Back, to the North Side of Pittsburgh
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start – the Newtown Pentacle time warp is still in effect. These shots were gathered during the last week of May, whereas the words you’re reading were written in middle June, and if my scheduling is correct you’re reading this in the third week of July. Whew.
For this scuttle, which ended up being a pretty long walk, during which I decided that I categorically needed to upgrade a part of my camera kit, a rideshare was utilized to drop me at the intersection of Eckert Street and McClure Avenue on Pittsburgh’s north side.
This is in the Marshall-Shadeland section, underneath the rusted and literally falling apart California Avenue Bridge, which is right about where Don’s Diner is found. What? You don’t cite landmarks?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is an heavy industrial area, with an enormous sewer plant found just a few blocks away. Lots of heavy truck based businesses, warehouses, and quite a few people who work with machines that could go ‘bang’ in ferocious ways – electrical, steam, that sort of thing.
This is also one of the spots in Pittsburgh which I find quite photogenic, but about which the locals say ‘you’re crazy, don’t go there, they’ll kill you.’
If I had a dollar for everytime someone has told me that about Newtown Creek, most of North Brooklyn, all of Western Queens, The Bronx, or every majority African American neighborhood in Pittsburgh… well… I’d have a lot of dollars, I tell’s ya.
Who might kill me? Do they have names? Can we call them? Can I pay them some agreed upon toll for the privilege of passage, rather than just having them kill me on sight? Sheesh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beaver Avenue, that’s what this Pittsburgh street is called.
The rail trestle connects to the Ohio Connecting Rail Bridge, which I’ve mentioned before. The tracks belong to the Norfolk Southern outfit.
It was an absolutely perfect day for a long walk, weather wise. High 70’s and breezy. Overcast, but with occasional floods of sunlight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another view of the rail bridge, as I crossed beneath the trestle.
On this leg of the scuttle, I kept on missing shots of the locomotives at the front of these trains, but this ended up being a very, very productive day as far as the subject of photographing trains goes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator is so far ahead of the schedule here that at this writing, I can’t remember which post it was that I mentioned turning a corner towards a waterway one day and observing some guy dancing around with a kitchen knife in each hand, behind a building.
I’m pretty sure he was playing the Grateful Dead on his boombox, if you want to picture what the dance vibe was like.
Protocol, since he didn’t notice me, was to just quietly back away and get back to a nice safe patch of pavement where he wasn’t.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned above, I kept on missing the head of the RR snake during this section of the walk. No worries, I had a cool set of captures coming my way shortly, on this fairly long walk in the Paris of Appalachia.
Back tomorrow with more.
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