The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Troy Hill Road, as in sights seen along it, is offered in today’s post, which narratively continues a fairly long walk recently undertaken here in Pittsburgh. Your humble narrator has built a long list of ‘things’ to see while on foot as I’ve driven about the city of Pittsburgh, and this course is one of them. A local roadway, Troy Hill Road drapes along the side of a landform cliff which has a high speed road (Route 28) at its base, as well as a rail line and the Allegheny River. It’s all very confusing.

Also, just to catch you up – it was quite cold and I was heavily dressed for winter, the sun was bothering me, and everybody hates me. If you don’t hate me yet, you will, just wait till you meet me. I’m a terrible person, just ask anybody. Awful, atavistic, aberrant, argumentative, a real icehole. Children and dogs shriek when they see me, old ladies clutch at their pearls, and men form armed posses to ascertain my intentions. In short: I suck.

It’s for the best that I’m alone so much.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A closed off set of ‘City Steps’ was encountered. One moved past them in the typical ‘herkie jerky’ fashion I’m famous for. The wind was whipping my filthy black raincoat around, the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was bobbing about in the vault and lighting up every speckle of dust on my eyeglasses, and I also needed to pee but not too urgently. I was in fine fettle otherwise, and the ankle which was so affected by the orthopedic incident was playing ball with me on this scuttle.

historicpittsburgh.org offers a photo of a group of workers building Troy Hill Road, from back in 1911.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One continued down, past retaining walls which water pipes were affixed to. Don’t know if they were sewerage or supply, but it must be a real challenge to get water to fight gravity. I’m told there used to be a Resovoir up here on Troy Hill. As I moved down the slope, building densities began to change. The flood plain at the bottom of the hill is where all the industry used to be – tanneries, abattoirs, mills of very type. The world’s preeminent ketchup and baked bean factory, for instance.

What’s down there now on the flood plain is an amazing amalgamation and concentration of 75 years of vehicular expressway and automobile related infrastructure expansions, but that’s for tomorrow’s post.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It’s pretty common to park with half of your car up on the sidewalk around Pittsburgh, due to the narrowness of the roads. In the ‘fancy shmancy’ areas like Shadyside or Squirrel Hill, it’s resident permit parking only, or there’s no ‘on the street’ parking at all.

As a former New Yorker, I require clear and omnipresent signage to govern my parking of the Mobile Oppression Platform. The Yinzers just sort of pull over to the side of the road and park their cars in a ditch.

If I did that, the NYPD might find me out here and write a ticket for an alternate side violation. ‘No parking west of the state between 8 and 11 a.m.’ You can’t escape the NYPD.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The adaptations for the terrain in Pittsburgh never cease to amaze. Everywhere you look, however, there’s bulging century old retaining walls in these sections. Nothing is ‘plumb.’ Look at me, the crooked man who’s commenting on a crooked mile. No wonder everybody hates me.

The plan for the rest of the outing was pretty simple. I’d continue on, cross the two rivers, and either catch a T light rail or a cab back to HQ. Had lots of miles ahead of me, though, which you’ll see this week in subsequent postings.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Pittsburgh is big on ‘entering the neighborhood’ murals, and in the case of Troy Hill they’ve got a freestanding mosaic sign. Back on relatively flat ground again, one leaned into things and started pushing his way towards the south and west. Right into the sun.

Can’t win.

Back tomorrow with more.

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