The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part four.

Continuing with an interesting walk, from the Perry Hilltop section down to Pittsburgh’s North Shore along the Allegheny River. See last week’s posts for predicate and other details. This section of the walk was headed down Perrysville Avenue, towards the Federal Street Extension.

My ‘spidey sense’ for danger operates at historically acute levels these days, since I still cannot run due to the ongoing after effects of the orthopedic incident, but given that I was feeling happy and secure with zero worries – I decided to pop the headphones in to the ear holes for this section of the scuttle.

The weather had been uneven here, one day cold and the next hot.

This was a warm but breezy day, and I was wearing shorts with a cotton hoodie sweatshirt up top. A new camera bag that I’ve acquired is working out, although there’s a couple of modifications I need to make.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A few weeks ago, frequent commenter George the Atheist asked if ‘all I do is walk around.’ My answer was no, but what I specifically write about here revolves around my long walks. If the question was ‘do I enjoy doing anything besides walking around thusly,’ my answer would be ‘no.

I’ve hit that stage of life where everything just sucks. Restaurant meal? We could have done better for less at home. I don’t want to sit in a movie theater, attend a live concert, or see a play. I’ve become incapable of playing along with a conversation I’m disinvested in. Particularly so if the topic revolves around some kind of sportsball competition. Patience is not something I do anymore. If you’re boring me, I’m out, and I’m easily bored.

I’m more interested in what Boeing or Raytheon is doing than I am in following news about professional athletes, or anything like that.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I was never a sports kid.

Played a few games with the kids on the block, but soon discovered that ‘I ain’t no athlete.’ Your humble narrator was always a comics and sci-fi nerd instead. Want to talk about Federation’s ‘First Contact’ protocols? How about the macro economics of the Star Wars Galaxy?

If you told twenty year old me what nearly sixty year old me gets up to, I wouldn’t have believed it. That long haired angry kid didn’t make many good decisions, and unfortunately neither does the gray haired and somewhat less angry old man that now wears the same but quite scarred up skinvelope. I like to think that what I get up to now is kind of fun.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This route had quite a few abandoned structures along the way, which were incontrovertibly sitting between occupied residential structures, ones that were obviously maintained with love and attention. So weird.

As mentioned during prior posts about Pittsburgh’s North Side, what I’m seeing here is aftermath. This ‘zone,’ I’m led to understand, used to be territory, fought over by local ‘entrepreneurs’ during the crack era.

Things are a lot quieter and safer up here than they used to be, I’m led to believe.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s a public housing project along this route, so maybe that’s why this area seems to host so many abandoned or shut-up homes due to the blighting effect of reputation. As a former New Yorker, the idea that a house or property could just sit there empty, less than a couple of miles from the center of the city… it’s madness.

For yet another Brooklyn analogy, this part of the street that I was scuttling down might be analogized as being a lot like Pittsburgh’s ‘Nostrand Avenue.’ It almost makes it to the ‘center,’ but not quite.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The Federal Street Extension path becomes just plain ‘Federal Street’ where the ground begins to flatten out a bit.

My plan for the day involved breaking off this particular route, as Federal Street’s route ends in about a half mile – and then wandering for a bit – following my nose as it were.

More tomorrow.

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“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.