Archive for February 8th, 2024
Down
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator, after walking across the Fort Pitt bridge – as descirbed yesterday – used a free transfer from the T light rail to one of the inclines and soon found himself standing atop Mount Washington and looking down. This is one heck of a prominence, I would mention.
Also as mentioned, I was just letting this particular walk play itself out and went in whatever direction whimsy indicated as correct. As always, camera in hand and the filthy black raincoat flapping noisily in the wind.
A schmuck with a camera, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mount Washington is pretty steep, even when you’re just navigating the sidewalks. As has become my habit here in Pittsburgh, I was heading downhill. The homes on the left side of the shot all seem to have terraces and huge picture windows on the cliff side of their buildings. Lucky stiffs, the people who live here have the best views in the entire city – front row, as it were.
Also as mentioned, we’ve been experiencing serious symptoms of winter here in recent weeks. This was the first day with a modicum of sunlight in several weeks, and it was warm enough out that the snow and ice had melted away.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bridge I had walked over the river on, Fort Pitt, is the one on the left side of the shot above, and the one in the background is Fort Duquesne Bridge (overflying the Allegheny River). This shot was gathered as I began my descent back to the level I normally dwell in.
I was walking ‘double time’ here, since it was downhill and the scuttling thereby became less ‘muscular’ than previously.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One navigated to the P.J. McArdle roadway, which is diagonally trussed across the face of Mount Washington. It carries two lanes of vehicle traffic that head up and down the landform, and offers a somewhat ‘in need of repairs’ combine of bike and pedestrian path as well – pictured above.
At least you’re separated from vehicle traffic by waist high concrete barriers for most of it…
The civil engineering side of Pittsburgh is absolutely incredible. There seems to be no geologic obstacle that the people who built this place didn’t figure out a novel way to go through, under, or above. Wow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You just have to marvel at it sometimes. After that tree stump, you’ve got a drop off of about 800 or so feet which is set along a 70-80 degree cliff face, that is also heavily wooded. If you fell from here, you’d splatter like a ripe melon. As my Sicilian neighbors, back in the old neighborhood in Brooklyn, would say: “Marone.”
That’s just about when I spotted it… the horror.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Can it be? Has the Queens Cobbler followed me to Pittsburgh, continuing their horrific pursuits? The mind shakes, the soul quivers, the body… well, nothing really happened on that front, but… can it be?
More tomorrow.
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