The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Pittsburgh’s crazy terrain forced the need for primary and secondary arterial roadways to be carved into and set along cliffs and bluffs, in order to connect the various sections of its metro area. Pictured above is the intersection of Route 380/Bigelow Boulevard and the Bloomfield Bridge. This is a stretch of road which is also part of the ‘Lincoln Highway,’ which predates the Interstate System. To get from ‘a’ to ‘b’ in this section of Pittsburgh, you’ll likely have to pass through this intersection. High volume, high speed.

There’s a sidewalk along it, though, which sits behind a line of jersey barriers. It had been a stressful week, and your humble narrator needed to take a walk that he hadn’t already taken, and every time that I’ve driven through here recently the intrusive thought that I’d like to scuttle through here instead has manifested. That’s the story of how I ended up having a rideshare drop me off here.

The traffic flow is so heavy that there’s a pedestrian bridge.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The bridge at the crossing makes sense, and so did that of a second bridge found just a few blocks away, which has had its span and crossing of Bigelow Boulevard removed.

The stairs related ptsd thing which I’ve been experiencing since the busted ankle last September is retreating, thankfully, no doubt due to all the ‘exposure therapy’ that I’ve been subjecting myself to. I should mention that structures like this one have always been favorites of mine – weirdly overbuilt pedestrian only spaces are the rizz.

As mentioned in prior posts, I’ve spent most of the month of July catching up on medical related stuff which got pushed to the side during the ankle adventure. You hit a certain age, Y’see, and the Docs want nothing more than scans and tests to assure themselves of your continuing homeostasis in order to plan the pharmaceutical orders which are meant to vouchsafe said state. It’s all in my best interest, I’m told.

All of these July trial results came back clean and fairly lovely, as a note. It seems that I will continue on for a spell. Need to lose some weight.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Unremarkable graffiti was seen everywhere on this passage – tags, political sayings or mottos, and so on. It was a warm day in Pittsburgh, with temperatures in the high 80’s and a dew point humidity level which the local CBS affiliate’s weather chart listed as ‘ridiculous.’ That’s literally a category on their broadcast graphics: ridiculous.

The plan for this outing was to follow Bigelow Boulevard for a bit, then turn off onto Polish Hill, which is an extremely interesting neighborhood with super steep streets. If you follow Bigelow long enough, you run out of sidewalk at one point and then you’ve got at least a half mile of walking on the side of a highway with no barriers or protection. Yikes.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The post ankle PTSD thing is worse on descents than ascents, stairs wise. I’ve gotten to the point where I no longer grasp at the bannister with a death grip, and have instead progressed to just floating my hand about a half inch over the bannister while descending. The death grip thing has almost tripped me up a few times.

I will survive this year, if it kills me.

Yeah, that’s kind of my theme song right now.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I wasn’t standing in the middle of the road for this one, as there’s a curb ‘bump out.’ Bigelow Boulevard, and here’s a shot from downtown of it just to get an idea of this road’s scale and setting, is fascinating.

Bigelow is the road on the right hand side of the above linked shot which proceeds down through the trees. There has to be at least a 500 foot change in elevation from the pedestrian bridge to its end, when it comes down to ‘flat’ ground downtown. Bigelow also feeds into a traffic exchange called ‘Crosstown Boulevard’ which allows highway connections to a couple of bridges and the interstate.

This was a ‘full kit’ walk for me, and even though I didn’t end up needing either the umbrella or the tripod (combined, about six pounds), I had them both with me. I also had a bag full of lenses (about eight pounds) that I didn’t end up using either, as this ended up being a zoom lens kind of walk.

Good news is that I carried an unnecessary fourteen pound weight around with me for no good purpose on a super hot day, so exercise!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The 24-240mm zoom lens was kind of essential for this walk, as I kept dialing between wide and telephoto the whole time, and it would have been a pain in the neck to be continually switching lenses.

That green colored house caught my eye. It’s pretty typical for Pittsburgh, with the metallic awnings overflying the front porch and windows. Buildings constructed before the ago of air conditioning in this area have all sorts of work arounds for the humidity, with those metal awnings being a commonly observed one.

Back next week 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.