Penn Avenue and the Doughboy
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, Pittsburgh has started showing me ‘cool cars’ on my walks, although in this case it was a fire engine red scooter. Must have been hard to find a color matching helmet. Also, speaking as an ex-New Yorker – you just leave your helmet outside on the bike?
Really, people leave their cars and homes unlocked out here. Sometimes, you’ll encounter a car in a lot, with a running engine and the driver’s side door either ajar or wide open, just sitting there ready for stealing. I’m from Brooklyn – and often – my challenge in Pittsburgh is not doing any of the Brooklyn things – even if it’s just to ‘teach you a lesson.’
This is Pittsburgh’s ‘Sixth Ward,’ incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This ‘sixth ward scuttle’ of mine was steadily moving down Pittsburgh’s Penn Avenue, and I was specifically in the Lawrenceville section at this stage. One of the landmarks along the route is a memorial to the 3,100 soldiers from the sixth ward who were lost during WW1.
They call this ‘Doughboy Park.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This statuary is found at 34th street and Penn Avenue. It’s used as a landmark by the locals, I’m told. A ‘meet me at…’ sort of thing.
I enjoyed a quick sit down, and then rose back up to complete the day’s constitutional. Now that I can reliably walk again, I just can’t get enough of the activity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking to the north, there’s that industrial zone in which we took a walk back in April, with this shot offering a nearly opposite view from the perspectives offered above. Notice that rail trestle against the tree line, that’s right about where I was walking in this post.
It’s time for an ankle talk – It seems that I’ve overcome the pronounced limping which saw me walking around like the Batman villain Penguin for a while. Striding is back. Things still get weird when steps are on the menu, and my biggest ‘ankle hangover’ problem at the moment involves small and discrete movements of the foot during locomotion. For instance: stepping on a raised sidewalk seam and having my foot rotate forward, or back, can often turn into a bit of an ordeal. Heavily sloped surfaces moving upwards and away from me remains an issue as well.
It’s been a year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s part of the 33rd street rail bridge which that school bus is passing under. This is one of those transitional zones, what I used to describe as the ‘angle between neighborhoods’ back in NYC. On the other side of the bridge, it’s the start of the ‘Strip District.’
I was going all the way downtown, so this was basically the middle point of the walk, about 2 and change miles in. These days, I shoot for five or six miles at a pop. Hopefully, by the time it gets well and truly cold I’ll be averaging seven to eight miles rather than five to six. Given where things were for me at the start of 2025, I’m just glad to be able to do whatever the hell I want to do, whenever the hell I want to do it again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 31st street Bridge, and here’s another view of it from Rialto Street, and another one from a walk over the thing.
Back tomorrow with more.
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Very interesting pics and commentary.
About the Doughboy war memorial, “3,100 soldiers from the sixth ward who were lost during WW1” seemed to me to be a high number for a neighborhood. The Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughboy_(Pittsburgh) gives some further definition of who the 3100 soldiers were and who the monument honors.
dbarms8878
September 23, 2025 at 8:19 pm