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.
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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.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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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.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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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
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Hey Now! White Whale edition
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I really have to stop referring to these guys ‘the White Whale,’ as I’ve figured out several places to regularly catch their comings and goings at this stage of my residency in Pittsburgh. Melville references can only be used when something is an extraordinarily rare sight.
Allegheny Valley Rail Road is the name of the service’s corporate owner, and their branding on the Pittsburgh section is ‘Carload Express.’ Basically, the ‘big guys’ like CSX or Norfolk Southern handle the long distance transport of a rail car, whereas AVRR handles the ‘last mile’ of travel to the end customer.
Seriously though, that shot above is one of the top five rail shots which I’ve gathered since living out here in Pittsburgh. Zoom in on those wheels. You can see just how little of the wheel touches the rail, which is a very cool thing. NERD! NERD! NERD!
Yeah… but how often do you get to see a creep shot of a freight train, looking up a locomotive’s skirt, gaddammit?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The berm which their tracks ride upon was around 8-10 feet high relative to the level of the street I was standing on, and it continued on towards downtown, paralleling a major vehicle thoroughfare and local street called ‘Penn Avenue’ for a spell.
Me? I just stood there, shooting and shooting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Surprisingly, I’ve seen this sort of thing multiple times in the last few weeks, specifically that the locomotive engines were running without a train of cargo cars attached to them. A violation of the first rule of freight, which is ‘don’t go anywhere empty.’ If you’ve ever had a job at a restaurant, this concept is related to the ‘empty hands do not go into or out of the kitchen’ rule.
As always seems to be the case, while this scene was playing out, a strong desire to urinate manifested.
I enjoy a variety of Doctor’s prescriptions related to my cardiac functions and circulatory health, it should be mentioned, and one of those pills happens to be a blood pressure medication. Said pill offers the label warning that ‘you may experience a sudden and immediate need to urinate.’ I can confirm this side effect.
I’ve realized that an ongoing theme here at Newtown Pentacle has revolved around me mentioning the need to suddenly have a piss while out in the wild, and that pill is why. I always try to describe the existential side of visiting these sorts of places, what I’m thinking or feeling, and so on. Ignoring basic biological function is silly and childish, to me. I’m not the City of Greater New York, after all.
That blood pressure pill does put me into real pickles, sometimes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the train had passed, and some of the local plants had been watered, one decided to straighten out the straps for the camera and bag. I was about to enter a populated area again, and didn’t want to look all janky to the passerby. One leaned forward and resumed his herky jerky approximation of human locomotion.
Hey! Forgot to mention this, but I’ve finally regained the spring in my step, post orthopedic incident. I was moving at between 2.8 and 3.4 mph on this scuttle, according to the heath app on my phone. The upper margin is very near what’s considered ‘running’ speed.
Consider that nine months ago I was walking at 1.3 mph, and in the postural manner of the Batman villain Penguin, so that’s some good news right there lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One more shot looking back over my shoulder, at where I had just walked through, under the Bloomfield Avenue Bridge. Neville Street transforms into Sassafras Street nearby, which parallels the fencelines of the old Iron City Brewery – an ‘abandoned’ property which seems to have an owner that’s experiencing a development dilemma.
Don’t know much about its story, but this brewery is a gargantuan former industrial property, plopped right at the edge of a ‘hot’ real estate area called Lawrenceville that seems to be trapped in ‘development hell.’
Think Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, or Williamsburg, around 1995-2000.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The uphill route, out of the Skunk Hollow zone, shadowed.
Again, where is everybody? Maybe I am dead, just a wandering phantom with a camera… an animated but filthy black raincoat with no one inside…
Back tomorrow 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 