Mole Hills
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Historic research – which I’m definitely not doing – revealed something to me recently about the ‘zone’ that I’m dwelling within.
That zone is specifically called ‘Dormont,’ which is a small community, surrounded by much larger municipalities, in a larger region called ‘The South Hills.’ The ‘zone’ sits right at the edge of Pittsburgh’s official municipal border, and in the case of HQ, that border is literally across the street from me with differently colored street signs facing each other on the parallel corners.
OK – the ‘big neighbors’ next to Dormont are Beechview (which is part of Pittsburgh), Brookline (part of Pittsburgh), Mount Lebanon (its own thing), and Bethel Park (its own thing). Regionally, these communities are part of a larger area referred to as ‘The South Hills,’ which is geographically expansive.
Think the border of Queens and Nassau County, for the New Yorkers.
The shot above is from one of the crossroads, found along West Liberty Avenue (Route 19 Truck). The POV has me standing at the edge of Brookline, looking towards Beechview where the McDonalds is, with Dormont towards the left.
So – why was I standing here? What’s the deal? Did I go get a Big Mac?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Coal. It’s coal that brought me here. Coal is something I’m just starting to learn about, and it’s fascinating.
Check out this great page at Brooklineconnection.com, discussing the Oak Mine, which undermines this entire area. The location shown in the third shot on the linked page is where I was peregrinating about for the shots in today’s post. Other nearby mines were operating all the way up until the 1980’s, apparently, but this one is meant to have shut down in the early 20th.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One drove over to Brookline, parked the car, and then set out on foot to see if there was any observable remnant of the mine.
An enormous masonry structure, which appears to be a retaining wall, was jammed into the hillside. Closer inspection of the structure revealed that it was not a retaining wall, and that the large masonry blocks were stuck at least two deep into the hillside.
It seems that Brookline in particular was a central node for harvesting coal meant to serve the residential market, with estimates stating that 90-95% of the area is undermined.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As an aside, Brookline has a Flatbush Avenue within it, and a Queensboro Avenue, and there’s an Fordham Avenue there too. There’s only one true place on this planet, and the Brookline people kind of acknowledge that – despite replacing ‘lyn’ with ‘line.’ Ever read Roger Zelazny’s ‘The Chronicles of Amber’? It feels like that sometimes, to this Brooklyn Boy.
That building pictured above is a little chicken wing fry shack, but notice that its foundations don’t seem to match up with the brick building. Could this be where the first electronic vehicle scale, at the mine, in Pittsburgh was installed?
Ok… that’s obscure tech stuff… You’d drive your horse drawn wagon onto the scale, and the combination would be weighed. Then they’d fill your wagon with coal and weigh you again. The differential is what you owed the mine. Similar systems persist today, in the waste handling industry and for businesses that move rocks and soil around in trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is from directly across the street, within the parking lot of that McDonalds from the first shot.
This coal revelation has explained so many things about Pittsburgh to me. Why do these vehicular streets – built out in the 1940’s or later – follow serpentine routes? High speed routes built for cars don’t do that.
Answer: there used to freight rail alongside of, and predating, these roads, and the roads followed the tracks.
Everything is starting to make sense now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All this coal business does raise a few new questions for me, which is cool, and it also revives an older one.
The oldest question, actually, and the only one that really matters…
Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
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Shiny, happy, Pittsburgh
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A comedic attempt at ‘cleaning things up’ has been underway for a bit here in Pittsburgh. Anticipation of the NFL Draft event has driven the local Government into a paroxysm: cleaning hillsides of trash, power washing the graffiti away, breaking up homeless encampments…
If they put this much effort into things regularly…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the final steps of a fairly long scuttle, and I think this one was about 8 or 9 miles – walking up and down hills, and then long empty streets, and then to the terminal stop on the T Light Rail.
Days like this one involve a one way cab ride to the top of wherever I’m going that day, and then picking my path back to mass transit if at all possible. It’s mainly about cost, this, and not bookending my day with $20+ cab rides.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying that, what you’re going to seeing in the next couple of weeks involved exactly that. Pittsburgh is a motor vehicle based city, after all.
I don’t drive when out on my excursions, usually, as I’d have to find my way back to the car and that limits how far I can wander away from it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the street from Acrisure Stadium, and the entrance to the T light rail station above.
I’ve been enjoying these north side walks, incidentally. Physically challenging and revelatory in many ways. There’s a couple more of these in the pipeline, so hoping that y’all find them as interesting as I did.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘Upstairs’ at the T station, and my chariot is arriving.
I’ve also ventured out of the state since these photos were captured. Used the car for that, obviously, but you won’t be seeing those posts for a bit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I poured my pre corpse into a seat, onboard this Red Line T.
A bit of organization needing handling as far as my camera bag goes, a task which was accomplished while riding the service.
Soon, I was back in Dormont where Moe the dog squealed as I walked in.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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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.
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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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The Newtown Pentacle 