The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s the second of its name, 1986 vintage, Bloomfield Bridge which is flying about in today’s post. The area I was moving through at this point of a quite long walk is called ‘Skunk Hollow.’

Imagine my surprise – incidentally – when leaning into my old standard of a ‘Down Under’ joke for obscure areas surrounding bridges, that somebody had beaten me to the punch on “DUBBO” or Down Under the Bloomfield Bridge Onramp.

Going to have to go check out Skunk Hollow in the future – from down below – I think.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

At some unknown spot along the path, the alley street I was scuttling on which is called ‘Gold Way,’ accessed via a ‘Melwood Avenue,’ transmogrified back into being ‘Melwood Avenue’ again. It’s all very confusing out here.

This long walk is part of my larger effort to scuttle through several of the areas found on the central ‘Golden Triangle’ of Pittsburgh that has been playing out for a bit. I try to focus my efforts, and some attention has been paid to the areas directly surrounding Skunk Hollow over these last few months.

Bloomfield got mention and photographs in this series, and the only post which has any connection to Skunk Hollow was this one (and I had no real idea what I was looking at, it should be mentioned). I’ve been working my way inland, from the Allegheny River, on both its northern and southern shores in recent months. I’m the curious type, see.

If it weren’t for the orthopedic incident, actually, you would have seen many of these explorations playing out last year.

I have absolutely not been doing any sort of historic research, at all

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There was a protected path for pedestrians, noticed behind the guard rail on one side of the road, which was paved in the same asphalt as this roadway. It was covered in vegetative detritus from the hillsides, the pedestrian lane. This ground cover hid a bit of black ice, but that wasn’t any sort of real obstacle.

An opportunity for a quick sit down was realized and undertaken here, which saw me resting the ole derrière upon that guard rail. After a quick minute I stood up and rekajiggered my garments, and the straps for both camera and bag, then leaned back into it. The ankle continued to play ball and not cause me any angst, grief, or pain.

Discussing the effort with a friend afterwards, I was told that after crossing under the Bloomfield Bridge, Skunk Hollow gives way to and is associated with being a part of Polish Hill. Polish Hill offers a couple of bridges to get down from its heights into a street grid dominated by a primary artery called ‘Penn Avenue,’ which is scribed into the mostly flat flood plain areas that are defined by the Strip, and Downtown.

As mentioned above, systematic.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s part of the Bloomfield Bridge pictured above, and as you can see – it’s ‘DUBBO.’

While researching this walk, another path through Skunk Hollow emerged which I’ll be walking at some later point when the weather warms up a bit. This post is being written during the 3rd week of January, as a note, and a big winter storm is forecast to drop a Snowpocalypse on huge swaths of the country and that’s meant to be followed by some sort of Norse Apocalypse – a ‘Fimbulwinter.’

Given the spate of National and International news, it very much feels like Ragnarök is near. Listen for three roosters crowing simultaneously, that’s how it’s supposed to start.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Something which looks like paintball splatter adorns the pier of the bridge.

One continued on, scuttling along. Ever scuttling…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Residential structures signaled my arrival on Polish Hill proper. As the name would suggest, there’s a lot of Poles who live or lived here. The whole area smells like pierogis.

Just kidding… it’s actually quite lovely up on Polish Hill, with these tiny wood frame homes set along the walls of the Skunk Hollow ravine.

Back tomorrow with more.

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