Archive for April 2023
South Side part 4
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After spending an afternoon scuttling about on Pittsburgh’s South Side, one had to head back to HQ in nearby Dormont to meet up with Our Lady of the Pentacle and attend some sort of social event. Dread thereby filled my soul, as I worried about whom I might offend and which opinion that I host that might accidentally do that. Nothing like that happened, but it ain’t easy being me.
Pittsburgh has hundreds and hundreds of flights of municipal or public staircases, installed to allow easy passage between the shelf and terrace like streets adorning its steep hills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They look kind of daunting, but the stairs offer a ‘good cardio’ opportunity when you’re out for a walk. One negotiated the steps, mentally critiquing their design. Rise is the vertical distance between individual steps, run is the horizontal footboard space you step on. During the Victorian era, one of the ways you were most likely to die at home involved improper ‘rise and run’ installations which caused people to fall down the stairs and crack their heads and necks. This problem was assessed by the industrial age intellectuals of Great Britain, who invented the modern day architectural formula for calculating the proper ratio that you’re likely familiar with. Now you know.
The stairs carried me up to East Carson Street, which is sort of the ‘Via Majorica’ of this area – a primary arterial roadway leading from points east to points west and past intersections leading to bridges or tunnels.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last look at that cool concrete factory from the slightly higher elevation offered by this path, and I was heading off towards the light rail and my trip home. Luckily, being a Sunday, there was little to no activity going on here, so I felt emboldened to walk into a few empty parking lots along the way and crack out a couple of final shots.
This sort of congestion of infrastructure is just so appealing to one such as myself. I’m all ‘effed up, but I love it so.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A neat POV presented itself along the way, where I was more or less level with the exit from the Panhandle bridge which the T light rail crosses the Monongahela River upon. The train set exits the bridge onto a truss which allows it eventual access to ground level at the nearby Station Square stop.
Having spotted this connect, at eye level, I began stalking it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the one which I felt like I could hand my hat on for the day.
There’s a couple of things I’d do a little different, and I will, the next time I shoot this particular composition. Saying that, happy with the image am I. This is another one I’m going to have to hit at dawn and then dusk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just before boarding the T for my ride back home, a CSX freight train appeared and I couldn’t resist.
Back next week with more from the Paris of Appalachia.
“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.
South Side part 3
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a public space along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh’s South Side which is called ‘Color Park.’ The legend for this place, which officially opened in 2017, attributes its creation to a local artist named Baron Batch. Formerly, this was an industrial wasteland. Color Park encourages graffiti artists to come and paint here, and add their work to an ad hoc public gallery.
The park area is really nice, with waterfront views, and it’s ok to paint on the ground or any of the concrete surfaces within.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was my first visit, and I headed in the general direction of the Birmingham Bridge. A set of freight rail tracks defines one of the borders of the place, with the river providing another. The park was very well populated with lookie loos, bike riders, artists, and joggers.
One shambled forth, scuttling forward, always an outsider.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the river, on a prominence, those high rise buildings are a part of Duquesne University. The yellow bridge is called the South Tenth Street Bridge. My scuttling had resulted in carrying the desolate massing of my mortal frame to a spot which I had seen previously, so a change in direction was instituted and I headed out of the park and up to the local street grid surrounding it.
The neighborhood nearby Color Park, part of the South Side section, hosts a series of interesting late 19th and early 20th century homes and commercial buildings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ‘Color Park’ deal continues up on the streets, with several large warehouse buildings painted in primary colors. The prominence in the background is Mount Washington, and that spot where the TV broadcast antenna is visible is about a block away from one of the Inclines. It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of about a 1,000 feet change in elevation from where I was standing to that spot.
Scuttling, always scuttling, I moved forward.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Couldn’t help but crack out a few of the interplay between the primary color walls and the surroundings. One had reached his turnaround point, that moment in any walk where you decide that it’s time to start heading back towards the dwelling. In this case, I had taken the T light rail into town and left the car back at HQ, so I needed to get back to the T station so I could catch the ride which would carry my bloated carcass back to HQ.
More than once on this walk, a peculiar spasticity affected my face. The corners of my mouth cramped upwards, the eyeholes narrowed and brows arched, and the normal grimace reversed itself. A hideous imposture of what others might describe as a ‘smile’ wrote itself onto my visage. I’m glad of the fact that I was alone, and that no one saw me experiencing what might be considered an emotion. I caught a reflection of it in the silvered glass of a truck’s rear view mirror and was startled.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The walk wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot, but I gathered myself back together and reassured myself that this smiling thing was just a symptom of some as of yet undiscovered health condition. I mentally pictured burn victims and kids with cancer, which righted my mental ship back to darkness and dissolution. The spastic condition on my face disappeared and soon I was once again wearing the mask of the depressed and despondent, which is my normal state. A dark cloud on an otherwise sunny day, after all, am I. Just ask anyone, I’m the worst.
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.
South Side part 2
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, one decided to take a Sunday afternoon long walk around Pittsburgh’s South Side section waterfront. As also described, my newness and naïveté about Pittsburgh’s environs demands that I offer a preemptive “mea culpa” if I get something wrong. My ignorance is epic at this point in time.
There’s a waterfront trail here along the Monongahela River which shadows the shoreline, and I think it’s one of the former railroad right of ways which has been converted over to a bike and pedestrian path.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You can’t help but notice the Frank Bryan Concrete Factory when you’re in this area, with its sweeping conveyor belts flying about. The vehicle bridge in the background of many of these shots is called the Liberty Bridge, which serves a primary arterial purpose in terms of allowing vehicles access from Downtown Pittsburgh across the river and leads first to the Liberty Tunnel and then the South Hills section on the other side of the prominence of Mount Washington.
This is one of those spots you encounter in American cities where a whole lot of infrastructural elements come together.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Those concrete conveyors I mentioned earlier overfly the Pittsburgh Subdivision of CSX’s freight rail tracks, as well as the bike/ped trail. This offers pretty fantastic points of view for the wandering mendicant.
It also offers very nice POV’s if you’re into trains, but that’s a different post for a later date. In the meantime, neat triangular compositions abound.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The concrete factory seemed to be a wonderland of big machines and heavy equipment. This shot looks through a hole in their fence. I never trespass if I can help it, as I’m like a vampire who needs to be invited into a space to do my work.
It’s been a fantastic experience, incidentally, discovering things new and novel. My long residency along Newtown Creek back in NYC allows me certain insights into what I’m seeing and definitively guides where I’m pointing my toes, but it’s been fantastic to be surprised, awed, and mystified again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just beyond the Liberty Bridge is the Panhandle Bridge, a former heavy rail span which now carries the T light rail service over the river. I’m going to have to come back here at dawn and then dusk to see what those shots would look like.
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was traveling light for this walk. I left most of my gear back at HQ and was rolling about with a minimal photo kit in my bag.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Essentially, I’m still deep in scouting mode these days. Figuring out where neat images can be gathered in the future. I’ve begun to grasp what times of day I’m likely to see a train on the ground level tracks (2:30 on a Sunday, as in the shot above, not so much) in some future walk. I was absolutely magnetized to this particular location, but forced my feet to start kicking about again and move on.
More 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.
South Side part 1
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start – this and the posts following it reflect the first time that I’ve taken a long scuttle around the South Side section of Pittsburgh. There’s been a few ‘drive by’s’ and one or two ‘drive to’s’ in the recent past, but these shots were from my first longish walk around the zone. Anything I say in these posts reflects an extremely ephemeral level of experience, and if there’s something stated which I’m wrong about – please speak up and share your knowledge with the rest of the class.
This section of the City was founded as the village of Birmingham and annexed in 1872 by Pittsburgh. The South Side is more or less the part of Pittsburgh found between the Birmingham and Liberty Bridges, along the Monongahela River. The South Side Flats neighborhood is right next door, but I couldn’t tell you where the line of demarcation between them is to save my life.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The section further east of here, closer to the Birmingham Bridge, hosted a steel mill until the 1980’s, called the Jones and Laughlin Mill. The section pictured today was a warehousing and heavy manufacturing district that was directly connected to the rail yards and tracks of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Rail Road.
Pictured above are the Liberty Bridge on the left, and on the right is the truss bridge which allows the T light rail to access its crossing of the Monongahela at the Panhandle Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The town father of Birmingham/South Side area was apparently a fellow named Dr. Nathaniel Bedford. He laid out the streets, and when industry began setting itself up here, huge numbers of German and other Eastern European immigrants showed up. There’s a lot of very, very old buildings on display here. By Pittsburgh standard, these streets are practically flat, I would mention.
These shots were gathered on a Sunday afternoon, so the streets seemed particularly deserted except for joggers, bike riders, and me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a pretty large scale development project which I encountered that dubs itself “The Highline.” The showrunners where consciously connect the project to NYC’s Highline, even going so far as to use a silhouette of the Manhattan Skyline on logo bearing signage.
This complex used to be called the Pittsburgh Terminal and it dates back to 1906, when it was one of the largest warehouses on the planet. The 6 story and 868,000 square foot property was sold to an outfit called McKnight Realty Partners in 2016.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are flights of stairs everywhere you look in Pittsburgh. I climbed up this set, which had a quite pleasing combination of solidity with an easy rise and run, and I soon found myself up top.
Altitude always benefits the wandering mendicant with a camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was fairly sterile up there, I must say. There were cool points of view on offer, and I’ll definitely be back to take advantage of them in the future. This project reminded me a lot of the Bush Terminal redevelopments which the NYC EDC operates in South Brooklyn. Apparently, the real estate people here came to a similar conclusion as to profitable usage of the space as the EDC has, and have converted the former warehouse terminal space over to offices and for street level commercial usage.
More tomorrow, from Pittsburgh’s South Side, at 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.
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A visit to the Heinz History Center in Downtown Pittsburgh had been undertaken by Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself recently. That’s “Heinz” as in the Ketchup people with the 57 varieties, and one of the displays at this Smithsonian affiliated museum is centered around the iconic streetcars of Pittsburgh. The unit above went out of service in 1988, and it’s designated ‘Pittsburgh Streetcar #1724.’ I’ve come to understand that the high water mark for Pittsburgh’s streetcar system was in the middle 1950’s, when there were about 600 of the sort of vehicle pictured above roaming about.
historicpittsburgh.org has a succinct description of this class of streetcar, once so ubiquitous in Pittsburgh, which can be accessed here. There used to be a serious network of public transit in these parts, in addition to the surviving inclines which get most of the modern attention. For a history of how mass transit rose and fell in Pittsburgh, check this out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the modern day equivalent of the historic streetcar display at the Heinz Center, which is dubbed the ‘T.’ When Our Lady and I were planning the great escape from New York, transit was definitively a part of the decision matrix, so we moved into an area which the T serves. I end up driving a lot here, but there’s days when I just want to scuttle about and not be tied down to wherever I parked the car. It was on just such a day that the shot above was gathered, after having ridden the Red Line service from HQ in Dormont here to the Station Square stop nearby the Monongahela River. Pictured is a Silver Line light rail T set, which is headed the other way and out of the downtown area.
The postindustrial gentrification forge has definitively been stoked here in Pittsburgh, and a lot of real estate in the urban core is being converted to or entirely replaced by residential buildings. Saying that, it doesn’t burn as brightly or rapaciously as it does back in NYC.
The mental map which I had made for the day involved skirting along railroad tracks and some of the still industrial blocks in the Southside Flats area. After debarking the T streetcar, one began kicking the dirt while depressing the shutter button and trying to notice everything.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This area is my sort of thing, incidentally, with a web of elevated ramps for the T and vehicle traffic which lead to bridges. Huge post industrial and still industrial buildings, broken and lonely streets with a hint of danger… there’s even a set of quite busy freight rail tracks woven into the tapestry down here. Additionally, there’s many interesting points of view from which to wave the camera about.
It was a perfect day for a photowalk, with temperatures in the middle 60’s – sweatshirt weather. I left most of the gear at home, and brought a handheld camera kit with me.
More 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 