Sweets, and sours
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with a fairly long walk that began a few miles away in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty section and continued towards and through Bloomfield, snaked long the rim of a ravine called Skunk Hollow, and then continued onto Polish Hill which brings us here, to the Herron Avenue Bridge.
As detailed in the link above, this bridge carries pedestrian and vehicle traffic over the East Busway and several railroad rights of way. Apparently, it was closed off for emergency repairs during much of 2025, but then again so was I.
The bridge touches down at the angle between Bloomfield and Polish Hill, The Strip District, and Lawrenceville. I’ve had only topical contact with these places, as of yet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bridge provides a front row seat to the former Pittsburgh Brewing Company campus, wherein Iron City brand beer was brewed. If I’m reading the source material correctly, this structure dates back to 1866.
The rail tracks are shiny, indicating regular usage.
Iron City beer is brewed north of Pittsburgh these days, in a converted glass factory. Word has it that there’s a development project underway on this historic landmark, but that it’s been stalled for quite a while.
I am not doing any historic research. None.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The brewery itself seems to be in deleterious condition. One walked back and forth on the bridge for a few minutes, taking in the scene. I’d love to get the camera inside of that place sometime, but that would require me having to engineer the opportunity. I don’t want to talk to anyone anymore, ever again. Lone wolf, me.
I’m sure there’s a way to sneak in, but that just ain’t my style.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This building with the Hershey’s branding confused me, but a quick bit of online sleuthing suggested that this part of the PBC campus was recently used during production of a biopic movie about Milton Hershey, which was recently shot in and around Pittsburgh.
After thoroughly staring at everything, I began to move on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks towards Downtown, and the East Busway. The steel truss is the 28th street bridge, which I’ve walked and commented upon in the past. As I keep saying, there’s a systematic method to all this madness.
One headed back down to street level,
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a long shot of the Herron Street Bridge, in the middle of the shot above, just for the sake of completeness. Not sure what was going on with all that mud and the heavy trucks, but there’s an amazing amount of new construction going on nearby, so it’s probably related to all that.
Back tomorrow.
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