Archive for September 23rd, 2026
Eliza Trail behind, Flats in front
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After leaving the Eliza Furnace trail on the north shore of the Monongahela River, one then crossed the waterway, via the South Tenth Street Bridge, and your humble narrator had but one goal in mind.
Beer and trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a short walk, but the path passes by a largish number of residential structures and clinics – many of which are involved in the charitable work of housing vagrants, while others are a part of the ‘medical/insurance industrial complex’ whose profits arise from addiction recovery services.
As is usually the case with such areas, a population of folks ‘living rough’ and ‘not in the program’ can be observed nearby. As such, this is one of the parts of Pittsburgh where you want to observe ‘NYC rules.’
Be aware of surroundings, spin around on your heel periodically to see if you’re being followed, don’t allow yourself to be ‘cul-de-sac’d’ on a dead end street, have your headphones not in your ears. I’m not saying it’s dangerous here, it’s really not, I’m just saying it makes sense to have ‘the radar’ turned on when armies of junkies are wandering around.
Maintaining a bit of paranoia is a life skill, for one such as myself.
That’s a particularly spectacular Ukrainian Church, pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One slapped his feet against the pavement, on Pittsburgh’s Carson Street, which is the ‘via majorica’ of this section of the city.
Mixed use zoning here, including a set of particularly ancient residential structures, and punctuated by the occasional shop or storefront. Most of the commercial addresses seem shuttered, consequential of some long ago urban planner’s decision to turn the ‘local’ Carson Street into a primary arterial roadway, one whose design involves getting drivers through the area at a maximum rate of speed while they’re heading towards several nearby bridges and tunnels which lead to satellite communities.
People earn their money in the city, thereby, and then drive away to a distant suburb to spend it. It’s obvious what the problem is here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My case study for this particular POV remains the Cross Bronx Expressway – and the Long Island Expressway which I know more about – both of which turned into multiple mile long engines of blight generation for NYC, back in the 1960’s and 70’s.
A big part of making it absolutely hellish to drive into Manhattan in modernity, and forcing people to commute by transit instead, is to encourage the populace to drop some of their coin in the central business district. Ever wonder why the real estate types love congestion pricing and bike lanes so much?
The ‘planners’ look down upon our world like it’s a flat paper map, spread out on a mahogany desk in some City Hall office.
They don’t see groups of bored kids, or dog walkers, or imagine any of the small stuff in their plans – like a candy store, found on a corner. In fact, a candy store is usually in the way of what they want to do or have been told to want by the bosses. From an urban planner’s POV, a Trader Joe’s or a Target are much more laudable ‘anchor’ tenants for a project than some nickel and dime locally owned neighborhood candy store.
Growth, it needs to be organic and considered or it becomes cancerous. Oh, the urbanity of it all!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The local Government, here in Pittsburgh, is currently floating a particularly short sighted policy scheme – creating a new tax regime for an area that is successfully growing itself, and then using that tax money to prop up an area that is dying on the vine.
In the case of Pittsburgh, this conceit is dubbed as being a TRID, and the current political regime wishes to direct the tax moneys generated by a successful development environment in one neighborhood (The Strip District) to buoy up the commercial and office sectors of the Downtown area nearby its transit hubs – a program which would play out over a forty year period.
Forty years…
I’d like to point out – as a point of reference – that Ronald Reagan was President some forty years ago – and that multi generational financial schemes such as this seldom work out well or ‘trickle down’ for the tax paying citizens who haven’t actually been born yet.
Gen X here, and I’ve watched this sort of political handout to the past which shortchanges the future before. Savings and Loan crisis, anyone? No bueno.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bah!
Luckily, I arrived at that brewery by the train tracks just in time.
Inspected the porcelain, ordered a pint, and took up station at the outdoor seating, just as CSX #1897 arrived at the pass.
More on all that tomorrow, which will be a ‘Hey Now!palooza.’
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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.
