Archive for April 2026
All lines end
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As asserted, every place worth a damn on the east coast of the United States offers a ‘Railroad Avenue’ or a ‘Railroad Street’ into its equation.
Back at Newtown Creek, it was the former, whereas here in Pittsburgh, it’s the latter. Two plans were warming my frigid soul, and luckily they overlaid with each other.
There’s a couple of sets of tracks laid into the asphalt here. One set of these rails are obviously not being maintained, whereas the secondary spur is definitely active and has somebody looking after it. It’s Allegheny Valley RR turf in this zone, and I’ve had people who live locally tell me that the service is actually quite active here, and particularly so in the small hours of the night.
Also, the rails here are shiny and not terribly corroded, so active.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I followed Railroad Street, and enjoyed its various tableaus.
Based on the sort of building stock hereabouts, this section used to be where warehousing occurred. Enormous buildings are everywhere. Pittsburgh’s film industry bases itself nearby, and I’m fairly sure I once saw Jason Statham getting into his car somewhere along this route.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Big footprint properties abound hereabouts, but what I was focused on were those railroad tracks. They lead right through an area of ongoing hyper gentrification, and then towards the ‘Strip District’ which is also experiencing a ‘build out.’ Said ‘Strip’ used to be where grocery stores bought their wholesale produce, with said cargo being brought into the city via the rail, or by barges over at the riverfront just a few blocks north of this spot.
Again, I am doing absolutely zero historic research at all. None. How dare you accuse me of doing so. The past doesn’t matter, only the future, onwards and upwards. Ignore the man behind the curtain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That mound of dirt is a bold architectural statement, primitivism given a prime location and in a popular area. It harkens back to the burial mounds of those who once controlled this land, long before the Seneca or the Americans… and the referential structure just turns me on.
Those tracks… where could they possibly be going?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, the end of that line was spotted, with a refrigerated car sitting at the train stop on a spur. It’s parked in front of a warehousing outfit called ‘Consumers Fresh Produce,’ which seems to operate in the ‘B2B’ space.
This is a long rail spur with – seemingly – a single customer.
Wow. I’ll find out when the AVRR makes regular street running deliveries here (as mentioned, I’ve been told ‘middle of the night’) and try to get some shots of that in the future. Wow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is what I was looking for, the ‘train stop.’ End of the line.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
Up and out, but ever upwards
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leading out of Skunk Hollow, one follows the curving route of Sassafras Street. Everytime I think the words ‘Sassafras Street,’ the voice of actress Holly Hunter enters my brain and pronounces it at ‘Shashafrash Shtreet.’
Don’t know why, I’m all ‘effed up.
I also very well might be a phantom, floating along like some sort of localized psychic phenomenon or even a single red balloon (where are my 99 friends then?), while haunting a filthy black raincoat and operating a camera. Is it so bad to be translucent? Racist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The street itself is defined by the presence of the former Iron City Brewery. Huge industrial walls dominate, and I could definitely ‘feel eyes’ on me staring down from within.
A few open windows suggested some sort of morbid habitation. Probably junkies, but it could also be the black eyed ‘children’ who dwell in the mines, who are greatly dreaded in the folklore of the Appalachian mythos.
Let’s go with the latter, since it’s spookier, and since I might be a floating phantasm, they’d be my ‘peeps.’ Also, if you hear somebody calling your name from the woods in Appalachia during the night, no you didn’t.
Do not whistle at night, ever.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sassafras Street grades up to the local ‘grid’ at its apex, where the vehicle entry to the brewery used to be. It’s all ruins.
If this was back at Newtown Creek, my guess would be that some ugly chemical had been discovered on the site and that the developers were ‘air-sparging’ it away, but this ain’t Brooklyn or Queens.
Air-SPARGing is when you dig away all the concrete on a development site, and hope that precipitation will either dilute the contaminant, or that weather and subsidence on the affected plot will migrate the objectionable chemical downwards into the mud and beyond a point where the environmental legislation governing your brownfield/post industrial property won’t describe it as ‘dangerous,’ due to a lack of human exposure pathways. Still there, mind you.
The alternative would be a long and costly process which involves the installation of ‘recovery wells.’ Real estate people don’t like ‘long and costly.’ They’d actually prefer it if you just threw your money into their car windows when they drive up, so they don’t have to get out of the car at all.
Regarding ‘air-SPARGing’ if you live in Long Island City, or on the east river coast of Greenpoint, guess what?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I know too many things to ever be happy, even as a phantom.
One last look toward the Iron City Brewery site, and off I went towards the dwelling places of the humans. The rest of this scuttle was pretty ‘low core’ but I was still ‘ready to rock.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A quick street crossing, and I was entering the zone known as ‘Lawrenceville.’ This is a fairly well populated area which has actually been enjoying a population expansion in recent years. It seems that this is a preferred dwelling area for the ‘tech bros.’ Pittsburgh has several outfits involved in ‘bleeding edge’ technologies like AI and robotics. Self driving vehicles have also been in testing/production here for a decade.
There’s money down there, yo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan for the rest of the day involved me following a set of rail tracks, in pursuance of solving a personal mystery, but that’s for tomorrow.
Boo! I’m a ghost! Scared ya? April Fools, kid!
Back with more, then.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 