Precipitant parading
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Owning a car can be a real pain in the neck, sometimes.
Mentioned about a month ago, there’s a ‘recall part’ which Toyota is obligated to replace under the hood of my car, and the last time I made an appointment for the work to be done the local ‘stealership’ it turned out that they had neglected to order the replacement part.
That’s how and why I found myself up early in the morning and dropping the Mobile Oppression Platform off at the mechanic a month later, and then walking down Pittsburgh’s (Route 19 Truck) West Liberty Avenue during a thunderstorm, again.
This storm was accompanied by a sudden and noticeable change in climate, and it had actually become quite warm and humid at ground level. I was shvitzing, but I was still all wrapped up in insulating garments and ready for winter.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some jackass in a pickup truck was driving through here at 80 mph recently, whereupon they lost control of the vehicle and smashed into several utility poles. Knocked out power for hundreds of homes and dozens of businesses for an entire day, that Yinzer did.
If you ever find yourself driving around these parts, give the pickups a wide berth. Something happens to drivers behind the wheels of those things, wherein they want to teach strangers ‘lessons.’ Not allowing other drivers to merge towards highway exits, or signaling a right turn when they’re going to make a left, if they happen to use the directional indicators at all. Driving about like self entitled jerks, in general.
It’s one thing when somebody has to drive a truck for work, and there’s plenty of those folks on the roads, but what you really need to watch out for are those ‘somebodies’ who pull up next to you in a giant vehicle covered in ‘don’t tread on me’ or ‘let’s go brandon’ stickers which they paid north of 50-70k for, and which only gets 26 mpg. The truck is used exclusively for driving to and from an office job, on a high speed road, despite wearing ‘mud tires.’ This sort of vehicle is referred to as a ‘pavement princess’ and conspicuous consumption is why it was purchased. This is the sort of truck which wiped out at 80 mph on a local street and knocked out electricity to an entire neighborhood.
All of this represents high levels of cognitive static, to me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sweet signage, I’d mention.
My plan for the morning was… well… it was to wait for the mechanic to tell me that their repair process had finished. Wasn’t expecting ‘the call’ until the afternoon, at any rate.
It seems there’s a sort of master cable which electrically connects all the disparate computer controlled mechanisms under the hood of the car. It also seems that the initial ‘manufactured and shipped’ version of this cable is quite vulnerable to salt corrosion, and Toyota is on the hook for replacing them all due to a lawsuit. I haven’t had any problems with the thing, so the repair was proactive.
No matter what happens, I always end up walking in the rain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My rainy walk carried me over to a spot called ‘Dawn Avenue,’ where a series of overlaying infrastructural bits can be observed. It was an extremely unpleasant spot to be on this particular morning, due to the rain and concurrent muddy conditions. I had decided to ‘give it a half hour’ and see if I’d be lucky enough to spot a Wheeling & Lake Erie locomotive moving through here, but came up empty again.
At least I got to peel off my coat and hat, and cool off while sheltering from the rain under that elevated causeway, which carries one of Pittsburgh’s Busways as well as a right of way for the T light Rail. It made for a sound umbrella.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking up Dawn Avenue, towards a residential pocket in the Beechview section. I really have to get up there and explore that section, one of these days.
There’s some very fresh content coming down the pipeline, I’d mention. I’ve visited a few really interesting spots, since this rainy day morning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a fruitless half hour, one slopped his way up a set of stairs, shambled horribly across the busway, and then cast my putrid shadow upon the innocent pavement while waiting for a T light rail unit to arrive, and carry the pre-corpse back to HQ in nearby Dormont. The car was ready later in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t my only car maintenance chore for the week.
Back tomorrow with something different.
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Remains, my day
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily for my aching feet, a construction project was underway and performing maintenance on the T light rail’s track beds, so I had to tack on a bit more distance in order to get to one of the stations which wouldn’t be affected by this project. First Avenue Station was the new goal. Lean into it, I did. Yes, I could have taken a bus, but that would be cheating.
Luckily it’s all downhill from here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is one of the ‘main drags’ in Downtown Pittsburgh, dubbed ‘Liberty Avenue.’ There’s a T station under that building with the ‘KL Gates’ branding, but it was one of the stations receiving the maintenance attentions from the T’s parent agency – dubbed PRT.
I headed through the thick of things, towards First Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The dark shape on the left is the US Steel building, currently occupied by the healthcare giant UPMC, and beneath it is found the ‘Steel Plaza Station’ of the T, which was also under construction.
Center of the shot is the newish BNY Mellon building. To the right is the entrance to the Koppers tower, which I’ve been on the roof of, during a tour.
Behind it is the sun, which is a self perpetuating thermonuclear reaction happening in space that pumps heat, light, and other forms of radiation away from its celestial body.
Captain Obvious has thereby spoken, to which General Vocabulary replies ‘indubitably.’ Sergeant Pedantry has some notes they’d like to discuss, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking down Pittsburgh’s shadowy downtown, and you can really see the price paid for not insisting on building setbacks in towers for Pittsburgh’s building codes. ‘Perma-shadows.’
They had a Rachel Carson out here, not a Jane Jacobs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, one had First Avenue Station in sight. Ffft.
I will fully admit to the practice of ‘drag assing’ at this stage of my scuttle. Luckily, there’s a working escalator at this station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, I got to sit down again, on the T.
As the crow flies, this scuttle was something like seven miles, but with all of my peregrinations added in, this ending up being about a ten mile long scuttle – at least according to the phone app which I use to measure such things.
Back tomorrow, with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Get your adverbs here
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My ‘dogs were barking’ by this part of the walk, and my back was getting a bit sore. The ankle was also a bit pissed by this point as well. I hadn’t had anything to drink for better than three hours, and overall I had achieved a state of fatigue – or as the French might say – ‘Fatigway.’
Mocking the French language is a hold over from grade school for me. Would you like a ‘whores du vores’ (hors d’oeuvres) along with your ‘Champagnee’ or ‘Cognack’? What d’ya say, Madamoysel?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The new construction in this ‘zone’ is very popular with the masses and the apartments within are prized by those who live there. You see this style of corporate barrack housing getting built all over Pittsburgh.
Personally, not for me. Too generic, reminds me of Levittown.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A sharp edge indicates you’ve left the strip, and that’s confirmed as you pass by the 16th street David McCullough Bridge.
I deviated towards the Allegheny River right about here, and wandered along it for a few steps. Decisions, decisions. Should I continue on, along the waterfront, or should I just keep my toes pointed at an eventual ride back to HQ on the T light rail?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I decided to do both, but continued with a generally ‘T-focused’ pathway.
As mentioned above, the physical effects of this effort were beginning to control my path. Remember, I’m the guy who used to walk from the Gowanus to Astoria ten years ago, but injuries and age have taken their toll upon the rotting pre-corpse that my brain is stuck within.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking under the gargantuan Veteran’s Bridge in this shot, I am.
I was also really thirsty. I’ve got to be careful when slurping liquids on these long walks, otherwise I might need to piss unexpectedly due to those blood pressure pills I mentioned a few days ago. This wasn’t a problem when I was all lonesome like back in Skunk Hollow, but there’s actual people here, ones who might object to me exposing my hoo-ha.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At any rate, I had a good half hour of walking ahead of me before I’d be able to board a T light rail unit back towards HQ.
Back next week with a bit more, and then… wowza.
Wait till you see the next crazy place I went.
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All lines end
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As asserted, every place worth a damn on the east coast of the United States offers a ‘Railroad Avenue’ or a ‘Railroad Street’ into its equation.
Back at Newtown Creek, it was the former, whereas here in Pittsburgh, it’s the latter. Two plans were warming my frigid soul, and luckily they overlaid with each other.
There’s a couple of sets of tracks laid into the asphalt here. One set of these rails are obviously not being maintained, whereas the secondary spur is definitely active and has somebody looking after it. It’s Allegheny Valley RR turf in this zone, and I’ve had people who live locally tell me that the service is actually quite active here, and particularly so in the small hours of the night.
Also, the rails here are shiny and not terribly corroded, so active.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I followed Railroad Street, and enjoyed its various tableaus.
Based on the sort of building stock hereabouts, this section used to be where warehousing occurred. Enormous buildings are everywhere. Pittsburgh’s film industry bases itself nearby, and I’m fairly sure I once saw Jason Statham getting into his car somewhere along this route.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Big footprint properties abound hereabouts, but what I was focused on were those railroad tracks. They lead right through an area of ongoing hyper gentrification, and then towards the ‘Strip District’ which is also experiencing a ‘build out.’ Said ‘Strip’ used to be where grocery stores bought their wholesale produce, with said cargo being brought into the city via the rail, or by barges over at the riverfront just a few blocks north of this spot.
Again, I am doing absolutely zero historic research at all. None. How dare you accuse me of doing so. The past doesn’t matter, only the future, onwards and upwards. Ignore the man behind the curtain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That mound of dirt is a bold architectural statement, primitivism given a prime location and in a popular area. It harkens back to the burial mounds of those who once controlled this land, long before the Seneca or the Americans… and the referential structure just turns me on.
Those tracks… where could they possibly be going?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, the end of that line was spotted, with a refrigerated car sitting at the train stop on a spur. It’s parked in front of a warehousing outfit called ‘Consumers Fresh Produce,’ which seems to operate in the ‘B2B’ space.
This is a long rail spur with – seemingly – a single customer.
Wow. I’ll find out when the AVRR makes regular street running deliveries here (as mentioned, I’ve been told ‘middle of the night’) and try to get some shots of that in the future. Wow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is what I was looking for, the ‘train stop.’ End of the line.
Back tomorrow.
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Up and out, but ever upwards
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leading out of Skunk Hollow, one follows the curving route of Sassafras Street. Everytime I think the words ‘Sassafras Street,’ the voice of actress Holly Hunter enters my brain and pronounces it at ‘Shashafrash Shtreet.’
Don’t know why, I’m all ‘effed up.
I also very well might be a phantom, floating along like some sort of localized psychic phenomenon or even a single red balloon (where are my 99 friends then?), while haunting a filthy black raincoat and operating a camera. Is it so bad to be translucent? Racist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The street itself is defined by the presence of the former Iron City Brewery. Huge industrial walls dominate, and I could definitely ‘feel eyes’ on me staring down from within.
A few open windows suggested some sort of morbid habitation. Probably junkies, but it could also be the black eyed ‘children’ who dwell in the mines, who are greatly dreaded in the folklore of the Appalachian mythos.
Let’s go with the latter, since it’s spookier, and since I might be a floating phantasm, they’d be my ‘peeps.’ Also, if you hear somebody calling your name from the woods in Appalachia during the night, no you didn’t.
Do not whistle at night, ever.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sassafras Street grades up to the local ‘grid’ at its apex, where the vehicle entry to the brewery used to be. It’s all ruins.
If this was back at Newtown Creek, my guess would be that some ugly chemical had been discovered on the site and that the developers were ‘air-sparging’ it away, but this ain’t Brooklyn or Queens.
Air-SPARGing is when you dig away all the concrete on a development site, and hope that precipitation will either dilute the contaminant, or that weather and subsidence on the affected plot will migrate the objectionable chemical downwards into the mud and beyond a point where the environmental legislation governing your brownfield/post industrial property won’t describe it as ‘dangerous,’ due to a lack of human exposure pathways. Still there, mind you.
The alternative would be a long and costly process which involves the installation of ‘recovery wells.’ Real estate people don’t like ‘long and costly.’ They’d actually prefer it if you just threw your money into their car windows when they drive up, so they don’t have to get out of the car at all.
Regarding ‘air-SPARGing’ if you live in Long Island City, or on the east river coast of Greenpoint, guess what?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I know too many things to ever be happy, even as a phantom.
One last look toward the Iron City Brewery site, and off I went towards the dwelling places of the humans. The rest of this scuttle was pretty ‘low core’ but I was still ‘ready to rock.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A quick street crossing, and I was entering the zone known as ‘Lawrenceville.’ This is a fairly well populated area which has actually been enjoying a population expansion in recent years. It seems that this is a preferred dwelling area for the ‘tech bros.’ Pittsburgh has several outfits involved in ‘bleeding edge’ technologies like AI and robotics. Self driving vehicles have also been in testing/production here for a decade.
There’s money down there, yo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan for the rest of the day involved me following a set of rail tracks, in pursuance of solving a personal mystery, but that’s for tomorrow.
Boo! I’m a ghost! Scared ya? April Fools, kid!
Back with more, then.
“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 