Archive for the ‘Pennsylvania’ Category
thereafter amidst
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The day before we were scheduled to head back to NYC from Pittsburgh, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had decided to leave the car parked at the AirBNB we were staying in and we headed out on foot for a bit of a celebratory bar crawl on one of the “main streets” in Dormont, where we had just signed a lease. I’m pretty serious about not operating a vehicle while impaired by alcohol, at least at this stage of my life.
We visited a drinking establishment that specialized in mead and cider, where I enjoyed the hell out of a sour cherry juice infused glass of mead. I felt like a Viking.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our revelry continued into the evening hours, and since it was a full moon I couldn’t resist cracking out a few shots. We headed back to the AirBNB and packed our stuff up for the trip back to “Home Sweet Hell.”
As mentioned in the past, the drive between Pittsburgh and NYC encompasses roughly 400 miles. The highways post speed limits that are largely 70 mph, but in practice traffic is moving quite a bit faster than that. It’s an all day drive, when you factor in bathroom breaks and meals. You don’t find yourself in any sort of traffic nightmare until you’re about 40-50 miles from the Hudson River in New Jersey as it’s mostly a rural route. This is one of those drives where the highway exits are spaced out 30-50 miles from each other.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At one of the “rest” stops we took, I spotted this construction vehicle and instantly regretted the choice I made in buying a Toyota instead of a TerraMac. Look at that thing! Gah. Zombie deterrent of the highest order, Bro.
At any rate, we arrived back in NYC safe and sound, and began to really tear into the remaining work and packing up we needed to do to escape New York. I ended up throwing out about half of the material goods I’ve accumulated over the decades spent here in NYC, judging everything against a rubric of “do I really want to pay a mover to drive this thing 400 miles west.” A lot of personal archaeological finds occurred during this process. I found the letter that my high school girlfriend sent me to announce our break up, several yarmulkes which came into my possession at family weddings and Bar Mitzvah‘s, and all the other minutiae of life which I had been holding onto for decades.
November would end up being a very busy month, in terms of “have to’s.” Multiple runs to the scrap yard to dispose of electronics and metallic items we weren’t going to take with us, then there was a bunch of paper which went to a different scrap yard, all that sort of stuff. The camera was with me for all of this, but seldom did I hit the shutter.
So much to do…
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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.
steep mysterious
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
November 3rd and 4th found Our Lady of the Pentacle and a humble narrator wandering about in the South Hills section of Pittsburgh, and viewing a series of available rentals. There were a couple of real gems – buildings with great bones – as they say – which would seriously benefit from an investment in the modernization of the house’s physical plant but which didn’t fit our aims. We saw places with old fixtures, creaky stairs, and windows which seemed like they were about to fall away from the walls. We also saw a few “modern” places which also weren’t quite what we were looking for, neighborhood wise.
Luckily, Our Lady had expertly used the Zillow service to find the ideal landing pad for us in Pittsburgh, and we then secured the new address with a lease. This particular post is actually being written in that space, in the finished basement which is going to be my new office space. We now live in the Borough of Dormont, in the City of Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying all that, I actually need to come back to NYC next weekend to manage the movers and tie down a few loose ends. Truly am I looking forward to driving the 400 miles back and forth, a humble narrator sarcastically offers. As of next week’s Wednesday, I’m no longer going to be a New Yorker. Well… I’ll always be an “I’M WALKIN HERE” New Yorker, but there you go.
We signed the lease for the new digs and then all of a sudden our calendars were clear. It was decided to go exploring a bit so we hopped into the car and set about that purpose.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Carnegie is another one of the many communities that are part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan setup. I had noticed an interesting series of Church towers while driving past the community on a highway, which I wanted to take a closer look at, and we headed over there for a bit of an “explore.”
Funnily enough, that building in the shot above houses the Carnegie Historical Society, and that white car in front of it is my own. We randomly parked in front of the place, and when I got out of the car, the showrunner of the Carnegie Historical Society was standing in the doorway, and broadly smiling at me like he had been expecting us to show up.
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.
clustered towers
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
November 2nd found Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself waking up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. As mentioned in Friday’s post, it was a particularly foggy morning, but we had a mission. This trip to the Paris of the Midwest involved finding a rental property for us to land in, and we had a combination of professional realtor and Zillow appointments to oblige. You gotta eat, though, and on our way to a local diner for a heavy breakfast the car was parked in a multi story lot building which sits alongside the streetcar or “T” Red Line.
I know, it’s crazy. The Government types don’t want you to take your car into the city center to alleviate congestion, so they’ve set up for pay parking nearby mass transit lines rather than shaming you for not riding a bike into the City. Lots of people ride bikes here, and use them to commute (there’s bike and scooter share systems), but they’re not the answer to cancer or the cure for baldness like the bicycle people will tell you they are back in NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T is a smallish transit system, at least as compared to the Subways of NYC. It’s not 24 hour, but it offers fairly frequent service. Pittsburgh, historically, used to have an enormous web of street car or “trolley” systems prior to the age of the automobile, and the Eisenhower era’s Interstate Highway projects. You still see iron trolley poles all over the place, and I’ve read about streetcar lines that went all the way out to the exurbs like Butler – which is about fifty miles to the north of the City Center.
I should mention that I’m just starting to learn about this place which we’ve chosen to make our new home. Ignorance of this new place has been a fascinating experience for one such as myself, who can walk around Brooklyn and Queens and tell you where a building contractor sourced the bricks from for this structure or that one. It’s going to be a lot of fun to learn about Pittsburgh, I tell’s ya.
For instance – driving etiquette is different here. Look up the “Pittsburgh Left” as an example.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After we quaffed breakfast, we had a half hour or so to kill before our first appointment, and since there was an incredible Roman Catholic Church with a huge graveyard nearby, I drove us into the cemetery to take a quick lookie look.
Everything I’m up to at this stage of the process is basically scouting, but there’s LOTS of photographic opportunity here. After previous visits to the area, we had narrowed our search down to the South Hills area – a series of medium density suburbs found in the 5-10 miles from City Center zone. We felt an affinity for the neighborhoods found in the South Hills Borough of Dormont, in particular, so that’s where our focus point was placed.
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.
crystal stream
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On Halloween, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself went to the local saloon here in Astoria for a spooky drink, and then headed back to HQ for the now daily ritual of packing boxes for our impending escape from New York.
It was raining, and one set out to capture the local milieu from up on the porch. That’s the bodega across the street from me here in Astoria, which I’ve shown you countless images of over the last decade. I couldn’t put much time into this sort of pursuit this time around, as on November 1st I’d be climbing in behind the wheel of the new car and driving it to Pittsburgh. We had a week’s worth of real estate listings to see, and the goal was to sign a lease in Pittsburgh before we came back to NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 1st of November was a travel day. With piss breaks and a meal or two factored in, the 370 miles or so to Pittsburgh from Queens is about a 7-8 hour long day of driving. 90% of that interval are highway hours, on fairly good roads with 70 MPH speed limits. From Astoria in Queens, it’s Triborough to the GW Bridge, and crossing the heavy road volumes of the Hudson River coastline of New Jersey will cost you a minimum of an hour’s worth of stop and go traffic. Once you’re about a third of the way into New Jersey heading west, it’s pretty clear sailing. The only thing that makes the drive concerning are the numbers of semi trucks encountered and the reckless abandon of about 50% of your fellow drivers who think 70 MPH isn’t fast enough.
Long story short, we drove to Pittsburgh. We stayed in an AirBNB, which we arrived at after picking up some groceries at a convenience store, drank a bunch of the wine we bought at the aforementioned shop, and woke up very early the next morning – November 2nd – to a heavy blanket of 1/4 mile visibility fog which had suffused into Pittsburgh and it’s suburbs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While drinking my morning coffee, I couldn’t help but record the scene from the AirBNB’s back yard deck. This was in an area which I’m told is called “the South Hills,” which is basically the sloping side of the highest point of elevation in the city’s center – Mount Washington.
We had a full day’s worth of realtor meetings, Zillow appointments, and all sorts of far flung destinations to visit. We literally had to drive to Moon, and Mars, and I had the desire to visit Carnegie sometime during the week’s time we’d be here.
More to come next week, from the misty mysteries of Pittsburgh.
“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.
stark objective
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a pretty long drive, Pittsburgh to NYC. Give or take, it’s about 370 miles, which is an all day sort of affair. On the way to Pittsburgh, my pal Max and I used the northern route, which was picturesque and scenic. On the way back, we used the southern route along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which was tedious and somewhat difficult driving. The tedious part comes in because of road work, which narrows the high speed road to two rather meager lanes, which is where the difficult part comes in. At one point, we encountered a 40 miles long stretch of concrete jersey barriers on either side of us, and the block of traffic we were moving with included dozens of semi tractor trailer trucks which were moving at 70-100 mph. No fun.
Max and I split the driving up, and whenever he was behind the wheel, I had the camera in hand and set up for high speed captures. The shots in today’s post are “snapshots” randomly captured along the route, rather than composed photos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a few spots along the Pennsylvania Turnpike where they just dug out a tunnel going through the base of a mountain rather than routing the road over it. I doubt there’s ever been anyone more qualified to do this sort of thing than mid 20th century Pennsylvanians, given their history in the mining industry. About a mile in advance of these tunnels, you start seeing signs telling drivers to remove their sunglasses and turn on their headlights. That’s how long these tunnels are.
Saying that, it’s really something when you exit one and “boom” – there’s a valley with heavily wooded slopes leading into farmland. Beautiful sights.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, we didn’t see too much of this sort of thing. The fellow who committed one of his fields to free advertising for a NYC Real Estate huckster’s political ambition – pictured above – seemed to have a property bisected by the highway. On the other side of the road was a decrepit semi trailer which had a hand painted “Trump” logo which was accompanied by the screed “God. Guns. No Socialism.”
This of course, pissed me off. There is no business sector in these United States more dependent on “socialism” than farming. There’s tax benefits, direct handouts of money and supplies, oversight, price controls… Honestly…
Whatever, opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one and I’m not interested in seeing or hearing about anyone else’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the day wore on, we passed through Pennsylvania’s Capitol Harrisburg and the very rural central section of the state that’s referred to as “Pennsyltucky.” I had one of my biannual McDonald’s double cheeseburgers in this section, and killed a couple of dozen Spotted Lanternflies while we were gassing up the car. Apparently, Harrisburg is the national “ground zero” for this invasive species’ infestation.
Soon, we were hurtling along at 70 mph again, heading towards the Atlantic coast of America, and the archipelago Megalopolis which squats rudely along its edge against the ocean.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was actually surprised at how many horses I saw. I mean, I wasn’t expecting not to see livestock, but usually it’s cows or pigs or maybe sheep. Horses.
My pal Max handled the drive from Harrisburg to New Jersey’s Allentown. From there, I took over the wheel and dealt with the maddening set of pinch point barriers that multiply and fester as you get closer and closer to NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The one above is the last shot from this excursion. Somewhere in the blue mountains, which are, as you can see – actually kind of blue.
Something different tomorrow, 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 