Archive for March 2025
Scuttleburgh
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ok, I’m really starting to lean back into my ‘normal’ things, lords and ladies. I’ve fully convinced myself that nobody thinks I can fully recover from the busted ankle because they think I’m old and weak, and further packaged that up with a lot of of other personal resentments and annoyances, so I thereby have to prove the world wrong. Again.
What? How do you motivate yourself out of the house to enact a forced march when the only thing you want to do is stay at home and whine about how much your ankle is bugging you? Pfah.
The hill I live at the bottom of was vaingloriously surmounted, and your humble narrator then heroically scuttled off in the direction of the light rail station. The goal for the day was a short walk, of about three miles, but the effort would also include walking some of Pittsburgh’s steeply problematic hills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I made it to the apex of those hills, here in Pittsburgh’s Boro of Dormont. That’s where you’ll find the T light rail station, and it’s where I boarded the carriage to carry me to a more visually interesting section of the metro area. I boarded the thing and it lurched roughly towards Pittsburgh, about 5-6 miles away. For you New Yorkers, think boarding the subway in Downtown Brooklyn or the Northern Blvd. sections of LIC and Astoria for an analogue. Just a few stops and you’re ‘there.’
Observably, I seem to be the only person in Pittsburgh who shoots photos out of the T’s windows, but that’s a habit I started back in NYC while riding the subways. Helped pass the time during a commute, and you never really knew what you were getting until going through the photos back at HQ. Most of my ‘shooting out of a train window’ ends up getting trashed, but every now and then you get something unique or interesting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That concrete blockhouse looking structure is the entrance to Pittsburgh’s Liberty Tunnel. The terrain surrounding it is byzantine, with multiple arterial roadways leading here. There’s also the T tracks, which are elevated on a causeway here, and there’s also busways, and a couple of heavy freight rail trestles also get threaded through this area. It’s complicated!
One of these days I’m going to debark the T at a nearby stop and try to get some decent shots of the complex. At least until the cops chase me away, or I get bored while waiting for a freight train to cross one of those trestles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in prior posts, a good amount of construction work is currently affecting the T light rail, and the lines will all be detouring through the Allentown neighborhood until the autumn. Unfortunately, the ‘PRT’ transit agency which runs the show only added a single stop way at the top of the hill for the inconvenience, but there you are.
If you’re curious, the camera formula for this sort of ‘out the window shooting’ involves setting the ISO sensitivity up to nighttime levels (6400 for my camera) and setting the device to its ‘AV’ or aperture priority mode. The camera will then find the correct exposure automatically while maintaining the ISO and aperture settings (which is f8 for the particular zoom lens I was using this day). Normally, I shoot in full manual mode, which allows me control over all aspects of the exposure, but shooting out of the window of a moving vehicle isn’t very normal and the technological assist is welcomed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the set of tracks which I often point the camera at, the ones nearby that brewery I keep mentioning. My plan for the day involved the relative flatness of this area. The beginning of my walk involved a bit of muscle, in terms of getting to the T via the hills of Dormont. This section was all about exercising the more discrete tissues in the foot and ankle, and getting them moving and all lubricated.
Six months, and two weeks. That’s exactly how long I’ve been dealing with this broken ankle business. As mentioned last week, the Doctors have more or less given me the ‘all clear’ and thusly I now need to seriously work the joint in order to get back to what I consider ‘normal.’ Thing is, ‘normal’ is what it used to feel like, and it’s a pretty different ankle after the injury and surgery. How it works, feels, performs – all different.
The asymmetry is really hard to get used to, but in time I don’t think I’ll even notice it. If only I was born patient, instead of good looking…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T was debarked at the Second Avenue station, which is fed traffic by the Panhandle Bridge pictured above. The plan was to walk a bit on one of the trails along the waterfront of the Monongahela River, cross the waterbody on the Smithfield Street Bridge, then try and get a few train shots. It wouldn’t be a ‘have a beer too’ day, although my end point for the walk would be nearby that now familiar spot nearby the brewery.
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.
Panhandling? Mebbee.
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yes, we’re ending this week all ‘pastoral’ like.
For all the people who ask me ‘why Pittsburgh?,’ scenes like the one above are a part of ‘why.’ The name of this state I’m in means ‘Penn’s Woods’ after all, and it’s a not very long drive to leave behind the passive aggressive streets of the Paris of Appalachia to take a walk in a well manicured section of the ‘sylvania.’ If you wanted actual woods, that’s about another 25-30 minutes away in an any direction, this is a wooded corridor through an otherwise suburban area.
As described yesterday, a trailhead which I did not know existed was recently discovered as being about a 15 minute drive from HQ. The facility is called as the ‘Panhandle Trail.’ This particular trailhead, dubbed ‘Walkers Mill’ is found in Collier Township. There’s all sorts of indications that this area used to host a rock quarry, but I haven’t been able to find historic specifics. I’m am of the opinion that the ‘Walkers Mill’ nomen likely emanates from one of the legal founders of the town, in 1911, a fellow who was called J.J. Walker.
Saying that, I’m making broad inferences off of a scarce bit of research, so take that one with a grain of salt. I generally don’t ’deep dive’ these days unless I’m trying to prove a point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is always fascinated by the Appalachian layer cake you can observe here in Western Pennsylvania. One of the oldest mountain ranges on earth, the Appalachia are. Supposedly, these sort of rocks are heavily embedded with fossils of both a micro and macroscopic nature. They’re also valuable from a chemical perspective, having preserved climate data in their layers which go back as far as a billion years, and varying amounts of hydrocarbons can be found in the stack too. Coal, oils, gas. This trail has a feature called ‘Fossil Cliff’ which I’m intrigued by.
Unfortunately, I had a doctor’s appointment to get to, and the alarm on my phone chimed out (I’m currently using Black Flag’s ‘My War’ as the alarm tone) and that let me know it was time to go and get my 6 month in X-Ray for the busted ankle. An intention was to show the Doc what the ankle looked like after some exercise, instead of being all pink and fresh while directly out of a resting period. I offered the Doc my step count from the walk, and he seemed pleased with the orthopedic healing progress and my efforts. My exercise plan for the next six months was offered approval, as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s absolute Heaven for me to be able to do this sort of thing again, after my long autumn and winter of oft times extremely painful recovery from the injury to my ankle. The muscular atrophy in my upper things is a leave behind, which I’m assiduously attacking right now on a nearly daily basis. Just yesterday, I walked up a flight of stairs without clutching for dear life on the bannister, for instance.
The weather is also beginning to warm up here in Pittsburgh, now. My Doctor approved plan is to start up my old routine again, the one where there’s three short walks of about an hour splayed out during the week, and one long ass marathon scuttle on the weekends. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, I’ll be once again ‘turning the earth under my feet.’
Back next week with something different, 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.
Walkers Mill, Panhandle Trail
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The start of the Panhandle Trail is pictured above, at a location which the people who run the institution call ‘Walkers Mill.’ Recent endeavor led to discovery of the trailhead location, which offers both parking and a porta potty. I checked the location into active memory after seeing it, and resolved to return and check the trail out. Glad I did, as Walkers Mill is only a 15 minutes drive from HQ. This sort of place is precisely what I’m needing at the moment, in terms of the post broken ankle ‘stretching and strengthening’ mission described in a post earlier this week.
This is a ‘rail trail,’ meaning that there used to be a freight train outfit whose ‘right of way’ was abandoned when they went out of business. I grabbed a shot of their signage, describing the history of this route, which you can see here. Obviously, a great more detail can be gleaned at the friends of the Panhandle Trail website.
I’ve encountered another section of the Panhandle Trail in the Pittsburgh metro area before, where it crosses the Montour Trail at a nice railroad trestle bridge. As it turns out, you can theoretically walk to West Virginia on this path. How’s about that? You’ll know you’re there when you start hearing Banjo music being played.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Alongside the trail is a shallow but quick flowing waterway called Robinson Run. The trail had a few other people walking and jogging around, but the population was sparse (it was a Monday, early afternoon). Your humble narrator had a few errands to accomplish nearby, and a Doctor’s visit later in the afternoon with the orthopedist who put Humpty Dumpty back together again. There’s a side trail or two which take you into the woods, notably one which leads to a ‘fossil cliff.’ The signage cautioned that accessibility is ‘difficult,’ but that usually refers to the grade of the hill. At the moment, walking on steep grades is still an issue, so I filed away that one for a visit in a couple of months when the ankle is stronger and surer.
Robinson Run does seems to receive a good amount of waste water from the surrounding town’s residences and businesses, based on my observation of the liquid’s coloration in areas of the stream bed which allowed pooling, and a few good sniffs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This sort of thing is absolute nepenthe for me right now, especially so with the vague odor of sewage popping up every no and then. Reminds me of home. Speaking of, I’m going to be back ‘in the old neighborhood’ for a few days in June. My dance card is already fairly full, but I’m planning on riding the ferry, smelling salt water (mixed with sewage), and visiting a certain waterway which provides the border of Brooklyn and Queens. I used to add in ‘undefended border,’ but who knows what’s been happening there since I’ve been gone.
Crushed limestone or paved surfaces, the Panhandle Trail is graded according to railroad standards, one foot’s worth of change in elevation for every hundred linear feet horizontally. Easy walking, this, and given that the rest of this year is going to be all about getting my legs back into scuttling condition… perfect.
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.
Compounding interests
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a portion of the Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church pictured above, which is one of several grandiose religious buildings here in Pittsburgh that I’m interested in getting an interior look at. Ideally, I’d love to get inside with the camera and a tripod and really go to town documenting all the architectural goodness that is no doubt contained within whilst the Presbyterians tell me how talented I am, but I’d be happy with about an hour in there to do my thing. A friend of mine who has lived in Pittsburgh for decades often suggests that I just go knock on the door and ask.
As is often stated, I’m like a Vampire and need to be invited in so I can do my work. This structure is huge, and set up in the manner of a cathedral. Here’s a longer shot of the building. On my ‘sacred spaces’ shot list, now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A couple of blocks away, you’ll find the Catholics. This is part of St. Bernard’s RC church, which I’ve actually entered in the past.
The linked post has an error associated with the first shot, which is clearly of the Presbyterian church, and being labeled as being St. Bernard’s. I goof up sometimes. No editor, one man shop, working against a five days a week schedule and with a zero budget – that’s me. Errors slip through occasionally due to exigency and obliging the scheduling. I rely on the wisdom of crowds for corrections and comments, which you lords and ladies often offer. Thanks to y’all. Collectively, we’re a ‘hell of a guy.’
Supposedly they have a cloister set up on their campus, and there’s a catholic school too. Boy oh boy would I love to bring the camera back here sometime soon. Maybe I’ll follow my friends advice and just ask for permission to record the scene properly, instead of waiting for the serendipity of social engineering to provide an opening.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One completed his scuttle, and burned through about 3-4 miles of walking. At the moment, this is a bit of an achievement, due to the broken ankle recovery situation. I decided that I’d take the T light rail back home rather than just backtrack my steps to HQ.
Back tomorrow with something different, 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.
Heading south, on West Liberty
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, one was engaged in a constitutional walk with a route that was planned out as being rather close to home. On this scuttle, I was walking down a secondary arterial street called ‘West Liberty Avenue,’ which transmogrifies into being called ‘Washington Road’ as it travels southeastwards. West Liberty Avenue intersects with a few other high volume roads, nearby the Liberty Tunnels leading out of Pittsburgh, as it heads out into the South Hills section. It’s set up like a local road, with lights and crosswalks, but the West Liberty/Washington Road corridor is a four lane high volume 24/7 traffic engine. In transit geek language, it would be called a ‘Stroad.’
I’m intrigued by that church pictured above, and plan on seeing what it’s like within the place sometime soon. They built churches like battleships out here, back in the day. There are, in fact, four churches along this route which I’m very interested in photographing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More of Pittsburgh’s peculiar (to me) alleys were encountered along my way. As is always the case when I’m on this sort of scuttle, one was trying to notice ‘all the little things.’ By this section of the walk my ankle was starting to get angry at me, but in accordance with a now long standing habit I just leaned into it. Won’t get better on its own, and I’ve had enough rest to last me a lifetime.
It’s actually an odd thing to be ‘consciously’ walking. As in focusing in on each step while avoiding the trap of ‘protecting’ my ankle. The protection thing inevitably ends up with me limping, dragging my foot, or walking like the Batman villain Penguin. All of those things are counterproductive to the recovery effort, so I need to maintain a certain awareness of my walking postures whilst scuttling about. My surgeon endorses this view of mine.
I’ve literally had to relearn bipedalism in the last six months. This was something I thought that I had accomplished more than fifty years ago, so it’s frustrating to have to do it all over again. Bah.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
About five years ago, I missed out on a serious payday from the stock photo company Getty when they were looking for shots of urban gas stations, specifically BP ones. I decided at that point to make such institutions part of my shot list. I also discovered how difficult it is to get shots of gas stations at night when they’re all lit up, and that’s something whoch draws me to a subject like nothing else.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 