The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Your humble narrator was highly satiated and satisfied by scuttling the spectacular Sterling Street Steps in Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes section, as described in prior posts. The subsequence of this walk played out on the way downhill, and then into the South Side Flats area. I was already thinking about photographing trains.

Saying that, what a fascinating place this neighborhood must be to live. Challenging, though.

What if you drop an apple or orange on your way back from shopping?

The tumbling cultivar might build up enough momentum, rolling down that hill, to achieve ballistic speeds. You wouldn’t expect that, an orange moving faster than the speed of sound smacking into you. That’s ‘how they get ya.’

Also, as you’ll recall from a few posts ago, I’m quite concerned about the idea of Diurnal Vampires – Day Walkers.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Just like back in NYC’s Queens, all those centuried waves of immigration to Pittsburgh have also allowed egress for hordes of parasitic ghouls, devils, and all the horrors that bedeviled these populations in the old world who followed their victims overseas. These entities have long set up shop here in the Republic.

Vampires are just part of the ‘evil equation,’ and luckily they’re pretty rare. You can’t have too many human hunters in one area, even in NYC, for the same reason that Tigers are solitary and have to maintain huge hunting ranges. A wolf, for instance, needs to consume 5-7 pounds of meat a day. Too many predator vampires, not enough blood. Basic economics suggest thereby that the price of keeping a human alive prior to exsanguination becomes expensive, and inflated. Best to spread out.

There’s persistent local legend here in Western PA., about ‘hill people’ who secretly inhabit the larger Appalachian region – as in they’re cannibalistic ‘people’ who live inside, and under, the hills who grab and carry away kids and hikers from the woods. It doesn’t get talked about.

Actually, Lore Lodge recently did discuss it extensively.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Wittering and worrying about the armies of the night on a brightly lit afternoon just speaks so much about my psychology… I can find a ray of darkness in any point of light…

This part of Pittsburgh was extensively mined in the 18th and 19th century. Mount Washington, which is the landform that these steps are set into, used to be called ‘Coal Hill.’

Coal mines that were abandoned, even the ones which the State environmental people know about, are a real problem in these parts.

About a year ago, some poor woman and her dog were swallowed up by a sink hole that spontaneously subsided in their back yard. That hole dropped them down about 40 feet into an old coal mine which nobody knew about. The lady died, but the dog was rescued by Fire Dept. personnel. Concrete was poured into the mine’s void and the ground restored.

It seems that you didn’t need to file a building plan with the local Government, back to the 1830’s and most of the way to the 20th century, when you wanted to start digging into the verge in search of fortune. Lots and lots of small scale mining activity happened below the surface, and no records were left behind of the subterrene corridors, columns, and chambers which were carved out and then abandoned.

Pennsylvania has maps of the abandoned mines which are known to exist, but every Academic and Authority bemoans that it’s incomplete.

Beyond these abandoned voids allowing a place for the ‘Hill People’ and other legends to congregate and lurk in fuligin darkness, abandoned mines also produce acid runoff and other environmental hazards. Good news is that Pennsylvania leads the nation in terms of mushroom harvest.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A rickety steel bridge at Mission Street, overflying a park and also neighboring a municipal water pumping facility, marked my turn off from the Sterling Street Steps and corridor. From this point out, it was all fairly familiar ground.

The plan from here out was to really lean into my strides and walk as quickly as I could, these days. Flat ground was nearby.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’ve walked down South 18th street quite a few times. Steeply graded, South 18th’s severely angled pavements have helped me regain the strength in my calves after the broken ankle incident.

South Side Flats isn’t an area where I’ll worry about esoteric things like Ghasts or Day Walkers, instead I’m looking out for the ‘dope sick’ and desperate who might decide to try and take something from me to feed their habits.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Were I younger, and I mean in my early thirties, the South Side Flats would have been where I wanted to settle here in Pittsburgh. A nearby commercial street is full of restaurants, bars, nightlife. Great spot. Lots of junkies, street people, and tons of ‘law and order’ trouble at night, however. Very much reminds me of First Avenue or Avenue A in NYC’s East Village.

I’m old, though, so we moved to the suburbs, and just come down here when a night out is desired.

My toes had already pointed in the direction of the Sly Fox Brewery, where a pint of beer and – hopefully – a bunch of CSX trains would be waiting for me for the price of walking another mile or so.

Back tomorrow.

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