Archive for March 4th, 2026
Operation Takhafeef Istadilal
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yup, that was me, still standing there under Pittsburgh’s Merchant Street Bridge, while watching a train roll past. That’s how I spend my time these days.
The bridge itself is the gray steel trestle section, whereas the yellow bar is there to keep people from wedging their trucks under it.
As described yesterday, this was a short walk perpetrated on the first real ‘melt day’ experienced after weeks of single digit temperatures. The goal was to catch a bit of exercise, this was a ‘photowalk’ not a ‘photostand.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The steel plating above the roadway does little to absorb the sound of the freight train transiting above, one should mention. In fact, the entire roof system under there acts in the manner of a drum kit’s cymbals as it vibrates loudly underneath the passing freight train.
Very exciting, really.
One leaned into it and pushed forward.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Couldn’t help but get a few shots of the rest of that train passing by, from the other side of Merchant Street Bridge, me. Serendipity, yo.
The locomotive engines in the middle of the train are doing duty as ‘DPU’s’ or Diesel Power Units. I’m told that their ‘works’ are governed from the operators cabin at the head of this steel snake.
I had walked a similarly icy route just a week earlier, so the path this day would involve hanging a right at an unfamiliar corner.
‘Let’s go see what’s over there…’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has become somewhat familiar with this particular corridor, due to regular visits, but less so with the section of the entirety of the park complex and historic district it’s found within. This ‘zone’ used to be part of, and the ‘ritual center’ of, a separate municipality called ‘Allegheny City’ which Pittsburgh annexed back in 1907.
A ruinous amount of ‘urban renewal’ has occurred nearby, especially so with a 1950’s spawned project called ‘Allegheny Center.’
LeCorbusier strikes again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Surviving structures around the Allegheny Commons Park, which thankfully survived the ‘improvements,’ include great examples of the sort of residential multi unit buildings styles which were constructed before the age of air conditioning or the automobile here in Pittsburgh. Notice those terraces!
The area surrounding this spot, safety wise, is what the old Sicilians back in Brooklyn’s Canarsie would have described as ‘mesa mesa.’ I don’t know if that’s exactly how you spell it, but that’s what they’d say while gesturing with a flat hand that gets rotated from side to side at the wrist.
A bit ‘crimey,’ nothing crazy, but there’s a population of truly annoying junkies who hang around a nearby 711 whom you’d like to not have to interact with. I don’t feel threatened here, but then again I’m calloused.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Allegheny Elks #339 building caught my eye, right there.
Interesting stories about the group’s history and mission, and the building they’ve inhabited for more than a century, can be found at their website.
Back tomorrow with more.
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