The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As intoned yesterday, your humble narrator was scuttling about on Pittsburgh’s North Side, aka the former Allegheny City.

My crossing was through a historic district, dubbed ‘Allegheny West,’ on the way to see if a vantage point over a set of Northern Southern rail tracks might reveal something worth taking a photo of (sadly not).

Along the way, the Victorian era building above caught my eye, as so did a bit of signage adorning it. Signage photo can be accessed here, but suffice to say that this was the former home of the famous, and then quite infamous, Thaw family.

You’ve seen the movie Ragtime – I’ll presume – so, this was the childhood home of Harry K. Thaw – murderer of architect Stanford White and husband of ‘it girl’ Evelyn Nesbit. Thaw’s defense lawyers introduced the extenuating circumstance of ‘Temporary Insanity’ into American jurisprudence during his trial. For those not in the know, the Thaw trial was analogous to the OJ Simpson trial, except that it played out in headlines during the first decade of the 20th century. Celebrity involved in a murder trial, popular and press interest in the affair, scandalous behavior amongst the millionaire class – all that. Made for a great story.

Neat. This is also what is meant when I say ‘serendipity.’ Just stumbled past it, randomly. Pittsburgh was actually showing me something.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A former public school seems to have been repurposed as a training facility for the gendarmerie here, but truth be told the thing that drew my eye to it was the (probably former) greenhouse on the property.

Everybody I talk to in Pittsburgh tells me to ‘watch my back’ around this section of the city, to which I usually respond ‘I’m from Brooklyn.’ They then say ‘oh, ok then.’

My biggest fear here, during daylight hours, is that one of these property openers might accidentally drop a wallet out of a second floor window, thereby crushing me to death under a voluminous billfold.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The hospital featured on the HBO series ‘The Pitt’ is nearby, as is the National Aviary and multiple target/private schools. The building stock is heterogenous, and a lot of it was built for ‘show.’ Like a lot of ‘inner city’ neighborhoods, I’m told this one experienced a bunch of trouble during the late 20th century. That must be where it acquired the reputation.

To the north are a series of steep hills lined by narrow streets.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’ve got a few things that I look for when I’m walking around, as far as gauging whether or not a neighborhood ‘sucks.’ Is there furniture discarded on the frontage, along with untamed garbage? Are there multiple cars and bicycles just sitting there rotting away and rusting? Do the windows have curtains in them or is it cardboard, and are those window glass panes cracked and repaired with packing tape? Are there a lot of abandoned buildings?

All are ‘tells.’

Are there large groups of teenagers milling about? Brrr. That’s where the hazards emerge. No impulse control, teenagers. How about packs of stray dogs? Gotta watch out for that too.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Clearly, my rubric for ‘threat level midnight’ is not even close to being met by this particular set of streets. If anything, I felt like an intruder. To be fair, I always feel like that, even amongst members of my own family,

Imagine: Nice sunny day, and you observe some monstrous wind driven conflagration approaching in a filthy black raincoat (aka the street cassock) that comes marching past, casting a pall while it is taking photos of garbage cans and sewer grates.

Yeah, the coat and gloves have been deployed. It’s getting cold here.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

With a bit of fortressing, sealing off those ground floor windows with plywood for instance, that building above could probably humble a horde of zombies. The fourth floor terrace would make for an excellent spot to snipe at the mass of rotters or just hurl brickbats at them.

Ever notice that in zombie cinema you don’t see the humans using anything but guns and bladed weapons against the oncoming mass? Construction equipment, especially those little bobcats with the snow scoop on them, would turn the tide, I think. The way to handle ‘red collar’ mobs of flesh eaters might be with blue collar equipment.

Back tomorrow.

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