The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

To start – this location has been ‘on my list’ for a while – and despite that, it just hasn’t been convenient (from a time, getting there, atmospheric lighting) point of view for me to get to.

Serendipity recently struck when Our Lady of the Pentacle announced that she and a friend would be attending a pierogi festival held at a Ukrainian Church in the area during a recent Sunday afternoon. Her friend would be driving, so I asked if I could tag along and thereby be free of having to oblige and worry about the car. Positive affirmations followed.

I’ve executed a few drive throughs of this area and have tilted my lens here and there in the past, check past posts out here. Purely scouting, though.

Welcome to McKees Rocks’ Bottoms.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It topically seems to be one of Pennsylvania’s many ‘used to be, once, long ago’ sort of places, old mill towns that persist after the mill has left, but the area seems to be very much alive and kicking. We walked around the neighborhood for a bit, prior to the start of Our Lady’s pierogi extravaganza.

I wasn’t there for the luncheon, at least not the kind you eat. My nutritionally needs could only be sated by walking upon that which I came here to see.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The McKees Rocks Bridge is a major crossing of the Ohio River, and is the longest bridge in Allegheny County. It’s a massive structure.

It carries three lanes of vehicle traffic, which first crosses over a set of busy Norfolk Southern rail tracks and then a gargantuan sewer plant to the north, then the Ohio River, whereupon it overlands into the town after overflying a rail yard on the south side.

When figuring in the ramp approaches to this monster, the bridge is 7,300 feet long. Roughly 1.5 miles, that. 100 feet high at deck level over the river. The stairs pictured above are on the McKees Rocks Bottoms, or southern, side.

Check out all its statistics at pghbridges.com. Additionally, there’s a great document from the HAER (Historic American Engineering Record) people which can be accessed here that will fill you in on all the ‘nitty gritty’ revolving around why and how this monster bridge was erected and funded in Pittsburgh, all the way back in 1929.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The stairs lead up to this arched section, where it overflies the rail yard and tracks. Those CSX trains which I often photograph down river, nearby that brewery, are all heading this way when I describe them as ‘heading towards Ohio.’ The train pictured above, #866, is heading ‘away from Ohio.’

There were no fences, you can just walk right up to the tracks. That’s very progressive, if you ask me.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It has been a minor goal of mine to walk this bridge when opportunity struck, but who could have guessed it would be a pierogi festival I wouldn’t be attending that would bring me here?

Up the stairs hurtled I, the filthy black raincoat flapping about in the wind like some obscene membrane. Storms were moving through the vault of the sky, and the dynamic cloud systems surrounding the periodic bursts of rain were causing the light to change minute by minute. I was ready for the rain, just in case, with an umbrella attached to my camera bag, but it wasn’t needed in the end.

Up and at ‘em.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s the main arch of the bridge, as seen in the distance. There really isn’t too much worth seeing after exiting the bridge on the other side, which places you on a narrow sidewalk, set against a de facto highway. Not exactly ‘pedestrian friendly’ over there, so I decided that my first walk over this span was going to be a ‘there and back again’ sort of affair.

This was practically a religious experience for me, scuttling over the McKees Rocks Bridge, something which I could only compare to a walk over the Kosciuszcko Bridge back home, as far as offering the camera a unique point of view.

Back tomorrow.

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