The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The shot above was gathered in downtown Pittsburgh, where modern urbanist notions of ‘building set backs,’ and corporations not blotting out the sun with skyscrapers which aren’t designed to allow sunlight to filter down to the narrow urban style streets, do not apply.

It’s always kind of dark in this section of the city, and apparently the landlords don’t think they’re making enough cash off their tenants, so they’re blaming homeless people, Covid, and ‘work from home.’ It’s not that they might be charging too much for the space, or that their corporate lessees want to base themselves in cheaper suburban horizontal style building campuses these days, which are closer to the highway and airport and in municipalities which offer tax incentives for basing there instead of here. It’s definitely not that at all, clearly it’s the fault of the roughly 1,000 homeless people in Pittsburgh that the big landlords earning estimates are off.

Also, as a note, I’ve been attempting to not mention anything related to the White House here, but yeah – you’ve got a real estate developer and landlord in charge right now. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I’m going to try and stay out of all of that here. As usual – I’ve got a lot of opinions on the matter, but I’m really trying to avoid even mentioning his name, as it gives him power in the manner of the Harry Potter villain ‘Voldemort.’

Saying all that, if you need a break from the headlines, come here, I’ll show you something different five days a week and will avoid naming ‘he who must not be named.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

For instance: Recent occasion found me at the overlook platform provided by the Duquesne Incline, or as I refer to the facility – the ‘red one.’ Downtown Pittsburgh is in frame, a notable contrast from the first photo with its claustrophobic perspectives. I find that as I age, confined spaces are becoming anathema to me. During the early days just after my ankle surgery, I awoke in the middle of the night twisted up in the blanket, and positively freaked out in a panic as I felt trapped. It’s odd, the way the brain works, as I’ve always been somewhat neurotic, but have always been dangerously lacking in phobic behavior and fear.

As a middle aged/on the brink of ‘old’ guy, I’ve developed a series of things which make me uncomfortable which never used to bother me, except on a level of simple self preservation. I’ve started to not like heights terribly much, and as mentioned above – confined spaces.

The latter is something that’s always been there, since the 1980’s in Brooklyn when I was still a kid, and a race riot broke out on a city bus that I was riding. Full grown men were going at each other with abandon (the ‘Cugenes’ were pissed that a black kid from Crown Heights, part of a group of kids who were bussed from their neighborhood to the Cugene zone to go to school, had talked to one of the Italian kids’ sisters, or something – I don’t know, it was a riot and everybody was shouting) and there I was, still a kid and not even five feet tall yet, swept up in a battle between grown men as a non combatant. Brrr.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

While I was up on the overlook adjoining the incline, on the first fully sunny day we’d seen in about two weeks, a Towboat negotiated its line of mineral barges up the Monongahela River and in the direction of the confluence point of the three rivers, here in Pittsburgh. It was likely going to continue onto the Ohio River, formed by the admixture of the Allegheny and Monongahela.

I’ve caught a little crap here in Pittsburgh for my insistence on using the term ‘mineral barges.’ “Cant yinz see dat its coal, yinz freakin liberal” is the sort of many derogatory comments I’ve received after posting photos on various social media groups. Sigh…

My answer remains the same as it always has, and it’s the same answer I’d give back in NYC on harbor and Newtown Creek tours: if I can’t say – for certain – what something is, I jump a category heading or two up the list. Yeah, that looks like coal. It could also be coke. It could also be piles of coffee grounds for all I know. Until I know – for sure – what something in a photo is, I’m guessing or assuming. I can say ‘minerals barges’ with certainty, but I’m guessing or assuming as far as what their contents are.

Remember Felix Unger’s, of the TV Odd Couple, breakdown for the word ‘assume?’ When you ‘assume,’ you make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.’

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.