Archive for August 13th, 2024
From Frank Curto Park
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the routes that I often finding myself driving, here in Pittsburgh, is called ‘Bigelow Boulevard,’ (to the right of the former Pennsylvania RR station in this Flickr shot, just for reference) which is a heavily traveled arterial road that climbs a steep hill, up and away from the downtown area, leading to several neighborhoods found upon the hill’s prominence.
A seemingly seldom used park is set along this road, called Frank Curto park. It’s a fairly high speed road, Bigelow is, and the entrance to the park (which is reasonably reachable by vehicle only) requires one to come to a nearly complete stop in order to execute a sharp right hand turn at low speed. Given the driving habits of the Yinzers, which involve them tailgating you within a yard or so of your bumper, it’s often impossible to slow down or make that turn without the risk of getting smashed into that speeding pickup truck just behind you.
Luckily, I managed to make that turn recently when the traffic behind me got stuck at a light. There’s a road through the park space, and you just sort of pull over onto the grass to park. As mentioned above, the hill here is pretty steep, and commanding views of the Allegheny River side of the Golden Triangle are available for inspection.
For reference, the Heinz Factory is in the fore, and the big white building is Allegheny General Hospital.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator was just passing through, of course, but the opportunity to wave the camera around for a few minutes was taken. This one looks towards the 16th street bridge, and over a bunch of newly constructed housing units in Pittsburgh’s ‘Strip District.’ Beyond that, on the other side of the river is found the ‘North Side.’
Way in the distance, amongst those hills, is the West End Overlook park which I’ve visited repeatedly since moving to Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks directly down the Allegheny River’s ‘triangle side’ shoreline, towards the waterway’s admixture with the Monongahela River which in turn forms the Ohio River. The large bridge span seen at the ‘end of the line’ is the Fort Duquesne Bridge.
My time was limited on this ‘go,’ but I’m definitely going to try and visit this spot again, assuming I can make that sharp ninety degree turn off of Bigelow Boulevard without a tailgater smashing into my car.
Back tomorrow, with something different.
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