Archive for the ‘Dormont’ Category
Down, with the T
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I drive through that intersection pictured above, in Pittsburgh’s Borough of Dormont, at least once a day. Every single time, I comment to myself that I should some shots of the light rail there. Instead of parking the car and doing so I always lazy out and head back to HQ about four blocks away instead. Some day, I say.
Get behind me Satan, this day would be that day.
The light rail tracks cross through here, but they leave behind a street running section of the line and proceed into a right of way that clearly pre-dates the real estate development around it. Apparently, the T made use of decommissioned trolley lines when its ’right of way’ was being laid out to take advantage of existing municipal real estate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A Pittsburgh bound T showed up, catching some nice afternoon light as it did. At my back was the station I normally use, and these tracks continue out several miles to the South Hills Village Mall terminal stop on one side, or continue on to a North Side of Pittsburgh terminal stop nearby one of the sportsball stadiums.
Your humble narrator had taken up station right alongside the intersection in the first shot, if you’re curious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A South Hills bound T arrived next, and I hurriedly crossed the street for a better angle. I mean, as ‘hurried’ as I can manage these days. One of the parts of my life that sucks right now is that I’m fairly slow moving at this stage of the medical drama, and will be spending the spring season getting my legs all muscled up. My normal walking speed used to be about 2-2.5 miles an hour, these days I’m lucky if I can do a mile in that interval.
Getting better every day, in every way. When I’m whole again…
Back next week 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.
Lots of hills, very few dales
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Challenging. That’s how I’d describe what it’s like handling the terrain of Pittsburgh with an ankle that’s recovering from a severe break. As I’ve found myself having to remind people in my daily life, the injury also involved a dislocation of the foot, which ‘popped’ a tendon or two and damaged a lot of the soft tissue in leg, ankle, and foot. It’s been a deal, coming back from this one, I tell’s ya…
Regardless of how I might feel, or the free flowing availability of pain, it’s incumbent upon your humble narrator to return to his normal ways and the only way I’m going to get there is by walking it off.
Pictured is the Avenue I live on, as a note, and it’s got a relatively shallow grade compared to the neighboring Avenues. The Borough of Dormont does not streets, it has avenues and ‘ways.’ 19th century politics, that. There were no ‘mean streets’ here, instead stately avenues.
‘Ways’ are basically alleys.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was meant to meet some friends for an event at a nearby brewery, and while waiting on them (I’m always pathologically early) the crazy terrain again caught my eye. That castellated structure in the distance is the PPG HQ building, roughly 5-6 miles away in Downtown Pittsburgh. This block, which I actually have been forced to walk up in the last month or so, is a real pain in the neck AND butt to navigate. You really gotta lean into it.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the worst hill in my neighborhood. Not too far away, in neighboring Beechview, is found the steepest street in the entire western hemisphere of the planet – Canton Avenue. It’s part of what a bicyclist group calls ‘The Dirty Dozen’ of Pittsburgh’s hills.
Globally, there’s a steeper street than Canton Avenue found in New Zealand – I’m told – and that the Kiwis hold the Guinness Record for the steepest grade on a public street in the world. It edges Canton Avenue out of the top spot by a half a degree.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the top of the hill, the tracks of the T Light Rail system are encountered.
Transit was one of the many factors which decided ‘Dormont for us’ when we relocated here at the end of 2022. My friends and I continued on to the event we were heading to, and made merry. I had a stop I wanted to make on the way back home, so I said my goodbyes and set off on a distinctly down hill course. More on that tomorrow.
Ostensibly, a descending grade should be easier walking, but given that the ankle is still getting used to being walked on again… Angling the foot and keeping it in that position to accommodate the grade actually kind of hurt. I found myself continually picking up speed on the down hills and having to slow myself down by grabbing onto a sign or utility pole.
Great, now I gotta get me some brakes.
What a drag. 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.
steep, man, steep
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator decided it was time to visit a few of the local establishments in my new neighborhood of Pennsylvania’s Dormont that serve adult beverages, and explore the “scene” as it were. Most of the commercial activity in my new zone is car based, but as you’d hope, there’s a few drinking parlors found in direct proximity of the T light rail station – pictured above – which is, coincidentally, about a 15 minute walk from HQ.
That’s the “Potomac” station for the Red Line T in Dormont. The street it runs on is called “Broadway Avenue.” Apparently, when they established Dormont, the idea that guided the naming of the roads here including the offering of “a town without streets,” so every street is an ‘Avenue’ instead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Broadway Avenue is more or less the high point hereabouts. I don’t know if it qualifies as a “ridge” or not, but all of the streets which cross it fall off in altitude and drop down into valleys. It’s not uncommon for the roads here to be set at a 15-20 degree angle. The steepest street in North America is nearby, in the Beechview section, dubbed Canton Avenue.
Having grown up in a subsection of a part of Brooklyn called “Flatlands,” that’s next door to “Flatbush,” this sort of terrain continually blows my mind. When you’re driving and you come to an intersection, you’ll notice gouges in the asphalt left behind by people who tried to conquer this terrain at too high a rate of speed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s two ways for me to get to and from the T, with one being quite a bit easier to surmount than the other. The most direct connection to the transit line would involve usage of the street above, dubbed “Lasalle Avenue.” Quite a few of the roads here use pavers rather than asphalt for the surfacing. When a vehicle is negotiating down Lasalle, you hear a grinding vibration from its tires and the pavers clanking against each other.
This particular evening was quite cold and icy, and there were a couple of spots where I was literally standing still and still slipping down the road due to gravity and the abrogation of friction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While absorbing a few pints of beer, I also absorbed some local knowledge and lore from a couple of the different bartenders who were pouring the libations. Some of it was horrific, an unsolved and truly macabre murder from the 1980’s which occurred near that T station pictured above, and the Bookshop Killer was also mentioned (said Bookshop Killer has apparently gotten got.) I also got advice on restaurants, other bars, and an admonition to visit some wilderness in somewhat nearby Western Maryland for white water rafting. Y’know I’d like to take pictures of white water rafting, but…
After making my way back to HQ, and with a few belts in me, I decided to try and figure out what color the street lights are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You can adjust the “color temperature” of your shot during the developing process in Photoshop, but as I’ve discovered over the years – it kind of matters what you had the camera set to when you’re capturing the photo. Particularly so in low light situations. It’s the “nitty gritty” side of digital photography, and it’s nuanced by knowing how digital images work when you “look under the hood.” The street lights in NYC create a luminance that’s best captured at about 3400 kelvin, which conquers the cool blue LED street lights. Pittsburgh still uses old school sodium maps, which produce an orange yellow light.
The camera will thereby attempt to build the image primarily on the red plate since that’s where most of the light’s coloration is found, which creates all sorts of problems as far as generating sensor noise. A bit of experimentation has revealed that my new “night setting” for captures in Pittsburgh should be 2800 Kelvin, which forces the pixel depth to build up on the green and blue plates, along with the red. This reduces the grainy noise issue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In daylight settings, I capture at 5200 Kelvin, if you’re curious. If it’s cloudy out, I’ll use 5800 Kelvin to make sure that the sky has something in it beyond just “blue gray.” I’ll adjust the actual color in Photoshop, which pushes the histogram into looking “normal.”
Digital images, of course are generally in RGB mode. If you’ve got Photoshop on your device, you can actually look at the three plates individually. It’s worth analyzing how the image is actually formed up, and why something you did in the field failed or succeeded during the developing process. Shoot for the edit, I always say.
Anyway, that was my big night out in Dormont, Pennsylvania. 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 