an interesting walk, from the Perry Hilltop section down to Pittsburgh’s North Shore along the Allegheny River. See last week’s posts for predicate and other details. This section of the walk was headed down Perrysville Avenue, towards the Federal Street Extension.
My ‘spidey sense’ for danger operates at historically acute levels these days, since I still cannot run due to the ongoing after effects of the orthopedic incident, but given that I was feeling happy and secure with zero worries – I decided to pop the headphones in to the ear holes for this section of the scuttle.
The weather had been uneven here, one day cold and the next hot.
This was a warm but breezy day, and I was wearing shorts with a cotton hoodie sweatshirt up top. A new camera bag that I’ve acquired is working out, although there’s a couple of modifications I need to make.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few weeks ago, frequent commenter George the Atheist asked if ‘all I do is walk around.’ My answer was no, but what I specifically write about here revolves around my long walks. If the question was ‘do I enjoy doing anything besides walking around thusly,’ my answer would be ‘no.
I’ve hit that stage of life where everything just sucks. Restaurant meal? We could have done better for less at home. I don’t want to sit in a movie theater, attend a live concert, or see a play. I’ve become incapable of playing along with a conversation I’m disinvested in. Particularly so if the topic revolves around some kind of sportsball competition. Patience is not something I do anymore. If you’re boring me, I’m out, and I’m easily bored.
I’m more interested in what Boeing or Raytheon is doing than I am in following news about professional athletes, or anything like that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was never a sports kid.
Played a few games with the kids on the block, but soon discovered that ‘I ain’t no athlete.’ Your humble narrator was always a comics and sci-fi nerd instead. Want to talk about Federation’s ‘First Contact’ protocols? How about the macro economics of the Star Wars Galaxy?
If you told twenty year old me what nearly sixty year old me gets up to, I wouldn’t have believed it. That long haired angry kid didn’t make many good decisions, and unfortunately neither does the gray haired and somewhat less angry old man that now wears the same but quite scarred up skinvelope. I like to think that what I get up to now is kind of fun.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This route had quite a few abandoned structures along the way, which were incontrovertibly sitting between occupied residential structures, ones that were obviously maintained with love and attention. So weird.
As mentioned during prior posts about Pittsburgh’s North Side, what I’m seeing here is aftermath. This ‘zone,’ I’m led to understand, used to be territory, fought over by local ‘entrepreneurs’ during the crack era.
Things are a lot quieter and safer up here than they used to be, I’m led to believe.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a public housing project along this route, so maybe that’s why this area seems to host so many abandoned or shut-up homes due to the blighting effect of reputation. As a former New Yorker, the idea that a house or property could just sit there empty, less than a couple of miles from the center of the city… it’s madness.
For yet another Brooklyn analogy, this part of the street that I was scuttling down might be analogized as being a lot like Pittsburgh’s ‘Nostrand Avenue.’ It almost makes it to the ‘center,’ but not quite.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Federal Street Extension path becomes just plain ‘Federal Street’ where the ground begins to flatten out a bit.
My plan for the day involved breaking off this particular route, as Federal Street’s route ends in about a half mile – and then wandering for a bit – following my nose as it were.
More tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Used to be a plank road…
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part three.
Perrysville Avenue, in the ‘Perry Hilltop’ section of the larger Perry South neighborhood in Pittsburgh, is pictured above.
The ‘Perry’ in that ‘naming convention’ is Matthew Calbraith Perry, aka Commodore Perry. He secured the Commodore rank when he was the commanding officer of what we would call the Brooklyn Navy Yard in modernity, back on the East River in NYC.
Famously, Perry fought in the war of 1812, the Mexican-American war in 1845, and ‘opened’ the Ports of Japan to American Mariners, via the usage of ‘gunboat diplomacy.’
Perry’s career would likely be described by members of the Millennial generation as being ‘deeply problematic.’ To others, he’s the epitome of national service and was considered a hero during his lifetime. Perry is also considered to be the ‘father of the steam Navy.’
Anyway, Perry South…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another one of the Pittsburgh neighborhoods that causes no end of apprehension for the locals, this area hosts a fantastic amount of residential architecture predating the 20th century, and is set against a steep hill that leads down to the ‘flat’ flood plain areas surrounding the river which were once the center of an early 20th century annexed municipality called Allegheny City.
In a tale that reminds me a great deal of the one I used to tell about Queens, and Manhattan, and NYC Consolidation, after the annexation things went great for Pittsburgh, but not so great for Allegheny City.
Pittsburgh got historic preservation, and the North Side got urban renewal, and then the highways into Pittsburgh were rammed right through its neighborhoods and cultural centers. Churches, cemeteries, they gotta go, we need highway ramps.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The original path through here is described as having originally been a plank (or Corduroy) road. That’s when you jam cut lumber into the mud, or you create raised timber bridges overflying boggy soils or flowing water. This plank road was barely sufficient for horse drawn wagons, let alone early motor vehicles. After the annexation by Pittsburgh, the plank road was taken out of those private hands which built it – and who also charged a toll – and Pittsburgh ‘normalized’ the route into mapped and ‘macadamized’ streets.
As the road heads up the hill, away from the ‘center’ near Allegheny Commons Park, it is first called ‘Federal Street,’ then ‘Federal Street Extension,’ and it finally transmogrifies into Perrysville Avenue, which then continues on its course to the north and west for a spell.
These shots in today’s post are from the area where ‘Perrysville Avenue’ becomes the ‘Federal Street Extension.’
To continue with my Queens analogy, Jackson Avenue starts in LIC, then becomes Northern Blvd. at Queens Plaza, it continues as such through all of Queens, and then enters Nassau County as Route 25a. It terminates some 73 miles east of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, in Suffolk County. Federal Street/Perrysville Avenue, thereby, is basically a low core Northern Blvd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are some absolutely spectacular properties up here. Wow.
There’s also public housing projects and a few apartment buildings with modern stylings. This ‘zone’ has a fierce reputation, as intoned above.
As usual, though, I was the only pedestrian – although a few automobiles and work trucks were observed scooting about, here and there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lots and lots of cool old homes up here, including a couple that seemed to have been churches which have been converted over to residences.
Neat.
Have to be haunted, those church ones.
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The hills get fairly steep as you head south along the Federal Street Extension. Lots of abandoned houses inconvertibly line the street, even here so close to the titular center of the city of Pittsburgh..
The occupied ones seemed to be meticulously cared for, as a note.
My usual measure of a ‘bad’ versus ‘good’ neighborhood involves observation of how people maintain their properties. Overgrown? Boards in a broken window? Junk cars in the yard? ‘Sheiste’ covered in tarps on the porch? All ‘tells’ for a ‘bad’ neighborhood where you should be VERY aware of your surroundings. I saw none of that, at all, on this walk.
Back next week with more.
“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 