The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After an afternoon of shlepping about on a misty and then rainy walk of about three hours duration here in Pittsburgh, it was time to return back home to HQ, over in the Dormont section. I sloshed over to a nearby light rail station for a ride.

Unfortunately, upon arriving at the ‘T’ Light Rail’s service’s First Avenue station, it became apparent that – for the ‘Red Line’ at least – the transit agency that operates the service was in the midst of shitting the bed. Ended up standing around for about forty minutes, while a succession of ‘Blue Line’ and ‘Silver Line’ units cycled through the station. Bah!

What do you do to pass time while transiting? Me? I take pictures of trains, and other stuff which catches the eye.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

An office building alongside the station is apparently the HQ of PNC Bank, and is pictured above. Some poor schmuck was at his desk and working late, in the top left window. Back in my advertising days, that would have been me, working after everybody else went home, trying to hit some important but completely fabricated deadline. Bah!

You really stand out in Pittsburgh when you’re waving a DSLR around, I’d mention. Catch lots of glances, I do, but nobody confronts – at least so far.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

In a way, I miss the pregnant lunacy of the NYC Subway system. I’m interested in the trains, tracks, and tunnels – and specifically not the human infestation – I should mention. People are messy.

Inevitably, some ‘icehole’ on the platform would walk over to me and announce that I was taking pictures of them without permission (you don’t need permission in public, and longtime NP readers may have noticed over the years that I prefer my urban vistas depopulated so… definitely wasn’t photographing ‘you’) and demand that I delete an image or let them inspect the camera or usually it was to ‘pay them something.’

If confrontation was brewing, I’d let them know exactly who the madman was in the exchange, and then they’d run away. It was always ‘people’ back home, and seldom the cops, with a couple of notable exceptions. Seriously, most NYPD cops have other problems that keep them up nights and worry about far worse things than middle aged photographers taking pictures of sewers.

Once on the 7, at Hunters Point, one of the cops they station in that little security booth at the end of the platform as a punishment accused me of taking flash photos of an approaching train (MTA rules state that handheld cameras are kosher, but no lights/camera supports like tripods/flashes). I assured him I didn’t, but he claimed he saw a flash.

I offered to go back to the station house with him so that he and his Sergeant could look through my camera bag and discover that I wasn’t carrying a flash unit with me at all. We argued. Towards the end of the encounter, I again volunteered to go to the precinct with him, so as to let his commanding officer (whom I knew from various encounters and events) know that Mitch Waxman had been caught taking photos in Long Island City.

The cop then recognized my name, and then backed down when he realized that I could push back – but I didn’t. I lectured him about former Police Commissioner Kelly’s standing order regarding photography in post 9/11 NYC and a policy to leave photographers alone, and then offered a quick refresher on the first, second, and fourth amendments.

I soon boarded the next Flushing bound train. Bah!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The Panhandle Bridge provides egress over the Monongahela River for the T Light Rail service. There’s two tracks on this trestle, a former freight rail bridge, but the ramp leading to it on the southern side is singular. This creates a choke point. Normally operations aren’t quite so hampered, but ‘normally’ they have access to a dedicated transit tunnel that’s punched through Mount Washington which offers light rail two tracks, a vital chunk of infrastructure that’s still under renovation due to construction delays. Bah!

At any rate, at least I could pass the time taking pics of passing trains.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Another cop encounter occurred during the height of Covid, when I was out wandering around the deserted streets of NYC at night with the camera.

I’m standing there on a the sidewalk of Review Avenue, alongside Calvary Cemetery and across from the Kosciuszcko Bridge at about ten at night, with the camera sitting on top of the tripod. I’ve got a cable release going and everything.

Two ‘DT’s’ roll up on me and ask ‘what are you doing?’ I answer with ‘orthodonture’ and then gesture towards the camera with a smile. They ask ‘why,’ which they soon regretted as that was my opening.

Newtown Creek Alliance, the Kosciuszcko Bridge Stakeholders Committee, and my role as Chair of the Transportation Committee for Community Board 1 (this location was actually in CB2) were brought up and discussed at length. The Cops’ eyes glazed over, and then they just drove away without wanting to see my ID.

I bored them into not caring. Bah!

This is right about the time that I started wearing reflective safety vests when out and about, the kind that the Union guys favor. The ‘high visibility’ gear just allowed me to blend into the background at Newtown Creek. High-Visibility is excellent camouflage, as I’ve discovered.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Finally, a Red Line light rail unit arrived and then after a short ride, I was back in Dormont and walking down the steep hill that HQ is found at the base of. It was proper dark.

There’s a little laundromat along the way, one which just caught my eye on the way home. Bah?

Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.

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