Archive for February 12th, 2026
Gazing, a ride, and then a ‘hey now’
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot involves the ‘gazing’ part from the title. Downtown Pittsburgh, with its shadow casting monoliths.
They don’t seem to do ‘set backs’ out here, so the massing of the upper floors of these towers mirror their bases. This causes a permanent sense of ‘dusk’ for these downtown streets, except for those narrow stripes of sunlight which somehow manage to beam past them. No Bueno.
This walk had been a pretty involved multi hour effort, but I wasn’t done yet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T light rail stop at Gateway Center was entered. I used the elevator to get down to the platform level, just to see how well it functioned. Your humble narrator will often go out of his way to see what people who are less abled might be experiencing in these sorts of municipal systems. But for the grace of god…
I boarded the first T that came into the station, and merrily sat down. First time I had sit down since I was moving through Skunk Hollow about two hours prior.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It would only be a few stops on the T, and all in the ‘free zone.’ The light rail runs for free at the City’s core. It’s all very civilized.
The light rail unit made its underground stops, then emerged back onto an elevated causeway at First Avenue Station, whereupon it then proceeded across the Panhandle Bridge spanning the Monongahela River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The transit service vomited me forth and onto the mean streets of the South Side Flats section, at the Station Square stop. Soon, I was kicking dirt again.
My plan for the rest of my day involved reward for the effort.
The brewery which I haunt is a 15 minute walk from this spot, and I was powerfully thirsty by this point. Hadn’t had a drop of liquid pass my lips since leaving the house, and I’d pretty much walked here from all the way over in East Liberty.
I’ve had to break my usual rule of not carrying water with me on photowalks in Pittsburgh during the summer months, but during the winter months? Not so much. If you drink liquid, you’ll need to pee. That creates a logistical problem, even in a place which routinely deploys Porta-Potties around the city for use as public bathrooms.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The light was pretty great, so I cracked out a shot or two of the Liberty Bridge. This bridge is the ‘other side’ of West Liberty Avenue and the Liberty Tunnels which I showed y’all recently.
A quick call to HQ revealed to Our Lady where I was and served well enough as ‘confirmation of life’ for her to say ‘Have Fun.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It had been about a month since I was able to grab a beer and hang out by the CSX tracks here on the South Side. Missed that.
Tomorrow – lotsa Choo Choo.
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