The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One has mentioned the multitude of recreational trails in the Pittsburgh area before. As has often been described, walking around with the camera isn’t just another one of my obsessions, rather I have to walk a certain number of miles a week to maintain a good state of health. That’s how this whole deal got started, all those years ago, when a younger but already quite humble narrator first marched off – with palpitant heart – towards a fabled eidolon called Newtown Creek, camera in hand.

Weather permitting, I try to get out every other day for a walk of at least a couple/three miles, and then really burn out a lot of steps once a week with a 5-10 mile scuttle. Short ones, long ones. That’s the plan, anyway.

A recent short walk saw me marching around north of the city, up in the Glenshaw section, at ‘Fall Run Park,’ which I’ve described here before.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It’d been uncharacteristically dry in the region when these photos were taken, about 3 weeks without measurable rain had passed by, so the waterfall pictured above was a bit of a trickle this time around. This park is built into a valley’s slope, so the way in actually offers pretty decent ‘cardio.’ I try to walk at the same speed whether it’s up or down, pushing at the hill in the same steady stride I’d use on a flat surface. That really gets the ticker ticking, I tell’s ya.

It’s odd, having produced so many pretty photos of ugly things over the years, to be pointing the camera at something positively… nice. I keep looking for a leaking 50 gallon drum, or maggots on the corpse of some critter… but everywhere you look, it’s nice.

Weird, no horror.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This is one of those specialty shots which I’ve described in the past as being ‘focus stacked.’ There are multiple shots with different focal points and exposures which are stitched together in the image above. Everything is acceptable as far as sharpness, from the foreground to the background, which is the point of the exercise. There was a filter on the lens, a 10 stop Neutral Density. That allowed me to slow the exposure down as well, creating the mirror surface water but also retaining a bit of the surface texture of the flowing water.

Not the best thing, composition wise, but while I’m out exercising my body, I like to also use a scene like this to play around with what the continually evolving digital photography workflow can do. What… there was a lot of bending involved and I actually had to stand in the water… screw off.

Back next week, at this, your Newtown Pentacle.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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“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.

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The Rivers of Steel organization has been mentioned here before, in the context of a boat tour which they conducted on the Monongahela River which I had attended. Newtown Pentacle offered three posts about what was observed while onboard the boat – here are – part 1, part 2, part 3 of what I saw on that stormy day. Another one of the interesting programming offers found on the group’s website was a ‘photo safari.’ I bought a ticket for that one, and drove the Mobile Oppression Platform – as I call the Toyota – over to the community of Swissvale, PA., where the somewhat skeletal remains of the ‘Carrie Furnace’ steel mill still stands.

This facility was part of the U.S. Steel Homestead Steel Works, which was formerly occupied both sides of the Monongahela River in this area. The plant was built in 1881, and bought by Andrew Carnegie in 1883. Carnegie Steel soon operated what would become the largest steel mill in all the world here. Homestead was fed raw materials from hundreds if not thousands of miles away, coming to it from every direction, and carried by private railways and fleets of steamships. In 1901, Carnegie sold his company to JP Morgan’s U.S. Steel combine. By WW2, 15,000 people worked at the Homestead Works. In 1986, Homestead closed down.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Carrie Furnace was a blast furnace, which is something I wish I could offer you a long winded explanation of. Thing is, this topic is way outside of my personal or prior experiences. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years getting to understand how petroleum and coal are exploited industrially, back in NYC and specifically at Newtown Creek. I can give a speech on command about how gas is manufactured from coal or low grade oil, the commercially valuable by-products thereof, the pollutants and or toxins left behind by the process. I know precious little about metals manufacturing so no long winded explanation is on offer, just a long winded excuse. Google it, that’s what I’m doing.

Apparently, what’s still standing here on the 135 acre site of Carrie Furnace are the #6 and #7 furnaces, and several of the ‘out buildings.’ There’s also fragments of a rail transportation system hanging about.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Upon arriving at the site, and there were probably about 20-25 other people with DSLR’s and fancy camera bags, the Rivers of Steel peeps asked us to sign waivers, and we were then handed hard hats. A guide from the group walked us through the places we would be allowed to go. There’s several spots in the buildings which are not stable, which the guide pointed out to us. Yellow chains were hung here and there, or yellow caution tape, which indicated ‘no go’ zones. Our guide walked us through and around the site as an introduction, and then she said ‘see you in a few hours’ and disappeared.

All of the shots in today’s post were captured during that introduction interval. Handheld snap shots, basically.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A humble narrator has seen amazing things. A submarine’s nose being barged down the East River, while passing under Brooklyn Bridge. I’ve seen Cargo Ports and countless bridges, the Staten Island Ferry in dry dock, been onboard military ships, and even rode on a freight train, I’ve been inside/under/and all around the largest sewer plant in NYC and have also looked down into the drain that most of Manhattan’s toilet flush’s goes to. I’ve been inside the Manhattan Bridge, walked the Second Avenue Subway tunnel, and watched the Kosciuszcko Bridge be dissected and then blown up.

I seen some shit, but I ain’t never seen nothing like a steel plant, yo.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

We ended up in what seemed to be the main antechamber of Carrie, which was one level up from the ground. Everywhere you looked, there were flights of steel stairs and walkways. Pipes and conduits were absolutely flying all over the place. Rust was omnipresent.

The entire complex of relict machinery was functionally open to the environment. Freight rail was occasionally heard passing nearby, carrying raw material to the still functioning Edgar Thomson ‘Mon Valley Works’ steel mill which is probably about a mile/mile and a half away in Braddock. When you didn’t hear the rumble and clickity clack of passing rail, it was mainly birdsong and the chorus of insectivorous activity you’d associate with a riverfront meadow.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This was the last handheld shot for the day. After this, I set the camera up in tripod mode and got busy. I didn’t do the lens filters thing at all, as it wasn’t required.

The shot above was from more or less at the core of the place, and the machinery at the left side is part of one of the actual furnaces.

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.

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After spending an afternoon scuttling about on Pittsburgh’s South Side, one had to head back to HQ in nearby Dormont to meet up with Our Lady of the Pentacle and attend some sort of social event. Dread thereby filled my soul, as I worried about whom I might offend and which opinion that I host that might accidentally do that. Nothing like that happened, but it ain’t easy being me.

Pittsburgh has hundreds and hundreds of flights of municipal or public staircases, installed to allow easy passage between the shelf and terrace like streets adorning its steep hills.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

They look kind of daunting, but the stairs offer a ‘good cardio’ opportunity when you’re out for a walk. One negotiated the steps, mentally critiquing their design. Rise is the vertical distance between individual steps, run is the horizontal footboard space you step on. During the Victorian era, one of the ways you were most likely to die at home involved improper ‘rise and run’ installations which caused people to fall down the stairs and crack their heads and necks. This problem was assessed by the industrial age intellectuals of Great Britain, who invented the modern day architectural formula for calculating the proper ratio that you’re likely familiar with. Now you know.

The stairs carried me up to East Carson Street, which is sort of the ‘Via Majorica’ of this area – a primary arterial roadway leading from points east to points west and past intersections leading to bridges or tunnels.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One last look at that cool concrete factory from the slightly higher elevation offered by this path, and I was heading off towards the light rail and my trip home. Luckily, being a Sunday, there was little to no activity going on here, so I felt emboldened to walk into a few empty parking lots along the way and crack out a couple of final shots.

This sort of congestion of infrastructure is just so appealing to one such as myself. I’m all ‘effed up, but I love it so.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A neat POV presented itself along the way, where I was more or less level with the exit from the Panhandle bridge which the T light rail crosses the Monongahela River upon. The train set exits the bridge onto a truss which allows it eventual access to ground level at the nearby Station Square stop.

Having spotted this connect, at eye level, I began stalking it.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s the one which I felt like I could hand my hat on for the day.

There’s a couple of things I’d do a little different, and I will, the next time I shoot this particular composition. Saying that, happy with the image am I. This is another one I’m going to have to hit at dawn and then dusk.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Just before boarding the T for my ride back home, a CSX freight train appeared and I couldn’t resist.

Back next week with more from the Paris of Appalachia.

“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.

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s a public space along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh’s South Side which is called ‘Color Park.’ The legend for this place, which officially opened in 2017, attributes its creation to a local artist named Baron Batch. Formerly, this was an industrial wasteland. Color Park encourages graffiti artists to come and paint here, and add their work to an ad hoc public gallery.

The park area is really nice, with waterfront views, and it’s ok to paint on the ground or any of the concrete surfaces within.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This was my first visit, and I headed in the general direction of the Birmingham Bridge. A set of freight rail tracks defines one of the borders of the place, with the river providing another. The park was very well populated with lookie loos, bike riders, artists, and joggers.

One shambled forth, scuttling forward, always an outsider.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Across the river, on a prominence, those high rise buildings are a part of Duquesne University. The yellow bridge is called the South Tenth Street Bridge. My scuttling had resulted in carrying the desolate massing of my mortal frame to a spot which I had seen previously, so a change in direction was instituted and I headed out of the park and up to the local street grid surrounding it.

The neighborhood nearby Color Park, part of the South Side section, hosts a series of interesting late 19th and early 20th century homes and commercial buildings.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The ‘Color Park’ deal continues up on the streets, with several large warehouse buildings painted in primary colors. The prominence in the background is Mount Washington, and that spot where the TV broadcast antenna is visible is about a block away from one of the Inclines. It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of about a 1,000 feet change in elevation from where I was standing to that spot.

Scuttling, always scuttling, I moved forward.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Couldn’t help but crack out a few of the interplay between the primary color walls and the surroundings. One had reached his turnaround point, that moment in any walk where you decide that it’s time to start heading back towards the dwelling. In this case, I had taken the T light rail into town and left the car back at HQ, so I needed to get back to the T station so I could catch the ride which would carry my bloated carcass back to HQ.

More than once on this walk, a peculiar spasticity affected my face. The corners of my mouth cramped upwards, the eyeholes narrowed and brows arched, and the normal grimace reversed itself. A hideous imposture of what others might describe as a ‘smile’ wrote itself onto my visage. I’m glad of the fact that I was alone, and that no one saw me experiencing what might be considered an emotion. I caught a reflection of it in the silvered glass of a truck’s rear view mirror and was startled.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The walk wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot, but I gathered myself back together and reassured myself that this smiling thing was just a symptom of some as of yet undiscovered health condition. I mentally pictured burn victims and kids with cancer, which righted my mental ship back to darkness and dissolution. The spastic condition on my face disappeared and soon I was once again wearing the mask of the depressed and despondent, which is my normal state. A dark cloud on an otherwise sunny day, after all, am I. Just ask anyone, I’m the worst.

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.

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As described yesterday, one decided to take a Sunday afternoon long walk around Pittsburgh’s South Side section waterfront. As also described, my newness and naïveté about Pittsburgh’s environs demands that I offer a preemptive “mea culpa” if I get something wrong. My ignorance is epic at this point in time.

There’s a waterfront trail here along the Monongahela River which shadows the shoreline, and I think it’s one of the former railroad right of ways which has been converted over to a bike and pedestrian path.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

You can’t help but notice the Frank Bryan Concrete Factory when you’re in this area, with its sweeping conveyor belts flying about. The vehicle bridge in the background of many of these shots is called the Liberty Bridge, which serves a primary arterial purpose in terms of allowing vehicles access from Downtown Pittsburgh across the river and leads first to the Liberty Tunnel and then the South Hills section on the other side of the prominence of Mount Washington.

This is one of those spots you encounter in American cities where a whole lot of infrastructural elements come together.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Those concrete conveyors I mentioned earlier overfly the Pittsburgh Subdivision of CSX’s freight rail tracks, as well as the bike/ped trail. This offers pretty fantastic points of view for the wandering mendicant.

It also offers very nice POV’s if you’re into trains, but that’s a different post for a later date. In the meantime, neat triangular compositions abound.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The concrete factory seemed to be a wonderland of big machines and heavy equipment. This shot looks through a hole in their fence. I never trespass if I can help it, as I’m like a vampire who needs to be invited into a space to do my work.

It’s been a fantastic experience, incidentally, discovering things new and novel. My long residency along Newtown Creek back in NYC allows me certain insights into what I’m seeing and definitively guides where I’m pointing my toes, but it’s been fantastic to be surprised, awed, and mystified again.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Just beyond the Liberty Bridge is the Panhandle Bridge, a former heavy rail span which now carries the T light rail service over the river. I’m going to have to come back here at dawn and then dusk to see what those shots would look like.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was traveling light for this walk. I left most of my gear back at HQ and was rolling about with a minimal photo kit in my bag.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Essentially, I’m still deep in scouting mode these days. Figuring out where neat images can be gathered in the future. I’ve begun to grasp what times of day I’m likely to see a train on the ground level tracks (2:30 on a Sunday, as in the shot above, not so much) in some future walk. I was absolutely magnetized to this particular location, but forced my feet to start kicking about again and move on.

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.