The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The next encounter on my ‘totally stupid fun’ scuttle involved crossing over the highways on the Charles J. Lieberth Pedestrian Walkway.

Named for PBS’s first ‘Mr. Science,’ the bridge spans over Route 28 and its various ramps which lead to other highways and high volume bridges. The pedestrian bridge allows egress over the concrete canyons of the high speed roads.

These highways were cut directly out of Pittsburgh’s central residential districts, dividing and isolating communities. Reading about this city, I have seen Robert Moses’ name pop up here and there as an advisor to both Pittsburgh and PA. planners, and whether or not he or his acolytes had anything to do with this setup is unknown to me, but their influence on the road network here is pretty clear.

‘Urban core is bad, build highways through it to get the population out to the suburbs in cars.’

Me? I’m a big proponent of decking over these traffic chasms and creating parkland above them. It’s expensive, but so’s having tens of thousands of cars shoot through your neighborhood every day.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I floated the idea of decking over the Grand Central Parkway back in Astoria with a few of the powers that be. ‘The Tall Guy’ wasn’t terribly interested, although the ‘other guy’ currently running for Mayor was. The tale I was telling them was one where light weight decking, designed to carry a linear park rather than buildings, along Astoria Blvd. between 31st and 46th streets, was involved. I made the case about Real Estate valuation skyrocketing anywhere within six blocks of a park, cleaner air and its relationship to childhood asthma, and both noise containment and the urban heat island effect.

Decking over the trenches which highways ride through cities in is going to be ‘a thing’ eventually in this country. Not making more land, so… this sort of idea is one of the things that Government is actually good at… it would employ the unions… generate a lot of ‘made in the USA’ business for steel and concrete…

Bah.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

From up on the pedestrian bridge, looking northwards towards the ‘Deutschtown’ section of Pittsburgh’s North Shore.

Don’t know this area well at all, but there’s a lot of historic housing stock and commercial buildings to observe. I’m more familiar with the northern part of this neighborhood closer to Allegheny General Hospital. Exteriors of that institution are shown on the HBO/Max series ‘The Pitt’ as being the setting of the show (pictured here).

They don’t have enough people wearing Steelers jerseys and shorts during the winter for that show to be believably set in Pittsburgh.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Before leaving the pedestrian bridge and regaining normal streets, this highway interchange caught my eye. One of the tricks to driving in Pittsburgh is familiarity with which lane you need to be in for where you’re going. Drivers here are merciless, and enforce their rules with a maximum of mendacity. If you miss your turn, it’s incumbent to double back – there are no second chances on roads in the Steel City.

Me? I was heading for the Heinz Factory Lofts. That’s what they call the Heinz Factory now that it’s been converted to residential.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’ve shown you photos of the Heinz campus before, but nothing systematic or beyond the surface. Hoping to worm my way in there sometime and get busy with the camera.

Just passing through, at any rate.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My next challenge was going to crossing the Allegheny River, and getting to the 16th street bridge. Luckily, that’s the street I was standing one when this photo was taken.

Back next week with more – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.

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