The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A rare sunny/warm January day found a humble narrator behind the steering wheel of his Mobile Oppression Platform, heading eastwards along the Monongahela River. My destination was the community of Clairton, where U.S. Steel maintains and operates the Clairton Works. The manufacturing mission here involves the refinement of Coke from Coal, for usage at other company facilities dedicated to the production of steel. This process, coincidentally, produces a tremendous amount of ‘coal gas’ along with several other undesirable compounds.

If Pittsburgh happens to smell like rotten eggs on any given day, odds are that the wind is blowing past the Clairton plant with its voluminous exhaust of sulfur compound waste products.

There’s a great site called ‘Plume Pittsburgh’ which offers a live ‘weather’ report on the local triad of point sources (of which Clairton is the primary offender), and it basically lets you know which way the wind is blowing here, or at the two other U.S. Steel facilities in the ‘Mon Valley.’ PlumePGH can be accessed here.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I haven’t spent much time around these parts, yet. Partially, it’s the fact that other places closer to home have drawn my interest. Another factor is that the town itself seems pretty stressed – with shuttered store fronts, abandoned homes, and other ‘rust belt’ indicators which indicate an insalubrious state of affairs, and suggests that the local gentry wouldn’t necessarily be welcoming to a curious stranger wandering around with a camera. Got to acknowledge ‘vibe.’

The locals seem to park on sidewalks and in private lots, which indicates to me that the streets are fairly ‘verboten’ for strangers parking on them. This is a place which you have to get to by automotive means, although I’m told there used to be street car service from Pittsburgh proper ‘back in the day.’

Luckily, there’s a branch of the Montour Trail which overlaps with the still unexplored ‘Steel Valley trail,’ and the Montour outfit offers a free parking lot for its visitors. After securing the MOP into said lot, a humble narrator set out on foot. I was seemingly the singular pedestrian in this section of the town. Definitely was the only one wearing a filthy black raincoat and carrying a camera.

There’s near constant rail traffic here, and there’s a lot of maritime activity on the nearby river, as well. CSX runs a frequent freight service whose coal carrying cars bear the logo of ‘Coke Express.’ Pictured above is a Norfolk Southern Train which is also no stranger to these parts, and observed but not photographed was U.S. Steel’s ‘House Brand’ Union Railroad.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It’s about a 3 or 4 block walk from the trail’s parking lot to a fairly large vehicular 1987 vintage bridge spanning the Monongahela River, one whose anterior side provides for a point of view of the Clairton Plant, and the thing offers a pedestrian/bike lane. Thereby, away I scuttled,

Unfortunate circumstance on the bridge itself involves the State authorities’ usage of the sort of chain link fencing pictured above. Little 1 inch diamond shape holes… this is always a difficult circumstance for the wandering photographer to shoot through, and similar fencing used to annoy me back at Sunnyside Yards in Queens. There’s rail tracks all over the place, but the main tracks are found just below the bridge. This sort of fencing is commonly encountered at locations overlooking rail lines, so it’s likely some sort of Homeland Security regulation.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you what I saw on the other side, and make an attempt at a semi informed description of the milieu.

“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.

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.

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Pittsburgh’s Allentown section is embedded into the steep slopes of Mount Washington. Recent endeavor found a humble narrator leaving the car back at HQ in Dormont and using a Lyft ride share to get over to this section, a short ride that cost me about $12. I had the driver drop me off at the former location of an incline/funicular called the Knoxville station (which is a modern day convenience store) found at the apex of a street called Arlington Avenue. There used to be T light rail line regular service here (Brown Line), but for a variety of pedantic reasons this line isn’t serviced anymore. The tracks and catenary wires are still present, and the T people will use the Arlington Avenue tracks if there’s a problem with, or maintenance is underway, at the transit only tunnel nearby the Station Square stop about a mile and half across and 1,000 feet down from where the above photo was captured.

Behind me, on top of the prominence, is a Pittsburgh neighborhood with a ferocious reputation that’s called Beltzhoover. I’m a newbie, still, but as a former New Yorker I’m continually amazed at what’s considered “The Hood” here. I’m picturing 1980’s and the blasted out brick lots of Bushwick, South Bronx, or East New York when that term is used, but what you see in Pittsburgh’s ‘hoods’ are detached one and two family houses, with an occasional multi unit building that you might describe as being an ‘apartment building,’ but would be more accurately described to a New Yorker as being a ‘garden apartments complex.’ Not saying they haven’t got the toxic mix of poverty and crime, but it doesn’t ‘look’ all that awful.

Sensationalist news reports gleefully propagate stories about criminal and gang activity in these sorts of neighborhoods, tarnishing their reputations to the surrounding metro area and promulgating a sense of imminent peril that if were you to get out of your car…

If it bleeds, it leads, as the news people say.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As described above, the T infrastructure is still quite present, but the regional transit people have decided to run buses here instead of the light rail. A humble narrator became intrigued by this locale on one of those days when maintenance work on the South Hills Transit Tunnel was underway, and the T train set I was riding on was diverted through here. This is definitely a pathway you want to descend, rather than walk upwards on. I seemed to be the only pedestrian, but there were a few bike riders as well.

Arlington Avenue is a very, very interesting corridor. There were three basic types of residential buildings I passed by. Small houses with entrances on the street level leading downhill to the actual dwelling, large houses of obviously modern design that were built with modern security concerns in mind, and fairly old mansion sized homes which seem to have been subdivided for the rental market.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’m told that at least a part of the section I was walking through is called the South Side Slopes, but I’m not sure if that’s an actual municipal designation or it’s a colloquial cognomen for a certain region of the metro area. The path down Arlington Avenue is fairly well wooded, but every now and then, there’s a break in the tree line and commanding views of the City center are on offer.

One was heading, ultimately, down to the South Side Flats section where I would pick up a ride on the T light rail back to HQ.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Fascinating place Pittsburgh is, ain’t it? Look at that hill those houses are set into. Jeez. Crazy pants, that.

Imagine being a kid and chasing after a ball as it rolled and bounced down that road. Yikes. Even worse, imagine walking up that hill during inclement weather.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s the South Side Flats area, from up high, pictured above. Very interesting spot, as far as building stock goes, but not the sort of place I’d want to live at my age. If I was still in my 20’s, partying regularly and staying out late with a crew of boozehounds – it’s absolutely where I’d want to be.

There’s a population of rather tragic junkies who have installed themselves down there, and it’s also a bit of a nightlife center which draws in a lot of thirsty kids who like the liquor. There’s all kinds of wicked stories about what goes on there on weekend nights. Shootings over perceived slights, arguing and fighting over women, that sort of kid stuff regularly makes the news in Pittsburgh.

Again – if it bleeds, it leads.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One was tempted to experience this set of municipal steps to get to my next destination. Pittsburgh has hundreds of examples of this sort of pedestrian infrastructure all around the City. Not this time, though.

The spot I was heading for, however, was in response to a comment one of my railfan friends offered me about some recent locomotive shots I’ve displayed here. The comment was phrased in the manner of a challenge, or at least that’s how I received it. It brought out a part of me that’s normally suppressed, and is best described as reminiscent of Terrance Stamp’s swaggering performance as General Zod in the Superman 2 movie back in 1980.

More on that 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.