Archive for August 2025
Down, and then out
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After negotiating a Boulevard called Bigelow, and descending the steep streets of Polish Hill, and then crossing a set of rail tracks and a busway, one arrived at a flat section of the City of Pittsburgh, built upon the flood plain of the Allegheny River.
As is my recent habit, further scuttling occurred along the ‘way’ or alley streets in this zone. In Pittsburgh, if a street is called a ‘way,’ it’s an alley. The avenue blocks could be popping with crowds, but the ways are fairly unoccupied.
I avoid human infestations whenever possible.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The way led me, unfortunately, back to an avenue.
The humans gamboled and played, honking car horns and drinking sugar solutions from plastic vessels. Some ate fried things. Others gesticulated towards various points of interest. Everybody seemed to have somewhere to go. There was a baseball game scheduled for the night of the day which this scuttle occurred on, so lots of humans were in the area, dubbed ‘The Strip District.’ They were buying souvenirs and sports jerseys, drinking their carbonated syrups, and eating the high fat foods.
Many of them seemed disused to walking. Their feet pointed outwards, and the steps were shuffling. They hung together in family groupings. Formations of mutual defense, perhaps. These units would often flatten out into skirmish lines, with five or more people slowly shuffling along shoulder to shoulder while pouring things into their mouths and watching their phones carefully for some sort of update. When a skirmish line met an opposing group or line, chaos ensued. Socially awkward and passive aggressive maneuvering of their formations occurred, designed to allow access through for the interloper’s passage but not comfortably so.
They walk just like they drive, I thought.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Many were clothed in what I’d describe as ‘redneck drag.’ Suburbanites all dressed up to look rural. One guy I saw was wearing a shirt that said ‘patriot.’ He was wearing an American flag themed hat, which is – of course – a no-no as far as the official rules surrounding usage of the United States Flag, for patriots. Ask a Scout, they’ll tell you what’s kosher as far as using or handling the Stars and Stripes.
It was really, really hot out. My path was altered a bit to accommodate finding some shade. Luckily, lots of off and on ramps hereabouts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was a short walk, maybe four miles in length if you consider the changes in elevation. I was engaged for about two hours worth of walking, all I had time for on this day. I wasn’t feeling terribly well, I should mention, due to a specialized diet which yet another forthcoming medical test demanded I eat. The plan involved me eating exactly the set of foods which I normally avoid, regarding my cardiovascular situation. Lotsa fats and carbs, basically zero vegetables or fruit. Yuck.
Luckily, at this writing, that test has been accomplished. Now, I’ve only got a Dentist Appointment to make and I’m done with my annual set of ordeals. I may have to admit that the Doctors are smarter than me, and thereby it’s logical to subvert my will to theirs, but I don’t have to like it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A rideshare was summoned, which would carry me back to HQ in Dormont in air conditioned comfort. Worth every damned penny.
Now, on to my latest obsession.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The entire time I was sitting in that god damned wheelchair in Dormont, I was hearing train horns sounding off from a direction which didn’t make any sense to me. It took me a bit of searching, but… there ye be.
This is Wheeling & Lake Erie’s Rook Yard, which I’ve visited at street level, via Carnegie, in the past. I’ve finally figured out a spot where I can both park the car and also get elevated POV photos of the yard. This is where the RR enters into a trench, which then leads it into a tunnel under the neighborhood of Greentree, and I now have a pretty good idea where that tunnel comes out in West End… so, yeah…
For one such as myself, this is nepenthe.
Back next week with something different.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Means and Ways
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were a few ‘Bernie Holes’ cut into the fencing of the 28th street Bridge, connecting ‘Polish Hill’ with ‘The Strip.’ The lines of sight offerred nice views of a set of empty rail tracks and one of Pittsburgh’s ‘Bus Ways.’
Me? I was getting pretty f’shvitzed. High 80’s straying into the low 90’s and a dew point humidity level which the local CBS television station’s meteorological staff had described as ridiculous. I had also just passed out of an elevated area with abundant tree cover, and into an ‘urban heat island.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek was one of the places where this urban heat island phenomenon was first scientifically described, and it was once called the ‘Maspeth Heat Island Effect.’ Suffice to say, the collected heat radiating up and out of the concrete and asphalt grew staggering at this point.
I was ready for the weather. I even had an umbrella, just in case, although the forecast didn’t call for rain. This was the sort of weather, though, where a sudden ‘piss down’ storm wouldn’t seem out of place.
Better to be prepared. I was wearing a silly fishing hat with a wide brim that I bought at Costco for $7. Machine washable hats for the win, amirite?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot of the 28th street Bridge, which is a location that I will definitely be putting on my watch list for rail shots. There’s kind of a skyline/rail shot there, but it’s going to take a few iterations to ‘get it.’ It’s a complicated photo, actually, with horizontal layers of light valuation. Also, the obvious composition is basically a ‘T’ shape, which isn’t a great one.
Something to do, I guess. Whittle away at the lonely hours. All that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After crossing busy Liberty Avenue, one negotiated his way northwards in the direction of the Allegheny River, a left was hung on Spring Way. As stated in prior posts, in Pittsburgh, it seems that if a street has the word ‘way’ at its end, it’s an alley. Still considered a navigable public street, but an alley nevertheless. Currently, I’m obsessed.
A few of these ‘ways’ offer the only true profusion of graffiti that I see in my daily round. I mean… it’s a city, there’s going to be graffiti. Compared to just Western Queens, however…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Most of what I saw were ‘tags,’ which are essentially signatures that say ‘I was here.’ Saying that, there were a couple of examples which rocked. This abstract and poetic one was pretty darned cool, imho.
Generally speaking, I don’t shoot graffiti/street art for copyright and usage reasons unless somebody asks me to. Don’t want to be perceived as ‘biting’ off somebody for my own aggrandizement.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I love everything about the one above though. Click through and check out the line work on that duck. Great! Looks ‘like a sticker.’ If you click through to the photo, you’ll see an ‘insta’ tag, which I don’t want to put into readable text lest it draw the attentions of the gendarmerie.
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.
Get a lil bit lower now
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That building pictured above (the West Penn Recreation Center) looks incredibly ‘New Deal’ to me, but it was opened in 1922… saying that, I’ve seen contradicting information suggesting that the current incarnation of the structure was opened in 1939. Puzzling, but I don’t care enough to go on a deep dive about a building I’ve only walked past once.
One gets in trouble for usage of the phrase ‘I don’t care’ pretty often. When I utter those three little words, it means that I do not object nor want to get involved with whatever ‘mishegoss’ is being presented to me. It isn’t that I’m ignoring or dismissing something happening to others, it’s just that if I don’t have skin in whatever game it is, being neutral is better than having an opinion.
For instance: Back on Madison Avenue in NYC, I’d be sweating some urgent deadline while some Art Director would be vacillating over adding 3% magenta ink, or not, into a red color, and then they’d say ‘what do you think?’ My answer was ‘I don’t care, and you don’t actually care what I think, so just make a decision.’
I was a soldier, not an officer, in the salt mines of advertising.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not caring is hard to do, but it allows you to look at things clinically. You can see people and things for what they are rather than what you want them to be. I’ve got lots of opinions (probably why I started a blog, n’at), but as I’m wont to remind: ‘Nothing Matters, and Nobody Cares.’
I used to care a lot, but life beat that facility out of me. The only time I intervene in anything these days is when I see someone is about to get hurt. It means acting more like Spock and less like Kirk. It has taken me decades to reach this level of emotional numbness.
Things got a little complicated on the walking path leading away from Polish Hill, as I was heading down a medium steep street and had to modulate the speed that I was walking. Unfortunately, I had to scuttle down the sunny side of the street, in order to be where I’d want to be at the bottom of this hill.
That’s where my advance scouting comes in handy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was heading for the 28th street Bridge, which is a small steel truss that overflies a set of rail tracks, and one of the busways, that snake through Pittsburgh. I wanted to be on both sides of the road at the same time here, but I have to keep on reminding myself about the limitations introduced by the gamey ankle. I still can’t run, for instance. My movements are cautious, and slow.
Walking ‘fast’ is still a bit of a challenge, but walking speed has improved over the last couple of months by about a half mile per hour.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 28th street Bridge. It’s a fairly unremarkable structure, but it overflies both heavy rail tracks and a busway, and the redoubtable historicbridges.org offers this page describing its specifics.
I keep on saying that I haven’t ridden a bus in Pittsburgh, which isn’t entirely true. I have ridden on a shuttle bus, one which the T light Rail people were running during a spate of construction. What I haven’t done, and what I mean by the statement, is that I haven’t ridden a bus that travels on one of the busways. These are private roads which snake around Pittsburgh, open only to municipal vehicles and mass transit.
Interesting, no? I don’t care.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There ain’t nothing a cop loves more than having their picture taken by a member of the public, and as a Pittsburg PD car was transiting the bridge and it popped into view just as I was cracking out a shot. They didn’t stop, but I got the hairy eyeball while they drove past.
Actually, I can’t wait to sit down next to a local cop at a watering hole somewhere, as I have so many questions. Multiple NYPD officers over the years expanded my POV’s about NYC, and helped me understand the way that the City actually functions. You gotta take cop talk with a grain of salt though. Just like when you’re talking to strippers.
Strippers won’t advance a positive view of males, as they see only men at their absolute yuckiest, everyday at work. Cops live in a similar space, as they experience the citizenry only at their absolute worst, all day and every day. Basically, cops and strippers don’t have a great opinion of the human infestation in general.
On a positive note: Globally, estimates state that there are 833 puppies born every single minute of the day. That’s 1.2 million puppies a day, and 36.48 million new puppies come online every month. I prefer to think about that. Go adopt a dog.
Still, if you want to know when – exactly – you should be driving with your headlights according to statute… a cop will always a better person to ask than a stripper. A dog can’t help you here, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s one of the busways pictured above, with a 28X Airport Flyer navigating it. They use ‘road buses’ in the Pittsburgh area.
The rail tracks in the shot are shared with Amtrak by the Norfolk Southern freight outfit. Same set of tracks that lead off of the Fort Wayne Rail Bridge, and over the Allegheny River, which curl through the Amtrak/former Pennsylvania Rail Road station. Now I know where to stand at 5:30 in the morning, or 11:30 at night, while waiting to photograph one of the two Amtrak train sets which move through and past the former HQ of the Pennsylvania Rail Road.
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.
Polish Hill, please
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There has been a single post about a visit to Polish Hill during the interval that I’ve dwelt within Pittsburgh, which can be accessed here.
Despite my vow in that post to get inside of and photograph the Immaculate Heart of Mary RC Church, I have not done so yet. Ready your darts for hurling, as I have not done what I said I would do.
For those of you who don’t know me in real life, you should know that the mantra of ‘do what you say, say what you do’ is one of my core mottos.
I’ll get it going eventually… that ‘Sacred Spaces’ project of mine is likely going to kick into gear as we slide into winter, I think. Churches require a bit of social networking to get access to. I’ve been busy with suffering from the ankle dealie, so haven’t been social at all.
God’s lonely man, that’s me at the moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leaving Bigelow Boulevard for the local street grid on Polish Hill, one soon found himself walking down a steeply graded street.
My routes are still being cherry picked for down hill slopes. This is part of the recovery process from the busted ankle, as these steep slopes allow me to specifically ‘stretch and strengthen’ the muscle groups which atrophied during the ‘sit around and wait’ part of this experience.
See that… an existential crisis has now transmogrified in my mind to being ‘an experience.’ It’s now just ‘something that happened to me,’ but saying that, I’m not going to print up t-shirts and start a nonprofit to advocate for ‘ankle safe spaces.’ Nor will I deride people who aren’t ‘ankle aware.’
Man oh man, do I hate the way that the future has turned out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our living future is just so pedantic, and seems to mirror the plot line of the movie ‘Robocop 3.’ Are there moving sidewalks? Only in airports. Jet packs? Nope. Space bases? Pfah.
We did get cryptofascism, pocket computers, government surveillance, and all that though… Bah!
That’s the Immaculate Heart of Mary RC Church pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another set of City Steps were encountered, but I was still pretty determined not to stray from my course.
Famously, I like to plot out my paths using Google Maps in advance of a walk. There’s lots of dead end streets and cul de sac neighborhoods here in Pittsburgh, and coupled with the steepness of the streets… you don’t necessarily want to find yourself having to walk back out of a dead end street that’s set into a twenty degree grade.
I don’t use the Google app ‘in the field’ all that much, I just like to plan out a route which gets resolved while I’m walking it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s an abandoned catholic school alongside the church, and those city steps, above. Clearly, if any building is going to be haunted, it’s this one.
I’ve read that the RC Church here in Pittsburgh is anxious to disburse itself of real estate holdings left over from when the City’s population was double or triple its current size, during the era of steel.
There’s actual church buildings and all sorts of scholastic and medical buildings available. One of the stop gaps for the real estate people, surrounding these properties, is that the RC church wants top dollar for the real estate and they insist on ‘covenants’ governing what can be done with some parts of the land once it changes hands. You’ve also got ‘historic district’ limitations on a lot of their stock, so… it’s complicated.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seriously: haunted looking, ain’t it?
One continued on with kicking the dirt, and following his downhill spiral.
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.
Views via Bigelow Blvd.
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As established last week, your humble narrator could have been observed as scuttling along on Pittsburgh’s Bigelow Boulevard, enjoying views from on high.
The route I was walking is more or less parallel to one which carried me through Lawrenceville (which is down there on the Allegheny River’s flood plain) a few weeks back. That’s the 33rd street rail bridge, btw., for a point of reference on the Lawrenceville walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a few residential buildings found along Bigelow Boulevard which have stout garage doors facing out onto this de facto highway. There’s an auto detailing shop found further along the route as well, and both on the opposite side of the ‘Polish Hill’ side of the road where I was walking. That’s some door.
For some reason, George Romero and the Pittsburgh incidents of 1968 and 1978 came to mind as to why it seemed so secure and stout.
One continued on his way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Every now and then when I’m walking along, I’ll spin 180 degrees and grab a quick shot of where I’ve been. Old habit, it also informs if someone is following me. That happens sometimes. Whether it’s a ‘creature of the street’ or a ‘neighborhood guardian’ or just some maniac junkie who thinks I might be an easy mark, I want to know if I’m being predated.
Of course, I was the only maniac walking down Bigelow Boulevard on a blisteringly hot July day in the late afternoon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From the look of this structure, my guess would be ‘used to be a car mechanic’s location.’ There were a few businesses located along this stretch, along with a handful of residential buildings. I saw a good number of ‘for sale’ signs affixed to the latter.
One pondered the complexities of sewer and water lines, electrical and telecommunications hookups, and all the complications surrounding the necessities of habitation, as associated with siting a building at the apex of a steep hill that has a high volume road at the front door.
How do you get deliveries? Where can a truck or car pull over to drop a passenger? Is it ever quiet? This is probably where the ‘way’ or alley streets come into play.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cross streets visible from Bigelow Boulevard, which are a part of a neighborhood called ‘Polish Hill,’ offer a few clues. In my own steeply hilled neighborhood, back in the Borough of Dormont, Our Lady and I seldom use our front door when coming and going. The car is in the driveway out back, and we typically use the basement door to access the house from that entrance rather than the one in the front we get mail delivered to. I imagine it’s much the same deal up here. Guessing, though.
The Hill District, long the titular center of Pittsburgh’s African American community, is just next door to Polish Hill on the next elevation, but I never hear the latter described as being a part of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the path that I was following, a couple of sets of City Steps were observed, and noted. Future scuttles will, I’m sure, incorporate these paths. Saying that, divergence from my path wasn’t on the menu. Too hot for serendipity.
For this one, I had a prepicked turn in mind, which would lead to something else I’ve been keen to take a long hard look at.
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 