Author Archive
Scuttling along the Ohio
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in prior posts, we’re currently experiencing weather conditions which the Pittsburgh’s native ‘Yinzers’ call “The Gray.” Unoccluded skies are a rarity this time of year and it’s often quite wet and cold. Regardless, it was time for a short walk. This time around that took the form a roughly five mile scuttle along a trail that follows the Ohio River nearby the ‘north side’ and ‘chateau’ neighborhoods.
This section of the trail is buttressed by an industrial zone, a sewage treatment plant, a defunct prison, and a power station so… it felt like home to this humble narrator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was heading towards the 1890 vintage Ohio Connecting Railroad Bridge at the outset of my scuttle. The trains which use it are generally Norfolk Southern’s. The trail I was walking on was part of the Three Rivers Heritage trail, but signage encountered suggested to me that it was likely added to the larger entity, and was originally called the ‘North Shore of the Ohio River Trail.’ I’m still enjoying my ignorance here, but a sign is a sign.
There are a few small private boat marinas in this section, but the waterline is generally inaccessible unless you like climbing on things. In most places, there’s a 15-20 foot wooded and fenced off drop down from the street/trail level. No doubt this terraced shoreline is part of a flood control strategy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few boat ramps were encountered, but they were littered with cast off vehicles, trailers, even a couple of single wide residential mobile homes were observed. The trail was fairly well populated, with bike riders and joggers, and the occasional dog walker.
An interesting conversation was struck up with some bloke who was riding a sort of electric bike, specifically a model that was new to me. He assured me that his conveyance was more than capable of handling Pittsburgh’s steep hills.
I want one of those, to use as a shuttle craft to and from the Enterprise Car.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Combined Sewer Outfall? Heck yeah! The Ohio River is, as it turns out, the most polluted waterway in the United States. That’s an awful fact, as this river is also the primary source of drinking water for multiple communities in several states.
As mentioned above, on the landward side of this trail, there was an industrial zone. Most of it seemed to be populated either by municipal service installations, building supply warehouses, last mile shipping depots, and there were a few examples of odds and ends sort of businesses like HVAC and truck mechanics. I didn’t explore this upland area – at all – on foot, but did drive around a bit after finishing my walk as I’m a connoisseur of industrial zones.
More or less, this Google maps link shows the location where this scuttle took place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Ohio Connecting Railroad Bridge connects the north side of Pittsburgh with Brunot’s Island (and then the south shore of the Ohio River), and it is inaccessible by foot or vehicle for the average Joe.
I was hoping for a train, but an unoccluded view from the trail was not available. Damned vegetation!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, the Richard A. Nomanson Towboat slid into view while it was towing a fuel barge. I wasn’t able to find out much about this boat, which is extremely odd, in my experience.
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.
All cars are street cars… just sayin
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Christmas Day is when these shots of the ‘T’ streetcar, speeding through the Borough of Dormont here in the Pittsburgh Metropole, were shot. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had met up with neighborhood friends at the local dive bar for a few holiday drinks.
Me? It was actually somewhat bright outside and I couldn’t help but wander about a bit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T pictured above and below is a Siemens SD-400 model streetcar, which runs on Pennsylvania Trolley Gauge tracks. These are facts I learned by visiting a detailed and nicely researched post found at tramreview.com.
These streetcars replaced a fleet of earlier and ‘proper’ Trolley cars. I’m planning on heading over to the PA. Trolley Museum at some point in the coming months to learn more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was nice having a little get together with the neighbors on Christmas, and also getting a few belts in during the early afternoon.
Day drinking, amirite?
It ain’t the 7 train, the ‘T,’ but I find it pretty interesting. Still haven’t taken a bus or checked out Pittsburgh’s ‘Bus ways.’
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.
Hot Metal Night
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Hot Metal Bridge pictured above, and the pathway I was walking here in Pittsburgh was described in this post from February of last year. The burning thermonuclear eye of God itself had slid away from the vault of the sky, and since there really isn’t an extended period of ‘dusk’ in these parts – it gets dark fast. Snap your fingers and ‘boom’ it’s suddenly night time.
I’ve been hankering to do some ‘night work’ again, at any rate, which is something that’s not been on my menu for a while.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t have any of the equipment normally used for such pursuits along with me on this walk (tripod etc.), rather I was packing a kit of prime lenses so the captures had to be handheld.
No problem there. The prime lenses I had with me are all ‘bright’ with the capability of large apertures. The ‘darkest’ lens I had with me was f2.8 wide open, and the rest ranged from f2 to f1.8 with a couple of them also offering image stabilizer technology. My camera has a built in sensor stabilizer, so coupled with a stabilized lens, that gives me around 6-8 stops worth of wiggle room.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After having walked the Three Rivers Heritage trail from downtown Pittsburgh, alongside the north shore of the Monongahela River, my crossing back to the south side of the waterway was accomplished via the Hot Metal Bridge – a former rail bridge which once connected two sides of a steel mill and has been converted over to automobile/bike/pedestrian usage in modernity.
It got darker with every step I took, which sounds like a metaphor for my entire life, but there we are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the right side of the shot above is a high technology focused office park where several corporate entities are based. Carnegie Mellon has a building in there too. All sorts of robotics research, work on self driving cars, and other fairly terrifying advancements are being created and tested therein. The land used to be the property of that former steel mill which the Hot Metal Bridge was a part of.
To my eyes, Pittsburgh has done a lot better with its ‘post industrial landscape’ than NYC has. If this was Brooklyn, those buildings with their hundreds of high paying technology jobs would be empty condo buildings full of ‘pied a terre’ apartments that rich suburbanites use as crash pads when they’re in the City, and rent out as AirBNB’s when they’re not.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Birmingham Bridge at center of the shot above, a span which I recently walked over and offered a post about a few weeks ago, with Downtown Pittsburgh rising up behind it.
Luckily, I’d be taking a ride share home this particular evening, as I was heading towards a pub with a pretty excellent bar menu for a dinner date with Our Lady of the Pentacle. This was pretty exciting stuff for us, as we’ve become ‘dirty rotten stay at homes’ since moving out here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The lifestyle we’re experiencing here in Pittsburgh is domestically focused, and it’s rare that we even get takeout or go to a restaurant for a meal, or go to a bar when we want to have a drink. Generally, it’s meals at home and stocking up at a supermarket about once a week. The isolation is splendid, but every now and then – usually about once every week, or week and a half, we force ourselves out for some diversion.
This is, of course, a real departure from life in NYC with its tiny kitchens that lack automatic dishwashers or food preparation space, and a multitude of take out options.
Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
Station Identification
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Why? Who am I, how did I get where, and ultimately – what the hell?
A humble narrator has been working on a portfolio site, and combing through the tens of thousands of photos in my archives, which has caused these sorts of questions to come up a lot in my own mind. It occurred to me that I might want to say it here, to y’all. As a note, the photos in today’s post were gathered during a short walk in Pittsburgh.
Allow me to introduce, or reintroduce, myself –
Hi, I’m Mitch Waxman.
Constitutional walks occur every other day, but weather and worldly obligation often get in the way. These mostly urban peregrinations of mine have been underway since a health crisis arrived back in 2006, which surprised the hell out of me and ultimately changed the way I live my life.
The curative I’ve obliged, over these six thousand two hundred twenty nine days in the interval, has been governed by this day on/day off walking schedule. Three days a week a humble narrator takes a ‘short walk’ of under five miles (about two hours), and once a week there’s a ‘long walk’ which burns out about ten miles worth of shoe leather. This ain’t the incidental walking one does as part of the daily round, I’m talking about dedicated time instead. I see a lot of things on these walks.
I bring the camera along to keep things interesting, and am almost always alone while I’m scuttling about. I lived in New York City for the entirety of my life – grew up in Brooklyn, and then lived in Manhattan and Astoria, Queens as an adult.
Three hundred and ninety five days ago, I escaped the confines of the City of New York or ‘Home Sweet Hell’ as I’ve always called it, and now dwell in a suburb of the ‘Paris of the Midwest’ – Pittsburgh.
Back in NYC, I was fairly well known for an encyclopedic knowledge of the City’s history, and its dark underbelly. Newtown Creek, Western Queens, North Brooklyn, intra city transit, and New York Harbor’s maritime world were my main points of focus and interest there.
Things progressed to a point where I was regularly offering narrations for – and leading – walking and boat tours of NYC’s less commented upon areas for several ‘non profit’ and ‘for profit’ entities. My activities drew the attention of several journalists and film makers over the years, notably including a NY Times profile of me published in 2012.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally speaking, I’ve enjoyed many long term and life long friendships, and have been married to Our Lady of the Pentacle for several decades.
Professional life has seen me write and draw comic books, while simultaneously working on Madison Avenue (in the Advertising Salt Mines) first as a print production artist, then as a photo retoucher. The latter role led me to pick up photography, as I needed to learn how to ‘Sprechen Sie Deutsch’ with the photographers I was working with and for. Facility with the camera led to another job description for me, and since picking up the thing I’ve sold a fair number of photos to national publications, governmental agencies, and corporate websites over the years.
Notoriety led to new opportunities for me to annoy powerful and overly serious people and thwart the evil plans of the avaricious, so I began working with several organizations accordingly to expand the pool of people whom I might anger or distract.
I was the Transportation Chair for Queens Community Board 2 back home in Astoria, Queens. Historian and a Board member at Newtown Creek Alliance, and a Board member of the Working Harbor Committee. I was also a steering committee member, and Strategist, for the transit advocacy group Access Queens.
Most recently – and to be clear this was an invitation, and they asked me – I’ve also recently been added to the list of ‘Who’s Who in America.’
No, really.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This Newtown Pentacle blog of mine began publishing back in May of 2009, when I found myself serving as a Parade Marshall for the Centennial of the Queensboro Bridge. I will always describe myself as a wandering mendicant, clothed in wind blown black sackcloth, carrying a camera. Thing is, I’ve done a lot of cool things over the years which this blog was instrumental in achieving.
When I first started this blog – FIFTEEN YEARS AGO THIS JUNE! – I’d write in a manner and prose style reminiscent of an HP Lovecraft story. Over the years I’ve dropped the HP Lovecraft shtick here at Newtown Pentacle, and sought to let my actual voice come to the fore and attempt to become more conversational in tone.
The best compliment I’ve ever received about Pentacle was that ‘it’s just like hanging out with you, and listening to all your crazy stories, but unfortunately you’re still kind of an asshole.’
Many have asked what prompted the move to Pittsburgh at the end of 2022, intoning that I had some sort of hidden agenda or motivation, and saying ‘you’ll be back.’ I will be back, but not until next year and it’ll just be a visit. Home will always be NYC, but I’m ‘all in’ on Pittsburgh. In the meantime, I’m loving living in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Back next week, with less self aggrandizement or biography. It’s so much easier to write about anything other than one’s self.
“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.
Glass, & Ceratops Quīnquāgintā Septem
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh does a ‘Holiday Market’ dealie near the PPG tower, which is a castellated office building complex that was designed by architect Philip Johnson. Johnson was a guy who would regularly cast stones, even though he literally lived in a glass house for 58 years.
Personally, I’m not really a fan of Johnson’s sterility architecture, as his installations generally create urban deserts around the buildings, blighting any sort of organic street life in an antiseptic and uninviting order. I prefer the chaos of urban heterogeneity, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An ice skating rink is set up in the ‘plaza’ of PPG Place for the Holiday Season, and locals drive in from extant points to indulge. Our Lady of the Pentacle wished to visit a nearby holiday market which was set up a block or two away.
While there, I was closely watching her every move and mentally recording whatever she reacted to positively, as far as the holiday market’s offerings. All of this was in the name of filling her Christmas Stocking, of course, so when I revisited the spot a couple of days later…
On this particular day, however, our sole purchase was a bottle of mull wine, which we would serve at a holiday gathering for a couple of the new neighbors back at HQ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A statuary display of a Ceratops Quīnquāgintā Septem (that’s how you’d pronounce the number 57 in Latin) or perhaps it was a Heinz Triceratops, was on holiday display nearby the entrance to the PPG tower.
PPG stands for ‘Pittsburgh Plate Glass’ just in case you’re curious. They’re one of Pittsburgh’s ‘anchor’ companies, born and bred.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 