Archive for February 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.
“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.
Engage
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, a day arrived here in Pittsburgh when it wasn’t; a) raining, b) snowing, c) under 20 degrees fahrenheit. One packed up the camera bag, donned that filthy black raincoat which I refer to as my ‘Street Cassock,’ and set forth to scuttle up the hill to The T light rail station.
I have a real preference for leaving the car at home unless I absolutely have no other choice to do so. This is odd for the region I now live in, which very much ‘car country.’ Personally, I don’t want to be bothered with parking and then getting back to the thing when I’ve got a mass transit option. The car cuts into the often serendipitous decisions which occur when I’m walking about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the solution that they came up with here in Downtown Pittsburgh to solve the ‘Homeless people pissing on the streets’ problem. Imagine that, not having to chance a ticket to do what comes naturally, and a large municipality which acknowledges human biology.
NYC’s response to a lack of such accommodation for the downtrodden has always been to send in the “Reverend in Blue” to write them a fine for pissing in public. I tell people about this here in Pittsburgh, NYC’s total lack of public bathrooms, a problem that only got worse after COVID.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Going back to the reasoning behind why I left the car at home, a random decision to walk over the Fort Pitt Bridge occurred to me and I was soon navigating my way over the Monongahela River, on the span’s bike and pedestrian path.
This was a medium long walk, incidentally, and over the course of the afternoon I probably scuttled out about 6-7 miles. It was also one of those walks where I was just making up my path and I didn’t have any sort of predefined destination or route. Just walking here, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been hitting this ‘inner circle’ of Pittsburgh where the 3 Rivers meet for a couple of months now – for fairly prosaic reasons – it’s easy for me to get to, and it’s where the waterfront trails are the most developed. Additionally: tugboats and trains and bridges…
As soon as the weather becomes reliable (as in not freezing or snowing) in the early Spring, I’m planning on visiting a couple of other places in Pittsburgh’s ‘neighborhood,’ notably Cleveland. I’m going to overnight that one, as it’s a bit of a drive at about two and a half hours.
I’ll be passing through East Palestine – where that train blew up last year – on that one, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Fort Pitt Bridge connects to the Fort Pitt Tunnel, and is punched through Mount Washington. It spans the very end of the Monongahela River, and is close to the Ohio River. That bridge in the distance is the West End Bridge, and it stretches over the Ohio, just for reference on the geography.
I didn’t catch the name of that Tug with those minerals barges, despite it being the protagonist of the photo (meaning that it was what the lens was focused on).
The path on the bridge for pedestrians like myself doesn’t go into the tunnel, instead it turns west and takes you – ultimately – towards the West End Bridge pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s kind of getting personal now, not getting the composition above with a train on those tracks. Beyond personal, it’s annoying already. I’m going to get it, have no doubt. I think I’m going to have to set up the camera and just sit there waiting for something to happen. Photography is often a lot like fishing, you prepare your gear and go to where you need to, but if they ain’t biting…
Bah! One continued along his way, walking the pedestrian path’s ramp back down to ground level on the south side of the Monongahela River.
Having ridden the T into town from HQ, a free transfer to one of the inclines was in the offing, and since I was heading in that direction anyway…
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.
Misttsburgh
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a few weeks of rain, and snow followed by extreme cold, a temperature inversion finally occurred and banks of heavy fog appeared here in Pittsburgh. It wasn’t the good kind of fog, I’d mention, it was more of a precipitous mist.
After banging my head against the wall for two weeks during an arctic interval of gray and rainy gloom, I couldn’t stand staying inside anymore and jumped into the car to go see what I could see. This one is from West End Overlook Park, a nearby facility which I visit periodically.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The elevation is the star of the show here, which offers a panoramic view of Pittsburgh’s center. Pictured above is the ‘North Side’ area which I’ve spent a bit of time getting familiar with in recent months.
In the foreground is part of the West End Bridge, a span over the Ohio River which I’ve also been getting to know. It started raining again while I was up here, so I headed back to the Mobile Oppression Platform for cover and decided that I needed to go somewhere else that offered my lens some overhead cover from precipitants. It was about a 15 minute drive to my next destination.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Seldom Seen Greenway’s fantastic brick lined tunnel entry pictured above. Another spot I’ve visited quite a bit in the last year. I like bringing Moe the Dog here for walks, as there’s a small trail and flowing water and a bit of woods.
As the crow flies, this cannot be more than a couple/three miles from West End Overlook, but you need to drive a long and curvilinear path through a couple of neighborhoods and an industrial zone to get here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The water moving through here is a stream called Saw Mill Run. On weekends, you’ll encounter groups of people climbing the masonry walls and rappelling about on ropes. It’s organized, I’d add, and they’re part of some club from one of the universities.
The water is pretty dirty, I tell’s ya, and it smells of residential sewer overflow on rainy days. Trust me when I tell you what the various flavors of sewage smell like, as I’ve got a lot of experience in that arena.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s an active rail bridge over the trail, one which I’ve spent several frustrating hours waiting for a train to appear upon in the past.
What looks like a staircase on the left is actually quite cylcopean in scale, and you’d have to be of Professional Wrestler or NBA stature to consider it as being a set of stairs. I get up to the top via a dirt trail on the other side of the masonry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As always seems to be the case, just as I was breaking down my kit and getting ready to head back to HQ, a train appeared when I wasn’t prepared to properly shoot it.
It’s a Pittsburgh & Lake Erie train set, if you’re interested.
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.
Thwarted
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weather was just awful, here in Pittsburgh, during the month of January. The conditions seriously impacted my whole ‘walk around and take pictures’ dealie. After what seemed like weeks of snow then rain then snow then sun arctic then rain again, the weather forecast seemed to be on a humble narrators side and that’s how I ended up trudging up the hill and boarding a Pittsburgh bound T light rail train set.
The forecast called for – perhaps – a light drizzle. What I got, roughly an hour into the walk, was teeming rain with sleet. It was the sort of sleet, mind you, that you actually feel pain as it’s hitting you in the face. Little cones of ice that had fallen thousands of feet, surprisingly hurt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the time I had scuttled south to the Monongahela River coast of Downtown Pittsburgh, it was seriously coming down. Luckily, I had worn my ‘Pittsburgh winter coat’ which is impressively water resistant, but my pants and shoes were pretty wet. I was using an umbrella of course, but that was mainly to protect the camera as I scuttled along my way. I heal, the camera doesn’t. I set out and across the Smithfield Street Bridge.
I occasionally had to deal with this in NYC, of course, but a lifetime of habitation there meant that I knew how to walk around raindrops and use buildings’ ‘rain shadows’ to my advantage. Overbuilt environments like Manhattan don’t really exist here, and certainly not so once you exit the ‘Downtown’ area.
Pictured are some of the interchanges between US HWY 22/30 and I-376, which run along the southern coast of the peninsular Downtown section.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The walk had to be aborted, but an evening assignation with Our Lady of the Pentacle was still a couple of hours ahead of me. I opted for ‘option B’ with the ‘B’ standing in for ‘Beer’ just to get out of the rain. I popped into a tap room and watched a group of televisions tuned to sportsball programming for an hour or so and then hailed a cab to take me the rest of the way towards our end of the week ‘night out’ dinner date.
Back tomorrow with a considerably less soggy experience, 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.
Ten Mile Scuttle, part six
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I punked out on the last section of my walk, and headed over to the T Light Rail Station on Pittsburgh’s First Avenue to catch a ride back home. Of all the T stations I’ve visited, the one that looks the most ‘right’ to me is First Avenue.
On your way out of Pittsburgh, you either pay when exiting the T or at the Station you’re getting out at. It’s all very confusing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Dormont, after debarking the T and getting a Gatorade at the gas station across the street, I stopped off for a quick shot of a Pittsburgh bound train set picking up passengers.
I began my scuttle down the hills towards HQ, with a genuinely weary gait. I had walked somewhere just over ten miles in about three hours.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As I faced down the ice on the steep hill of the block that HQ is found at the bottom of, I cracked out one last shot of a lovely little house that has just changed hands at the top of the hill. I know the place is vacant, and thereby positive that nobody’s privacy was going to be pierced by clicking the shutter and sharing the photo here.
According to Zillow, this 1,104 square foot, three bedroom and two bathroom house just got sold for $319,000. There’s a driveway, and a pretty big yard, too. Sweet.
Back next week.
“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 