The Newtown Pentacle

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As described in prior posts, your humble narrator was recently cavitating through a section of Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood known as ‘Millionaires Row’ along Fifth Avenue. The latter byway then offered me egress through the Oakland section, whereupon I arrived at the veritable edge of this parcel of reality.

Fifth Avenue offers vehicle traffic an entrance to a high speed arterial road, called I-376, known colloquially as the ‘Parkway ‘east’ or ‘west.’ A particular annoyance for me is that there is no accommodation in place for pedestrians or bike riders to cross at the entrance ramp to this parkway, so you have to just wait for a break in the never ending stream of automobile traffic bleeding off the local grid and then onto 376. Dangerous.

Bah!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

In this section of the country, the Governments need to install signage adjuring ‘no pedestrians’ or ‘motor vehicles only’ at on ramps for high speed roads. It may seem like overkill, that, but there’s a pretty sizable Amish and Mennonite population hereabouts. You don’t see them too often in the city, but they’re out there riding about in their horse drawn buggies. It’s also not uncommon for me to see some ‘english’ dude walking along the highway’s service lane or on the other side of the guard rails either, I’d mention.

For the Amish, everyone who’s not ‘Dutch’ is ‘English.’

It’s similar to the way that NYC’s Hasidim see the world: you’re either ‘Jewish’ or you’re ‘Goyem.’ Even other Jews, from different sects, are considered to be ‘goys’ to the fundamentalist eyes of the Hasidim.

Fundamentalists, huh? A bad joke from the neighborhood I grew up in, which was on the border of one of the Orthodox’s ‘zones’ in Midwood, was ‘Now Hasidim, now ya don’t.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Inviting pathway, no?

After following this pavement, and then being forced to cross against traffic at a bridge’s off ramps – because a cross walk was occupied entirely by idle construction equipment – one negotiated the shattered pavement of the Uptown area, and began to make my way towards the pedestrian entrance of the Birmingham Bridge.

There’s a lot of obstacles, and zero signage. Luckily, I’ve walked this section before and knew where to go. I was being eyeballed by a ‘creature of the street’ so it was decided to walk a little bit faster in order to avoid trouble.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It’s actually startling how few intentional pedestrians there are here, outside of areas like Oakland. It’s all about the motor vehicle in Pittsburgh.

I’m famously not an ideologue on this subject, but it’s quite startling.

It’s probably because parking is fairly easy in this city. Odds are you’ll find a free or meter spot pretty close to where you’re going, except Downtown or Oakland where you have to pay for the privilege in a garage. Even then, this is not NYC, so commercial parking seldom costs more than $10 – and usually it’s less than that.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Me? I like leaving the car at home in the driveway when I can, and getting around on foot. Since I don’t have to worry about getting back to the parked car, thereby, I’m free to wander and indulge in serendipity.

Additionally, if I want to stop off at a bar at the end of the walk and have a beer or two (which is often) I can without having to worry about intoxicated driving.

As you can see, I made it to the Birmingham Bridge. I took the opportunity for a quick ‘sit down’ on that concrete barrier that the lamp posts are attached to, and changed lenses. The zoom lens went into the bag, and a wide angle 16mm prime lens was affixed.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Crepuscular Rays. That’s what those shafts of sunlight penetrating the clouds are called. You’re looking at the Monongahela River, which is likely pretty familiar to long time readers at this point.

I was heading over towards the South Side Works area, which would then place me within the East Carson street corridor. Both areas have a surfeit of bars and restaurants, and thereby there’s a fairly thriving nightlife economy. East Carson operates and looks a lot like first or second avenue did back in NYC’s East Village.

As mentioned, I was meeting up with Our Lady of the Pentacle for a dinner out, which is a fairly rare thing for us these days. We normally cook at home, in a nicely sized suburban style kitchen.

Back tomorrow.

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