A Long Walk, part 1
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It has been a long twenty five or so months since… at the end of September in 2024… an accident at home saw your humble narrator shattering his left ankle while walking down a flight of steps.
An ambulance ride, and then surgery, came next. An agonizing three months in a wheelchair, followed by six months of extreme pain and physical therapy, and then the doctors ‘released me back into the wild.’
Atrophied, weakened, less than – one nevertheless began setting out on his constitutional walks again. At first, I scuttled at a snail’s pace, with palsied aspect, struggling to get through a mile or two. Forced to swing my hips about in order to stride, one displayed a walking posture reminiscent of the Batman villain Penguin, and resolve to regain my legs emerged.
A year of constant ‘push’ has followed, wherein I regularly hit the streets for a series of ever longer and more strenuous walks around the City of Pittsburgh, and its environs. One mile, three miles, five miles, seven miles.
Rinse, repeat.
The scuttle described today, and in several subsequent posts, is the one where I finally broke through an elusive ‘ten mile’ barrier, and did it without injuring or otherwise crippling myself.
Pictured above is the 1932 vintage Lock and Dam #2, Allegheny River, nearby the Highland Park Bridge. The lock and dam are operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
Here is where the lock and dam are found, on a Google map.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the water, on the northern shore of the river, is a fairly wealthy community (by Pittsburgh standard) called Aspinwall. There’s an enormous Veteran’s Administration hospital and long term care facility up in the hills there, as a note.
The primary ‘corridor’ for the day, which I’d be odiously scuttling through, surrounds Pittsburgh’s Butler Street on the southern shore of the River.
This path would carry me into Lawrenceville, where I’d break off of Butler Street and wander about in search of ‘serendipity,’ actually encountered this time around. This corridor is found upon the north side of the central peninsula which Pittsburgh is centered upon, colloquially called the ‘Golden Triangle.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One had prepared well for the day, and was carrying many things I might need, including a water bottle. One packed the camera bag a bit light for this walk, loading an ‘all in one’ zoom lens onto the camera, and only basic essentials were with me. Since I’d be walking through and across several busy traffic intersections, I opted to wear a bright ‘flash orange’ ball cap, one which has replaced my old Newtown Creek Alliance ‘NCA’ hat as the daily ‘go-to.’
Apparently, those are active rail tracks down there, but nothing was doing when I was in this ‘zone.’
A rideshare had dropped me off at a nearby starting point. After straightening out my clothing, and all of the bag and camera straps, it was time to lean into it and I assiduously began kicking the dirt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It should be mentioned that these traffic barriers seemed to suddenly appear along this route sometime last winter (or at least that’s when I noticed them), and this infrastructure elevated a formerly undesirable walking path into one that drew me all the way out here from the South Hills section of Pittsburgh for a walk.
For all of you transit geniuses and bike yahoos – back in Astoria and LIC – this is what a protected bike lane looks like. ‘This’ is what I was trying to hold out for in Queens Plaza, you jackasses. Why do you think I was always asking DOT about when they were installing concrete planters?
Sheesh. You think those little plastic sticks and green paint on the ground are going to stop a truck?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Butler Street is fairly well elevated over the flood plain of the river in this section, and there were a substantial number of structures down below.
Nearby the 62nd street ‘Senator Robert D. Fleming’ Bridge, Butler Street suddenly offers an overview of what turns out to to have been the campus of the ‘Union Steel Casting Co. (a division of the Blaw-Knox company),’ and more recently, ‘Tippins International Inc.’
Via Google’s AI Gemini:
The Union Steel Casting Company was a major heavy industrial manufacturer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, known for producing locomotive frames, driving wheel centers, and alloy steel castings.
The company specialized in heavy steel castings, including proprietary vanadium steel and “Univan” tough steel alloys used extensively in the locomotive and railway industries.
Corporate Ownership: It later operated as a division of the Blaw-Knox Company, and the plant was subsequently used by Tippins International Inc.
Site Closure and Demolition: The former manufacturing plant closed in 1983. The site was acquired by the Urban Redevelopment Authority in 2007 and fully demolished by 2009.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There seems to be a waste transfer station that handles recyclable materials found down there these days, but you’ll see more of this ‘post industrial’ riverfront scene here in tomorrow’s post.
Come with?
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
Moon, shoe, dire portents
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… and actually… this year the weather has been absolutely perfect here in Pittsburgh – and for better than two weeks in a row. This has aroused all sorts of suspicion from the locals, as Pittsburgh has a famously humid and dynamic atmosphere. The aphoristic quotation hereis ‘if you don’t like the weather, wait around 15 minutes, it’ll change.’
As described in yesterday’s post, that one and this post were intentionally ‘left blank’ in my ‘scheduled post’ list here at Newtown Pentacle.
All spring and summer, I’ve managed to maintain as much of a month of lead time on these posts. I prefer things this way, as it alleviates a lot of stress for a humble narrator, but there was Halloween to consider.
Currently, I’ve got the posts sorted out through the middle of November, and have literally thousands of undeveloped shots on the hard drive back at HQ.
Pictured is the recent Hunters Moon, as seen from HQ in Pittsburgh’s Dormont.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been casting my eye about in the manner of the Lord of the Rings villain Sauron, looking for a ‘Halloween’ story.
There are a few local tales I’ve encountered, but they’re more tragic than they are horrifying, and nothing I’d like to repeat. Also, they’re not my story to tell. As a note: I’m pretty sure that one of my neighbors is being haunted, possibly demon oppressed, but that’s an opinion. Like an anal fistula, opinions are just something that everyone has.
I actually caused myself a bit of a panic attack, leaving these two posts open for last minute interpretations. Literally developed these shots just last night, went to sleep, and now I’m writing this post on the morning of the 30th at about seven a.m. Whew!
This post is nearly a live stream by my standard, thereby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots are from a very recent walk, and represent a break in continuity which I mention because I’m sure somebody will notice it.
I try to present things in the order which I saw them, and whereas the shot above and the ones below are literally from Monday and Tuesday of this week, next week’s posts will be reeling back to what I was seeing and doing in mid September and early October. Lead time.
Yes, the Queens Cobbler might have followed me out here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Abandoned wheelchairs always catch my eye.
Where did the person go? How? This one was at a bus stop. Did the person in the chair just stand up and then ride the bus? Won’t somebody steal the valuable thing left behind at the bus stop?
This very well might be a Vampire situation, lords and ladies. You can easily get away with not being to walk, if you can turn into a bat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Based on some activity which I observed shortly after cracking out a couple of shots of the interesting lighting under some of the many highway ramps found nearby Pittsburgh’s stadiums, ‘The Pitt’ television show is going to be presenting an involved outdoor scene involving a homeless colony that’s meant to be located in this general area. They’re currently filming the next season right now.
As a note, this isn’t where the encampments are (or observationally were, since the City of Pittsburgh made these people and encampments ‘disappear’ in the lead up to the recent NFL draft event), and the rough accommodations which the mendicants suffer within don’t look quite as ‘Mogadishu’ as the set dressers think that they might. The encampments actually look a great deal more like the way rednecks set up a hunting camp, these encampments, with elaborate tent and bivouac situations. A particularly developed one I observed on the south shore of the Monongahela River actually had a couch and other house furniture in it.
I’ve got shots of that dressed ‘Pitt’ set, but don’t want to run them yet. Spoilers…
What brought me here, to Pittsburgh’s North Side, was essentially a ‘short walk day.’ About four to five miles, if you’re curious. Lotsa Choo-Choo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After riding the T light rail back to Dormont, these spectral figures caught my eye. I always wonder about ghosts and the clothing they are reported as wearing.
Is that the ghost of a T-Shirt which it has on?
How did the garment die? If you’re wearing ghost shoes, were they the ones you had one when it happened or are they the kicks you wish you were wearing instead? What about glasses? I’ve got an astigmatism, does that continue – spectrally speaking – or can I look forward to centuries of wailing terror, but with the sharp and uncorrected vision that I remember from boyhood?
Have a Happy Halloween, lords and ladies, and it would be a good idea to stock up on canned goods and dry grains right about now. The proverbial global sheiste is about to hit the fan, I think. Last time I said something like this was about two weeks before COVID, so…
How’s that for a holiday scare?
“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.
Four wheels bad
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Stepping out of one time warp (the one where I’ve been enjoying a month to six weeks worth of lead time on these posts, so ‘Hi’) and into a different one, for today’s post.
Here’s the deal: I left a two day window open for today’s and tomorrow’s Halloween facing posts, hoping that I’d be able to find something spooky looking or a monster story to pass on, but it’s been an entirely salubrious interval and nothing truly Halloweenish has emerged.
What you’ve got today, thereby, is essentially an archive post inspired by the very recent shot of a tricycle.
I encountered the Tricycle pictured above, sitting all abandoned and in a park, on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Got me to thinking about all of the abandoned bikes I used to see back in NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one, back in Astoria, was chained to that fence for so long that the plants involved it in their dealie and it just became a trellis for the verge over the course of time.
Wandering, always wandering, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spotted this throw away nearby my old apartment on Broadway in Astoria, and it always struck me as being an odd way to get rid of a bike. Even odder, the Spanish speaking delivery peeps of Astoria didn’t cannibalize this thing for parts.
They have a whole hidden social organization and hierarchy, the deliveristas. I learned that there’s a ‘Rey’ whom you have to pay up to for the privilege of working in Astoria, and that one of the many groups of people whom you ‘do not want to ‘eff around with’ in Queens are the deliveristas.
One night, I was asleep and then awakened by a hullabaloo going on across the street. A group of deliveristas were whipping one of their own, with bike chains that had locks attached. A bloody mess was left for NYPD and FDNY to scoop off the sidewalk. I got to listen to an argument between Fire and Police departments, as to who was going to clean up all the blood left on the corner. Neither did, and they left.
The next morning, I made a few calls, and DSNY ended up getting the job of handling that leave behind gore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek, where everything eventually ends up sooner or later.
The odd thing about this kid’s bike being where it was is that this is more or less the omphalos, or the ‘darkest of the hillside thickets,’ along my beloved creek. Smack bam middle of a particularly noxious section of the industrial zone, this is. Recycling, shipping, concrete, DSNY, junkies, all within throwing distance here.
Hmmm.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There used to be some guy who collected up all of the ‘discarded’ bikes (‘collecting’ is as good a word as any, regarding this particular fellow) around Astoria and LIC. The frames were stored publicly, as pictured above, and be mass chained to lamp posts. I have no idea what came next.
Each one of these abandoned bikes has a story, the epilogue of which saw me randomly encountering the thing, while scuttling along the streets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is a pretty old photo, but still one of my faves.
A group of kids who were doing trick bike riding on the subway platforms, at Queens Plaza while I sat on the other side waiting for the R. What could go wrong? Nothing.
Nothing matters, and nobody cares.
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.
There’s a reason…
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor, and part of my growing interest in the ‘leave behinds’ of the coal mining industry in Western Pennsylvania – and Pittsburgh in particular – found me entering the Wingfield Pines Conservation Area.
This setup is designed to remediate iron pyrites and other contributions from a shuttered and fairly massive coal mine, compounds which have become dissolved into the flow of ground water and oxidized, causing surface waters to turn acidic and display a bright orange coloration after emerging from the underground – or as I’ve started calling it – the ‘Underburgh.’
The acidic ph values of the mine water are inimical to several species living in the water columns of the creeks, runs, and streams.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I first became aware of this project when reading up on Chartiers Creek over in nearby Bridgeville, and decided to take a look.
Back on Newtown Creek in NYC, I always talked about ‘using’ the mechanisms of nature to ‘cure’ up what we’ve collectively done to the waterway.
My take has always been that if you need to electrify a device, or fuel it in the name of some environmental remediation, that you’ve already lost the battle. Nature is how you fix nature, not pumps or pipes. (they do, in fact, pump the mine water ‘up’ here, as a note)
Newtown Creek Alliance’s installation of shellfish batteries along the banks of the creek has been very promising, and since I’ve left NYC my ‘homeboys’ have been working quite closely with the Billion Oyster Project to install even more filter feeders into the water column.
As is habit, one captured images of the various installed signboards, which carry website and Agency information about Wingfield Pines;
Signage #1, signage #2, signage #3.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had stupidly walked the wrong direction at the start of this one, and right into a bog. My shoes were soaked through to the soles instantly, but what are you going to do? If I wanted to be comfortable, I’d have stayed at home and watched TV.
Luckily, I found the actual path.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Said bog. This was right over the side of the wooden walkway, not on the far side where I had gotten my shoes wet.
The scheme they have here involves water being moved up from the underground, and that liquid displays with a bright orange coloration.
There are four separated pools, and the liquid filters through both soil and plant life while moving through them. By the time that the stuff enters into the fourth pool, it’s almost ready for release, out into the free flowing Chartiers Creek which eventually joins the Monongahela River at the West End Bridge, nearby that admixture point where the ‘Mon’ joins with the Allegheny to form the Ohio River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of the remediation effort, they’ve created hiking trails for the public to enjoy and explore. I was having a devil of a time getting clean shots because of all this verge. Have to come back here during the cold months when everything is dead, so I can get a better look at the system.
As I often say: there’s a reason our ancestors paved over everything.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot was as close as I could find a spot to shoot from, one that didn’t involve me standing in ankle deep water and mud, where I could discern the mixing of the mine runoff with the greener surface waters. I’ll definitely check this spot out again during the devastations of winter.
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.
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
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.
