Author Archive
gnarled orchards
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first thing I wanted to do in Pittsburgh was eat Breakfast, but I didn’t have a plan for that. My plan for the day involved the Allegheny River side of the Iron (or Golden) Triangle. “Iron Triangle” is the colloquial name I’ve inherited for the delta shaped landform shaped by the Allegheny, Ohio, and Monongahela rivers but I’ve seen and heard Pittsburgh people say “Golden Triangle.” Pittsburgh has just over 302,000 residents within the actual city limits, but the Pittsburgh metropolitan area (Pittsburgh is the seat of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County) on the other hand boasts some 2.37 million citizens. The lay of the land here is fascinating, with the river delta providing a low point in relation to several very, very steep valleys and prominences. Individual neighborhoods in Pittsburgh can often be separated from each other by deep ravines and wooded valleys, even though they’re the equivalent of what New Yorkers would call “a couple blocks away”
That’s the Roberto Clemente Bridge above, which I crossed over to the northern shore of the Allegheny via. The bridge leads to the PNC Stadium, where the Pirates play baseball. All along the bridge, you’ll observe padlocks inscribed with names. Some of these are memorial in nature, whereas others indicate loving bonds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my targets for the Pittsburgh trip was exploring the Three Rivers Heritage trails adjoining the post industrial waterfront. When you’re talking Pittsburgh, United States Steel and the American Bridge Company need to be mentioned. My first thought after hearing “Pittsburgh” is “Andrew Carnegie” but in the case of those two companies it was NYC’s own JP Morgan who created them. Frick and the other robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century were at least partially based here, and their industrial setups persisted well into the 1950’s, even though they were diminished and impoverished due to the meddling of the Rockefeller and Morgan people back in NYC. By 1962, when Pittsburgher Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” was published, it had become obvious that some other use for the abandoned industrial waterfront had to be imagined. Pittsburgh was abandoned by its largest employers, the air and water were highly polluted, and a plan was hatched to change things. It took a while, but today Pittsburgh is consistently ranked as one of the best cities to live in not just the United States but the entire world.
What we did in NYC, with faced the same situation, was simply this – nothing. We allowed our abandoned industrial waterfront to blight into areas for junkies and scalliwags to inhabit, and then we declared these areas off limits and designated them “brownfield opportunity areas” to ease the transfer of the property from well greased public to greasy private hands, while dealing out a bunch of tax breaks to smooth out the creation of luxury condominiums for the wealthy to inhabit. Like the Romans, we created a holocaust and declared peace here in NYC, and “forgot” to clean up the environmental stuff until the rich people were living on top of it. Pittsburgh followed a different path, although they have condos too, but they’re not the dystopian glass boxes that serve as dormitories for corporate staffers and european tourists which loom over Long Island City and North Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all sunshine and hand jobs here in Pittsburgh. They have plenty of problems, with decaying building stock left over from their glory days as the “Steel City,” when the population was nearly double what it is now. Entire industrial sectors which once employed thousands are simply vanished, leaving pensionless workers behind. There’s environmental gunk in the ground and water, huge industrial campuses that need to be dismantled and environmentally remediated – all that. This section of the country isn’t called the “Rust Belt” for shits and giggles.
It was right across the street from this old church that I found a fantastic off the maps diner, seemingly frequented by the locals, which served me a fantastic breakfast. I don’t normally eat a heavy breakfast, but given what my plans for the day were – I figured that I’d earn the eggs, bacon, orange juice, and blueberry pancakes by the next time I’d be taking a break. After getting fed, and having drank a yard arm of coffee, the camera was fully deployed and a humble narrator got busy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Heinz factory complex was on my shot list for the day, and just happened to be a couple of blocks from that humble diner. The weather and atmospherics in Pittsburgh are exceptionally changeable. Literally every hour of the day while I was in town, the sky was dramatically different than it been an hour before or would be an hour after. As is my habit, I had watched the weather report on TV local news for a forecast, and warnings about a powerful system of thunderstorms heading for the City abounded, so an interval spanning the 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. time period seemed like an excellent time to be back in the AirBNB and sheltered. Good, a deadline.
It was a warm day, and Pittsburgh is characteristically humid to start with given its riverine valleys topography. Luckily, I had carried warm weather clothing with me as well as cold weather garments. I would end up needing both on this visit, and was particularly glad that I had an umbrella tied onto my camera bag as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This Heinz factory was converted over to residential uses a few years ago, offering rental apartments and lofts. Considered to be sky high prices in the Pittsburgh rental market when it opened in 2005, the original price at opening for a 1 bedroom was $825 a month, and a 3 bedroom with a fireplace, terrace, and river views would have run you $2,725 a month. That’s turned into $1,655-$2,280 for a one bedroom in 2021, and a two bedroom will run you anywhere between $1,769 and $3,308 today. Their website doesn’t list any available 3 bedrooms. My understanding of the Pittsburgh Real Estate situation is that it’s actually a lot smarter to own than rent in this area, and that the “market” mainly involves free standing or semi attached homes rather than apartments or condos. A McMansion in a desirable suburb might cost you between $500,000 and $750,000, but the average price of a home is just under $200,000. What that means is that there aren’t that many rental units available.
Saying all that, I’m not from here and was just visiting for a couple of days. What do I know? I’m just a wandering mendicant, with a camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Herr’s Island Railroad Bridge pictured above, which is part of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail. The Western Pennsylvania Rail Road Company built the thing in 1890, which allowed them to cross over rail yards and properties owned by the B&O Rail Road to Herr’s Island – which I understand to have once been where you’d find animal stockyards and cold storage warehouses. The Pennsylvania Rail Road absorbed West Penn in 1903. By 1970, parts of the bridge had already started to be removed, and by post industrial 1990 it was a relic of an earlier era. In 1999, as part of the creation of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail and the development of Herr’s Island as a mixed use residential and business district, the Herr’s Island Railroad Bridge was pedestrianized and connected to the north side of the Allegheny River.
More 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.
great elms
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The AirBNB listing described the accommodation as having the “best views” of downtown Pittsburgh. Have to admit, they were pretty awesome. My Amtrak chariot arrived at Pittsburgh’s Union Station right on time at 11:44 p.m. I had ridden on Amtrak’s Capitol line here from Washington D.C., and the train continued on without me to its eventual terminus in Chicago.
I staggered out onto the mean streets of Pittsburgh with my 25-30 pounds of luggage, camera gear, and a whole lot of stress. Luckily, the accommodation I’d be staying at was only a few blocks away from the train station and after a couple of hurdles I was some 23 stories up and chilling out in a pretty nice set of rooms. Before you ask – the AirBNB was roughly one third of the cost of several of the local hotels.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After calling home and letting Our Lady of the Pentacle know I had arrived safely, one began reordering “the carry.” Now that I had a secure home base, about 18 pounds of crap could be stowed there while I did my thing out of doors. I’ve been wanting to take the camera to Pittsburgh – with its 446 bridges and multiple active freight train tracks and it’s funicular railways – for a while. I had a plan, one which would start the next day at around 7 in the morning and play out over the next 72 hours.
For now, though, I set up the tripod (after offloading the Washington photos to the laptop) and got busy. The location of the AirBNB was at the Allegheny River side of the hypotenuse formed by the “Iron Triangle” of Pittsburgh’s three rivers. It was across the street from a local train station, which I did not use at all. Like I said – I had a plan, and it mainly involved walking rather than riding although I did use the occasional LYFT ride share car to get from A to B.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are several corporate “powers that be” housed in this area, including Mellon Bank, UPMC, Huntington, and others. There was also a Federal courthouse a few blocks away. Everywhere I looked, there was something interesting which caught my eye.
Despite the dreamless sleep on the Amtrak ride, I was exhausted. Capturing photos drained away any remaining energy or motivation, and I was passed out cold shortly after shooting them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The arrival in Pittsburgh was rather anticipated, but anticlimactic. Their grandiose Pennsylvania Railroad station has been converted over to a luxury apartment building, and Amtrak’s modern day station is somewhat reminiscent of late in the game Soviet municipal transit architecture – minus the chandeliers.
Nearby the Amtrak station is a Greyhound Bus terminal, as is the Pittsburgh Convention Center.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All of the shots looked peculiar to me when I checked my exposure on the camera screen. What’s with all that yellow/orange light, thought I. Suddenly, it occurred to me that since the NYC DOT has nearly completed its decade long conversion of NYC’S street lighting over to the bluish white LED luminaires, old school sodium based lighting now looks weird to me. Son of a gun, it’s true what they say about a frog in a slowly heating pot of water not realizing that its environment is coming to a deadly boiling point, since it happened gradually.
It’s like how lousy a Mayor De Blasio has been makes Eric Adams look good in comparison. He isn’t though, he’s worse. Mayor Adams is going to turn the heat up and boil you alive. Don’t believe me? Go price out a home in Downtown Brooklyn, he’s been Borough President there for the last 8 years.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you can see from the clock pictured above, it was now 1:20 in the morning when I made the conscious decision to go to sleep. All told, I had been on the move for nearly 23 hours. Thing is, I was just getting started, and adventure in the Rust Belt awaited.
More tomorrow, from the pretty city of Pittsburgh, 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.
rolling hills
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Union Station in Washington D.C. is where Amtrak is headquartered, and is their second busiest train station with just under 5 million riders passing through it every year. It’s the southern terminus for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, and also handles several commuter rail lines as well as municipal Streetcar and Bus operations for the City of Washington D.C. (local, as opposed to the Federal side of things).
In the late 19th century, Washington was a real mess. Separate rail yards, including ones on the site of what’s now the National Mall, were operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In 1901, Penn RR and B&O RR announced that they had arrived at an agreement to partner up and build what would become Union Station. As part of their agreement, they would abandon and remove the tracks and depots which they had piecemeal installed over the last 50-70 years in Washington. The abandoned land became the National Mall which was partially described in last week’s postings here at Newtown Pentacle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Union Station was built under the supervision of Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. Congress got involved, and “S. 4825 (58th-1st session) entitled “An Act to provide a union railroad station in the District of Columbia” which was signed into law by 26th President Theodore Roosevelt on February 28, 1903. The Act created a Washington Terminal Company (jointly owned by the B&O and the PRR-controlled Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad) to construct a railroad station “monumental in character.” The budget was $4 million (roughly $98.3 million in modern valuation) but Washington is no different now than it was then, so in the end it cost $5.9 million to build the thing. Grade crossings in the City were also eliminated, which cost the taxpayers about $3 million additional smackeroos.
A bit of trivia encountered while reading up for this post is that the neighborhood that Union Station was built in used to be called Swampoodle, and it was a “lawless shanty town populated by Irish, Italians, and Negroes” where public drunkenness and other licentious behavior was common. There were livestock pens, and a collection of shops that housed tin smiths. By October 27, 1907, Swampoodle was gone, as that’s when Union Station opened for business and the B&O’s Pittsburgh Express first arrived, to much fanfare.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m told that there are 32 station tracks at Union Station. 20 of them enter from the Northeast, with the remaining 12 entering the facility via a tunnel under Capitol Hill. I’m sure there’s a lot of nuanced commentary that could offered by a rail historian or dedicated rail fan, but one prefers not to dwell too deeply on such matters unless he’s forced into it. Unlike Sunnyside Yards, I do not want to be in a position to tell you who the field engineer for the Pennsylvania Rail Road was.
It’s during the time period that this station was built that the America we know in modernity was being created. Petroleum was replacing coal, cities were enacting sanitary and health codes, foreign military adventures had become normal, and the idea that a non European country might be able to single-handily dominate and control an entire hemisphere of the planet had emerged. It was during the interval of Union Station’s construction – in 1903, specifically – that the Wright Brothers began flying. The Civil War was a bad memory that fathers and grandfathers told their children about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In 1971, the private capital version of rail road companies in the United States collapsed into bankruptcy, and President Richard Nixon nationalized the assets. Conrail was created to handle freight, Amtrak to handle inter city passenger travel, and the inner city and commuter rail businesses were allotted to a number of regional authorities – MTA, SEPTA, and so on. In the case of Union Station, the Federal Department of the Interior was put in charge of the place. Badly maintained, by 1983, it became apparent that a change was required if Union Station was to be saved. The Reagan administration transferred joint ownership of Union Station to Amtrak and the Federal Department of Transportation.
Far more renovations and rethinkings of the space occurred for me to pass on, but suffice to say that a significant and very expensive amount of work occurred here, resulting in gorgeous public areas like the grand hall – pictured above – being returned to their (somewhat) original glory. Union Station as you see it above reopened in 1988. There’s still work to be done, in both operational capability and the historic preservation spheres, and Amtrak keeps on talking about a fairly expensive vision for the future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Great Hall/entrance is meant to be a waiting room, and when it’s time to start moving towards your train, you enter the concourse. That’s where the Amtrak counters are, as well as a series of shops and restaurants.
On a personal note, man oh man was I tired at this stage of the game. It was about three in the afternoon, and I had left HQ in Astoria at 2:30 in the morning for a 3:30 a.m. train to D.C. I had wandered out into the National Mall at just after 7 a.m. and began shooting with the characteristically brutal “hot” of Washington oppressing me. I got pics of several interesting POV’s while engaging in a frustrating Covid era search for something to drink and a place to… ahem… use the toilet. I made it all the way down to the Potomac and then had to meet up with an old friend for lunch. Sleep deprived doesn’t begin to describe my state.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator was thereby pretty loopy by the time this shot was taken. Honestly, I almost forgot to take it. The next leg of my September travels would involve a 7 hour and 40 minute Amtrak ride, and I’d be getting off the train at 11:44 p.m. Before boarding, I had slurped down a huge cup of coffee at Union Station, and my intention was to use the travel time to offload the Washington shots from my camera onto the very heavy laptop I was carrying with me. There’s a whole process to this – focus check, is it worth keeping, horizon straightening, cropping, key wording – before I even start to address what the color and tonality of the final shot will be. About one out of ten shots makes it through this process, and maybe one out of five of those makes it here.
Truth is that I fell asleep about a half hour after boarding the train, and remained passed out for about six hours. Sleeping in public is so outside of my ordinary mindset that I’m still shocked about it.
Human, all too human.
“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.
hovered about
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Washington D.C. was hot and overcast when I visited. I was in town for a rail layover, the interval between NYC and my next destination, and I had about five hours of photo time to “do my thing.” As mentioned yesterday, I had “stock shots” in mind. Saying that, I also had “serendipity” figured in. What that means are unplanned shots that just jump up and say “take a picture.”
Things were starting to go south for me physically due to sleep deprivation, hunger, and thirst. There was literally no place to pee other than directly on National Monuments, which really isn’t an option for me since “respect.” Luckily, I was thirsty and sweating so profusely that having to pee stopped being a problem about two hours into the excursion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The World War 2 monument in Washington D.C. hosts a fine fountain. As mentioned yesterday, for some reason or another I was very interested in photos of fountains on this particular morning. Maybe it was the thirst.
Maybe it was that I was able to stand in the shade while taking this shot. It was HOT, I tell you, HOT! Seriously, I left NYC where it had been about 65 degrees and stepped into an 87 degree Washington D.C. super humid/sun on my back morning while I’m carrying 25-30 pounds of back packs kind of deal. Uggh. I had three bags, two camera and one full of travel luggage stuff – clothes, toiletries, all that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One continued slouching roughly towards the Potomac River and across the Federal Mall after spending some time with the WW2 monument’s fountain. This monument is a fairly recent addition to the scene hereabouts, having been created in 2004.
Jeez. The last time I was in Washington was probably thirty five years ago. I needed a shot of Congress as reference for a comic book I was drawing, and drove through with a Kodak disposable camera on my way home from a comic convention in Virginia. This particular comic, which I also wrote, centered on an invasion of Washington by a group of Aztec supervillains (they had been hiding since 1520 in Venezuela and plotting their revenge on the Europeans under the tutelage of an immortal Wizard) which was countered by an army led by an American Battle Android which ended up housing the mind of President George H.W. Bush after the Aztecs speared him one through the chest.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The physical suffering was getting pretty awful by this point, and I had descended into bargaining with myself. One more shot dude, just one more.
It’s hard to describe the weird physicality side of photography, which can often involve being on your feet for 8-12 hours at a pop. I’m always outside, whether it’s hot or cold, raining or during snow. You end up squishing yourself into all of these uncomfortable yoga poses to get behind the camera to catch some uncommon angle, or spend all your time doing calisthenics while dropping to one knee for the shot. There’s also the carrying of the gear. That camera is always in my hand. Even if I’m not shooting, I’m ready to do so.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I liked the shot of the fountain at the Museum of the American Indian presented in yesterday’s post best, as my “shot of the day.” The runner up is the one above, depicting the Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pool. It was shortly after finishing up this one that I broke down the tripod and returned to hand held shooting mode.
This is also when I spotted – after something like three hours – an open shop selling refreshments. I inhaled an entire bottle of yellow Gatorade in two big gulps, sucked about two pints of water out of a bottle in three gulps, and also managed to score a large cup of steaming hot black coffee. As far as needing to urinate, let’s just say that where I found myself had very few national monuments and lots of bushes. Sorted!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the bank of the Potomac River, you encounter the Arlington Memorial Bridge leading out of the Federal District and into Virginia. As the name implies, this bridge leads the Arlington National Cemetery. Despite its appearance, this is a fairly modern structure, having been built in 1932.
My time had run out, as far as the allotted period for this leg of my trip. A quick ride share trip took me to the Georgetown section of the greater Washington metro area, where a reunion with an old and dear friend occurred over a luncheon. I guzzled water, and a Bloody Mary, while we quaffed cheeseburgers and talked about Amtrak, Washington, and also caught up on where our lives were going. He eventually offered to give me a quick automotive tour of the surrounding area, with the proviso that I needed to return to Union Station for my assignation with Amtrak.
More next week, at your traveling 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.
slackened speed
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There will be a post later on in this series that focuses in solely on Washington D.C.’s Union Station, pictured above, but for today’s post – that’s what it looks like at about 7 in the morning. I was told by a friend who lives in the area, later on in the day, that the City of Washington distributes camping tents to homeless folks – which is why you see those tents in front of the station. That’s some basic humanity at work, I would offer.
Most of the street people I’ve known over the years, which is a considerable number – incidentally – worked assiduously towards ensuring their unfortunate circumstance. Addicts or Alcoholics, plain crazy or “bad crazy,” unlucky or unskilled. There isn’t a single “homeless problem,” rather there’s thousands of individual problems with the single commonality of living rough. No answer fits all of their questions.
Saying all that – empathy and kindness, and don’t judge them. Thank your lucky stars that your life has worked out differently and remember that “but for the grace of god, there go I.” Imagine walking around having to take a dump and not being allowed near a public bathroom, as a member of this proscribed class. Imagine being thirsty, or just wanting to wash your face, and seeing municipalities getting rid of public drinking fountains. Imagine living in a world where all that matters is money, and you have none. That’s what it’s like, with the extra layer of not being able to bathe and being surrounded by other people in the same circumstance who are equally desperate and hungry. So… we’re supposed to be a Christian morality influenced nation, right? Empathy. Kindness.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My goal for the morning – I had about five hours of photography time planned in before meeting up with my old friend for lunch at 12:30 – was to walk the National Mall in the direction of the Potomac River. Unfortunately for a sleep deprived but quite humble narrator, I was shlepping a week’s worth of clothing and a full camera bag. Having learned my lesson on the Burlington leg of my travels, a laptop computer had been added into the mix, which unfortunately also added about ten pounds of weight to my pack.
It was characteristically hot and humid in Washington, and the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself was staring directly at my back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan for the excursion didn’t involve trying to find some unique view or anything. This is probably one of the most photographed places in human history, after all. Back in NYC, I generally don’t take the lens cap off when I’m anywhere near my alma mater, the School of Visual Arts on 23rd and 3rd. SVA has a world class photography program, and a saturation of street and architectural photos radiate out from their buildings.
Mainly what I was going for were the “stock” shots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I made it a point of getting fancy pants with the tripod and filters at the reflecting pool leading towards the major Presidential monuments, but right about the moment I was taking this photo is when I started to physically crash. Having left Astoria at 2:30 in the morning, and boarded an Amtrak at 3:30 which I managed to nap for about 90 minutes on, then walked out into the bright and hot environs of Washington with all of the gear I was carrying… that’s where Covid ended up biting me in the butt.
Nothing was open. There were no food trucks or hot dog guys to buy a bottle of water or Gatorade from, no coffee to bolster my fading energy, nada. Nowhere to take a piss, either. Bleh. Regardless, I soldiered on, and thought about the people living in the tents back at Union Station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian opened in 2004, and the fountain at its entrance is pictured above. The shot above ended being my “shot of the day” in Washington. For some reason, I was really into shooting fountains on this particular morning. I happened across it by accident, as I was mainly looking for a planted area with shady trees where I could divest myself of “my carry” for a few minutes and sit down. “Hot” in D.C. ain’t no joke, yo.
When I do my next bit of traveling, I’m going to be trying to find access to waterfalls in a natural setting. Something is calling me towards photographing flowing water these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the weird things about the National Mall on this particular morning was a nearly complete lack of people there. No doubt due to Covid, but this is normally a very crowded area, even at 7-8 in the morning, with tour buses disgorging thousands of eighth graders from all around the country onto the Mall. There’s also usually a great tumult of other tourists and lookie loos. There were people there, yes, but you could describe them as being in the “dozens,” rather than “hundreds” or “thousands.” That’s why, ultimately, I was “plotzing” for a bottle of water. Why show up to vend, when there’s no one to vend to?
More tomorrow – at this – your traveling 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 