End of a wide angled scuttle in Pittsburgh
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few last shots from a medium long walk in Pittsburgh, one that started off in the Oakland section and then wandered southerly towards the Monongahela River and the Birmingham Bridge. There were still a couple/three miles between me and the T Light Rail station where I’d catch a ride back to HQ.
I’ve been learning how the ‘kids talk about the world’ these days, so I’ll throw in some aura talk…
My aura would have been a sickly pulsating but dull olive green, a color which might interpret as diarrhea brown/tan color. A scuttling mass of insecurities and regrets, perhaps that’s why I’m so reviled, and my aura reveals me. Everybody loves to hate and condemn a humble narrator, and the entire world seems compelled to remind me of every failing.
While crossing this bridge, I looked down at the surface of the river and a whole school of tiny fish just suddenly popped up to the surface, saw me, and then all died. A flock of birds landed in the water, to take advantage of the feast, then they looked up at me and they also died from some sort of toxic shock as well. I’m pestilential.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a bit of a palaver – in an automobile – to access this bridge, let alone when you’re doing so on foot. Two lefts and a sharp right if you’re driving the car. On foot, it’s walking on busted sidewalks alongside a busy road without a single sign saying ‘go this way, icehole.’
What was happening within my personal aura of horror and regret?
The ankle was singing its song, my back hurt a bit from carrying the camera bag, and whereas it was my turn to cook dinner when I got home, I had zero ideas for what form that might take. Anxiety bloomed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Birmingham Bridge connects the south side of Oakland, the ‘academic district,’ with the ‘South Side’ neighborhood. As I understand it, these are modern conceits as both sides of the river used to be occupied by the J&L Steel manufacturing outfit.
‘South Side’ as a descriptor includes the sub neighborhoods ‘South Side Works,’ ‘South Side Flats,’ and ‘South side Slopes.’ When I’ve asked the locals about where the borders are, the answer is vague. The exact jigsaw puzzle of ‘this hood starts here, and ends there’ remains elusive.
I used to enjoy vast wandering arguments back in Queens about where Astoria ended, or where Woodside or East Elmhurst started. (hint: NY Connecting Railroad makes for a neat border marker… just saying.)
I am not intelligent enough about Pittsburgh to declare to you that after leaving Oakland and walking across the bridge, I had entered an area on the South Side which was once called Birmingham. Ask anyone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the southern terminus of the span, a set of stairs awaits.
This is one of the assemblies of rises and runs which specifically triggers the PTSD symptomology, left over from the broken ankle incident. I am incapable of walking down this set of particular set of steps without clutching at the bannister. Given the amount of gear hanging about my person, and the presence of a camera in my right hand… this one was leftie’s show. It is so weird, the way this new phobia of mine works.
Another new phobia I’m enjoying at the moment involves something called ‘Cervical Decapitation,’ a gruesome injury and fate which sees your spinal cord mostly severed, but there’s still enough electrical connection left behind for your head to continue working all the gear in your chest and belly. From the collarbone down, you’re a bag of uncontrollable meat and bone cursed with a still working internal battery of the usual organs, but up top your brain is trapped in its malfunctioning box of skull. You may, or may not, be able to communicate with the outside world. Wow.
From the collar up, Cervical Decapitation basically turns you into the main character in a Metallica song. Brrr.
This… this is actually why everyone hates me, as I’ll bring this sort of thing up with random people – a lot – at weddings or Bar Mitzvahs. Nobody wants to contemplate these horrors, or discuss the historical consequences of coal mining, or hear why the Hexavalent Chromium which was recently uncovered in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, as part of the continuing build out of luxury housing along the fabulous Newtown Creek, is consequential.
As a note, on a list of chemical compounds which are certain to kill you, there’s descriptors you can apply like ‘kills you in 40 years,’ ‘kills you in 20 years,’ ‘kills you quick,’ and then there’s Hexavalent Chromium.
If I was to start a heavy metal band, it would be called ‘Hexavalent Chromium,’ and we would play music so hardcore that it could rewrite your cellular RNA in a manner that encoded the music, and kidney cancer, onto your heir’s geonomes…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I worry about sinkholes and not falling into them, practice hyper vigilant monitoring of my immediate vicinity for possible angles of attack by members of the human infestation, or Canada Gooses, and constantly check my pockets to ensure that I haven’t lost any of the discrete pieces of gear which I have secreted about my person.
One of these days, I’m going to offer a list here. Everything I’ve learned that it’s best to have with you at all times, from my ‘three quarters’ to the ‘two flashlights,’ and the sandwich bag which I carry several feet of parachord within. That’s just a start, I’ve also got a compass.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T carried me back to Dormont, whereupon I’d decided that it would be a chicken dinner that would be on offer that night, with a side of broccoli and some rice we had left over from the night before.
One big change in my life, since moving to Pittsburgh, is that unlike NYC – being lazy and ordering ‘take out’ hasn’t been much of an option here. I’ve got a suburban home sized kitchen now, which doesn’t randomly manifest plagues of insectoid or rodentine pests like my place in Astoria used to.
Biggest rodent related problem for me right now are the plethora of Lagomorphs and Squirrels in my back yard, all of which Moe the Dog wishes to murder.
Back tomorrow, with something different.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Wide angling in Oakland
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with a medium length walk through Pittsburgh’s Oakland section, one during which your humble narrator was carrying a ‘light kit’ camera bag, filled up only with prime lenses.
A ‘prime’ has a fixed focal length, 35mm or 85mm for instance. I normally do my photowalks with a zoom lens, but occasionally enjoy the delimiting effect and intellectual calculations that having to swap lenses brings.
The guy driving that back loader realized how ridiculous he must have looked, and threw me a thumbs up as he drove by with a gigantic potted plant on his front scoop. Gotta love the tradies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I reached the ‘ceremonial center’ of Oakland, one decided to swap out a formerly installed 35mm lens for a wide angle 16mm model.
Not quite a ‘fish eye’ lens, it’s still a bit wider than the range of human vision, and is a fairly ‘bright’ piece of glass with a f 2.8 aperture.
As mentioned in prior posts regarding this walk, Oakland is a crowded and quite urban space. Especially so now that the college kids have come back from summer recess to resume their studies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Me? I was heading for the sort of places where I belong. The edges of the world, where you gaze over cliffs and ponder the oblivion below.
As established, everybody hates me and as such I’m best off avoiding the human infestation, at all costs. It’s only a matter of time before a torch bearing mob of peasants corners me in some old mill.
I’ve always known that my end will arrive with fire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What’s become a fairly familiar path for me involves the rougher side of Forbes Avenue, where it interfaces with a highway’s off ramp, one that spits high speed traffic onto local streets.
If it seems that my mood has taken a dark turn of late, it has.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly enough, given the plethora of ramps leading to and from the interstate and the high speed local roads below, the gargantua six lane and 1977 vintage Birmingham Bridge (the steel arch on the left side, above) over the Monongahela River isn’t directly connected to anything but local streets, on either side.
Literally, there are local street style traffic lights on both sides of this thing. It overflies a highway which it’s not connected directly to.
As far as the mood thing goes, read a newspaper. The future sucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was really enjoying using the wide angle, as you may have guessed by now. It’s a regular part of my kit, one that I seldom use, but there we are.
Back tomorrow.
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Racing to the bottom, me
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering in Pittsburgh’s Oakland section continues in today’s post, which presents shots from an interesting walk along Neville Street.
As described yesterday, Oakland is a truly urban section of this Appalachian municipality, and is home base for several institutions of higher learning – including the University of Pittsburgh (PITT) and Carnegie Mellon University amongst others. Additionally, clustered around Oakland are a series of massive hospitals and other healthcare oriented buildings.
Pittsburgh’s Fifth Avenue, in this section, seems to ride along a ridge line, and Neville Street ‘drops off’ in altitude as it heads southwards towards the Monongahela River’s shoreline. Neville doesn’t make it all the way there, as it feeds into either a park or a cul de sac area along the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lots of investment going on in Oakland.
It seems like there’s always new construction happening here as the universities and the local healthcare overlords continue to expand their operations. As alluded to above, this very urban section of the city is located centrally on its peninsular ‘golden triangle,’ and serves as a de facto ‘second downtown’ for Pittsburgh.
This is where you’ll see street level shops selling ‘stuff.’ Sandwiches, coffee, all sorts of ‘to go’ food. There’s also capital T ‘Traffic.’
A city, in other words.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan had been to follow Neville Street all the way to its theoretical terminus by walking through that park to the Monongahela River, and then head west to eventually meet up with the T light rail, but a road construction project had obliterated the sparse pedestrian infrastructure along this path and I’ve gotten pretty sick of dealing with the terror of walking alongside de facto high speed roads.
As a note, it’s a local road, but that ain’t gonna stop the locals from speeding. Things are only illegal if there’s a cop around. Guarantee you that there wasn’t a cop laying in wait down there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was hoping to get lucky and see a train coming through, down here.
It seems that there’s a locomotive tunnel set down under Oakland, one which portals back to the surface world hereabouts. I’ve seen the train moving through here, in the past, but didn’t get a shot of it. Another one for ‘my list.’
That list keeps on growing. Good thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is where my turnaround point was, in a parking lot on Neville Street.
The plan from here was to alter course, partially by walking back up a hill I had just scuttled down, and then pick my way along to get to one of the fairly distant T light stations. Maybe… 4-5 miles away? Maybe a bit less?
Could always take a bus, but that’s not why I left HQ.
Exercise day, yo.
The whole point of all this movement is to not stop or rest for more than five minutes at a pop, while otherwise maintaining a singular pace and posture as the earth spins beneath my feet in a measured fashion. 2.6 to 2.8 mph is the goal speed for these walks. The underlying idea is to get my heart rate up to a certain point and then maintain that pace for hours and hours. I usually have at least fifteen pounds of crap in my camera bag, more often closer to thirty, so elevating the heart rate isn’t all that hard. Walking for three to four hours at a pop… different story.
I often like to fantasize that I remain in a static position during a walk, and that the planet just spins around beneath me.
To pull that one off, unfortunately, I’d need to walk at the speed of a jet plane. My shoes would melt. I’ve worked it out, the math of this fantasy, and it looks like I’d have a lot of trouble breathing, too, as my lungs would be flattened down within the chest by air pressure..
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot from this spot before I started back up the hill.
It has been a struggle, self discipline wise, to adhere to my ‘two short walks and one long one’ schedule of late. Summer weather’s extremes got in my way, all through the hot season of 2026.
Autumn is the right time of year, however, as it’s ‘sweater weather.’
Back next week with more wonders – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Wide angling on Neville
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the sections of Pittsburgh which I’ve remained fairly ignorant about is found in the ‘Oakland’ section. This area is defined by the presence of the two big universities – Pitt and Carnegie Mellon – which are housed within its confines (there are other institutions of higher learning in Oakland, such as Carlow University, but PITT and CMU are the giants).
Oakland is one of the few sections of Pittsburgh where you’ll encounter truly ‘urban’ population densities and problems, with large apartment houses acting as de facto dormitories for both faculty and students of the schools. The streets here are fairly traffic choked, and there’s lots and lots of frustrating stop and go action for local drivers who are more used to navigating their pickup trucks along highways and stroads.
For this scuttle, I had myself dropped off by a rideshare, at the foot of the Neville Street ramp to the MLK Jr. Busway.
Yes, my ‘Operation Busway’ project is currently being sketched out, which will be a set of explorations to accomplish in the late autumn and early winter months, when I’ll be looking closely at this far flung pile of infrastructure in some detail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Both CMU and Pitt have – historically speaking – academically created quite a few urbanists and architects, and as such the Oakland area is a bit of a history book as far as those particular occupations go.
It feels like a series of ‘Senior Theses’ were erected here in past eras, and when walking southerly down Neville from the bus ramp, a bunch of interesting and variegated residential structures are encountered. You can see all the historic fashions along this route; Modernism, Brutalism, you name it. A hundred years worth of ‘I know better than you, old man.’
Pictured above is the 1910 vintage, 12 unit, D’Arlington Apartment building, designed by Dr. Edward Keen (Kern). It’s a landmark.
It’s also pretty typical of an older style of apartment living that I’ve often observed here in always humid Pittsburgh, which includes those private terraces which are an artifact of an era prior to the ubiquity of ‘Air Conditioning,’ or HVAC, in residential spaces.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One kept on breaking stride along South Neville Street, as everytime I turned that hideous sensory stalk which protrudes from the collar of my t-shirt (said turning creates a sickly cracking and popping sound, along with a final detonation at the base of the skull that sounds a lot like sea soaked maritime ropes being stretched out by the tide), something new and interesting popped up and caused me to say ‘Wow.’
Over just a couple of blocks, about 125 years worth of architectural stylings and fashions were on display. A parsonage dwelling along the path was actually in Tudor Revival, and found directly across the street from this Brutalist beauty.
One was carrying his ‘bag of prime lenses’ camera kit on this particular day, and I was sort of ‘feeling’ that wide angle 16mm one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Check out that exposed steel foundation!
There’s a pretty significant population of medical and educational professionals who live in this area, alongside the ever changing population of matriculated students. Nearby can be found several hospitals, and in fact – one of them even houses the laboratory where Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine for Polio.
I got to meet Salk’s son one day, who followed in his father’s footsteps and is now one of the showrunners at that same lab.
Great guy, inspirational too. Told him about how my depression era parents thought about his dad as being a kind of saint.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This structure had some sort of ceramic/terrazo emerald colored facing on it. Really grabbed my eye, as the tiles glittered in the sun.
I’m planning on walking several of the streets around this ‘zone’ during the winter, going north/south from river to river.
Remember that urbanist concept of ‘corridors,’ which I often offer and promulgate?
Most of these ‘corridor’ assemblages of buildings and institutions in Pittsburgh are set up in an east/west orientation, but the really interesting ‘corridors’ in this area seem to be the north/south ones. They are, of course, the paths with the steepest hills and amongst the most challenging pedestrian spaces but there we are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ok… define what a corridor is, Mr. Smarty Pants…
As always, let’s go back to the greatest city that the world has ever known, which happens to be a certain tidal backwater anchored into a series of sand bars found at the outflow of the Hudson River into the ocean. If you need to look anywhere on earth for definitions of what something ‘city related’ is, and want to look through the prism via which I ‘see’ the world, there has to be a bagel shop found around every three blocks with Bodegas on every corner and a Subway running below.
Third Avenue in Manhattan from 14th street to around 57th is a corridor. Everything that happens on the side streets it adjoins is consequential of the corridor offered by third. When you walk a couple of blocks west, to Fifth Avenue, you’ve entered a different corridor.
Back in Queens – Northern Blvd. And Queens Blvd. represent different ‘corridors.’ In Astoria, 30th avenue, Ditmars, and Broadway are the ‘corridors.’ So are Steinway, 21st street, 31st street, and Crescent.
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Bored in Bridgeville
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my ‘day in the life’ style of postings greets you today, wherein a humble narrator was going about his own domestic and quite mundane business, on a Saturday, when he decided to fruitlessly wave the camera around a bit.
Pictured above; a memento of yet another annoying interval spent along a certain set of Wheeling & Lake Erie RR tracks, in the Bridgeville section of Pittsburgh, that is commemorated photographically.
I’ll get this shot, eventually.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Newtown Pentacle time warp continues to flux, as a note, with these photos having been gathered on the 5th of September, and the post itself was written during the third week of the same month. If my scheduling is correct, you’re seeing this in late October.
One has been keeping busy, despite this chronal fog.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’ll see in subsequent posts, I’ve finally surpassed the ten mile walking barrier, a limitation which the broken ankle had introduced into my life. It’s been a deal, I tell you…
Starting with the penguin style walking, when I could barely manage two or three miles of scuttle without agony, I kept on pushing until the five mile barrier was surpassed via weeks and weeks of walking downhill courses, which helped regenerate the atrophied musculature in my legs.
All summer long, I was working on endurance and distance, while capturing thousands of fetching photos along the way. It’s been a shvitz.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After handling the various household errands which Our Lady and I were obliged towards the performance of, with said tasks having brought me out to Bridgeville, after heading back to HQ we met up with a few neighbors for a beer back in Dormont, and then galavanted over to a local restaurant for some comfort food.
Gyros, before ‘George the Atheist’ asks. Gyros.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shlepping back home, and towards Moe the Dog, we spotted the T Light Rail, arriving at the Potomac Avenue stop here in Dormont. As is my habit, the camera was deployed and a few shots captured.
The next day was going to be an ‘exercise day,’ wherein I’d earn the calories from the beer and that gyro, and in spades.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve spent the last four years here in Pittsburgh observing, learning, and reading. Keeping my mouth shut. For those who know me in real life, the not talking thing must be surprising. It surprises me.
‘Shut up and listen’ is what I’m trying to achieve these days.
One has developed a decidedly surface level understanding of this place, and its mores. I can see under Pittsburgh’s skin here and there, now, as well. I’m still developing ‘intimacy’ with this place.
I also can’t seem to figure out a good time of day to get that shot at the railroad tracks in Bridgeville, so there’s still a distance to surmount.
Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
