The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part seven.

That’s the same Norfolk Southern train seen in yesterday’s post, transiting over Pittsburgh’s Merchant Street Bridge, on the city’s North Side. There’s been a decent number of bridges seen during this scuttle, huh?

When these shots were gathered, specifically on the 9th of April, a great tumult had seized Pittsburgh, in advance of the forthcoming NFL Draft event. Workers were everywhere; obliterating graffiti, painting things, filling potholes, etc., and a large number of street closures here on the North Shore, where the Draft would play out, were enacted. Lots and lots of wind blown garbage was collected, from both highways and river fronts/

The powers that be called it ‘the immaculate collection.’

Even we happy pedestrians were ejected from our tenancy over the sidewalks during this interval, on these affected streets, and many detours were introduced.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Now, this pathway which the ‘detour’ signage directed me towards is one that is commonly transited by scores of people, but there are explicit ‘Private Property’ and separate ‘no trespassing’ signboards seen all over the place back here.

In accordance with my normal policy of respecting that sort of thing, I’ve not walked through here once during all of my scuttles. There’s a proper ‘street’ path you can take instead, which is actually a lot more direct, so why trespass if you don’t need to?

This time – though – the government’s signage people were telling me to trespass, so… gotta follow the law, right?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Some members of the Urbex crowd think me timid. That’s ok, but I don’t have a Police record. You?

I’ve got a lot of ‘rules’ based on lived experience.

The ‘youngins’ don’t remember when packs of wild dogs prowled around in Brooklyn, for instance, but I do. Don’t want to mess with the junk yard dogs, and the Mafia isn’t just a thing in the movies. It’s real.

Just the other day, during a scuttle which I’ll be discussing in a few posts from this one, I turned a corner and saw some guy dancing around with a knife in his hand behind a building, and near a waterway that I was interested in grabbing a shot of. ‘Noped’ out of that one, right quick.

When you spend your time in potentially dangerous places, you’ll often meet potentially dangerous people.

Also, yes – the Newtown Pentacle time warp is still in effect – as I’d really been ‘hitting the bricks’ and ranging all over the place in March and April.

As stated above, these shots were gathered on the 9th of April, and the posts are being written on the 27th of that same month. If I’ve got my scheduling right, you’re reading this in early June.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

So… this was the pedestrian detour path.

It’s running through one of the ‘overflow’ parking lots nearby the stadiums. The ramps above are a combination of Route 28 and the various bridge ramps that it feeds into.

The big wall on the left is a rail berm, carrying tracks which lead back to the Merchant Street Bridge, and that rail trench in Allegheny Commons Park, and eventually back to the Conway Rail Yard and beyond. Whew.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This area is regularly transited by street people, which is something I can report from observation. It ‘ain’t so nice’ under these ramps, lots of highway noise, and you can observe little piles of ‘precipitant’ from auto exhaust soot which is lurking everywhere. Blech!

This shot looks back at where I was.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One got to walk through a decent amount of that sooty zone under the highways before sunlight began factoring back in. An Allegheny Valley RR unit was just idling up on the tracks, for a long while. I hung around to see if anything was going to happen and then got bored.

Back tomorrow with the end of this one.

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