Archive for the ‘Pittsburgh’ Category
Catching, and backing, up
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shots from the archives populate today’s post.
I’m a bit behind schedule at the moment, with literally hundreds of new shots on my computer’s hard drive awaiting processing. Rather than rush the photos out, and since all of my deadlines here are basically self imposed, this post is instead carrying a few shots of trains captured as they were moving around Pittsburgh. Taking a breath, me.
Your humble narrator has been busy preparing for some light travel, which will involve returning to NYC for a few days in early June. Tugboats, Newtown Creek, and whatever happens directly in front of me are what I’m planning on shooting in between visiting friends and family.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m traveling as light as I can, and will be flying in this time. Last time I came to town, I drove in from PA and having the car with me was like dragging a cross around. It kept me from doing a few things as I couldn’t park the damn thing just about anywhere I wanted to be. At the bottom of my camera bag will be a few t-shirts, skivvies, and socks. A toothbrush and basic toiletry kit will also be needed, but beyond that it’s all camera gear in there. This will be a mission.
A statement of priority that is. I’m planning on returning to Pittsburgh with hundreds if not thousands of photos. Can’t wait to see what’s changed for better or worse ‘back in the old neighborhood’ in the last three years. I actually have no plans to visit Astoria.
Also – as a note – if I was still in Astoria/LIC they never would have gotten away with demolishing the fountain in front of the court house. I would have forced the electeds into action and marshaled a protest or ten. I’m disappointed, but not surprised, at the apathy for the history of the place in the modern population and elected officials of LIC. Y’all should really pay attention to this sort of stuff, in between arguing about bike lanes and subjecting each other to political purity tests.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ll be back next week with another series of posts describing the random places which draw my interest, of course.
In the meantime, I’m pruning my camera bag down to its maximum efficiency, and planning the NYC trip in granular detail. When I return to PA from NYC, I’m feeling a certain curiosity about nearby West Virginia for some reason, and intend to visit Weirton – which is somehow only a 40 minute drive from where I dwell. You can park there, I’m told.
I’ve also got a few day trips I want to do as summer arrives – a return to PA’s Oil City, and to Maryland’s Cumberland, also – there’s an ex coal mine which does tours nearby Pittsburgh… lots and lots of stuff. I’ve watched a few videos about the PA Trolley Museum, and thereby it’s drifted fairly low on my list. I’ll get there, but the whole thing seems remarkably unexciting.
Back next week.
“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.
Homesteading
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Easter Sunday found me lurking in the confines of Homestead, PA.
That’s a meditative labyrinth in the shot above, and I hung around this spot for about twenty minutes until some group of hippies who were walking it had moved on. I had zero hope for a train moving over that bridge, although it’s something I look for whenever I’m in this area.
Circumstance had carried me here, but I wasn’t really ‘feeling it’ as far as walking and shooting goes. There’s great opportunities nearby, but not so much on Easter Sunday. Trains in particular were completely absent, which is saying something amazing for anyone who is familiar with the normal frequency of locomotive traffic in Homestead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The campus of the former steel mill here has been converted into a sprawling shopping and entertainment complex called ‘The Waterfront,’ which seems to be pretty successful. The actual town of Homestead is up in the hills overlooking the Waterfront. It’s kind of different banana up there, observationally, but I’ve only chatted with a few people that live in this area. One friend hated it, and complained constantly about the train noise. As soon as his lease was up, he moved away seeking quiet.
The longer I live in Pittsburgh, the more that I perceive ‘corridors.’ When people move around in the region, they’ll stick to these corridors. Sometimes the corridor is formed by a high speed or volume road, such as a highway or an interstate, but it could also be a high volume local road that forms the corridor. I began exploring this concept back in Queens, when I would call Northern Blvd. ‘The Carridor’ or talk about Roosevelt Avenue as being the ‘7 train corridor’ and so on.
Homestead seems to be part of a ‘corridor’ which includes nearby Munhall and Duquesne, West Mifflin, Rankin, Swissvale, Braddock, Clairton, which are all connected physically by a series of ‘back roads’ running through the hills, and socially by churches and the diasporic families which attend their services. These back roads were carved out of the landscape by the steel industry, apparently, and residential development just followed the roads.
Fascinating.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I decided to get all fancy for this one, given that without the razzle dazzle of a train moving over the bridge it was otherwise a fairly plain image… so the tripod was set up, and a filter applied to the lens and… well there you are.
Back tomorrow 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.
Remains of that day
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a four mile walk, your humble narrator was waving around a wide angle lens, for a last few shots before heading back home to Dormont. I did stop off at the nearby brewery I like, the one alongside the CSX train tracks, and had a recovery lager before summoning a ride back to HQ. The ankle was pissed off.
Pictured above is part of Colors Park, where graffiti and street artists are invited to add their flourished to the place. Great spot this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another CSX train shot past me, and I’m sorry to say that running over to and climbing on top of a series of concrete jersey barriers to get the shot isn’t in the cards at the moment.
When crossing streets or just moving around the world right now, I have to constantly say ‘Mitch, you can’t run right now’ to myself. You know things are serious when my inner voice addresses me by name.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The end of this scuttle, and the last shot from this particular excursion. At the right is the City’s jail. The Liberty and Panhandle Bridges are in the center, and Downtown Pittsburgh is in the background. That’s the Monongahela River, of course.
Back tomorrow 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.
Wide angle scuttling
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After scuttling down quite a steep hill, and traipsing across an urban flood plain, your humble narrator finally arrived at the waterfront trail adjoining the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh. This was the final leg of a constitutional walk, and right around here is where my legs transmogrified from meat into being composed entirely of lead weights.
I will work harder. Push, push, push.
For some quirky reason, I decided this would be a great spot to change lenses, and loaded a 16mm wide angle prime lens onto the camera gizmo.
Gotta have some fun every now and then, ay?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A CSX train appeared on the other side of some verge, but because I had just added the wide angle thingamabob to the equation, there was no zooming in on it or anything. Saying that, I think that’s kind of an interesting shot above, but I don’t know why.
Along I limped. It was getting quite warm out, and as mentioned above: this was the section of the walk where I ran ‘out of gas.’ Fatigue doesn’t exactly sneak up on me in this post broken ankle interval, but when it does arrive, swinging your leg out for the next step becomes a bit of an act of will. My intention for the day was to exercise, and that tends to bring a some soreness into the equation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The South Tenth street bridge, lurking along the trail, used to be the center of a rather large homeless colony, just last summer. It’s an election year, however, and Pittsburgh’s Mayor (who reminds me a LOT of the Dope from Park Slope, Bill de Blasio) is being primaried. Don’t know enough about Pittsburgh politics to even try and understand or comment on the situation, but it’s interesting to watch how things play out.
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.
Slopes to flats
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described last week, your humble narrator was engaged in walking a downward sloping section of the milieu here in Pittsburgh, in pursuance of exercising several otherwise hard to hit muscle groups in my atrophied legs.
Said atrophy had been caused by the ‘recovery from the broken ankle situation,’ which I do realize that it seems I never stop mentioning.
Sorry about constantly bringing it up, but it’s been a pretty impactful experience for me and it’s become one of the ‘book end’ events with which I’ll be using to differentiate the various sections of my timeline. Book ends are what I call life changing events – graduate school, first job, marriage, death of your parents, etc. The ankle and it’s aftermath also has become a delimiter to my movements, and thereby omnipresent.
I soon found myself limping down South 18th street, a pathway which I’ve shown y’all before. This scuttle began in the South Side Slopes area, and it was all downhill on the walk until I reached the South Side Flats section which occupies the flood plain of the Monongahela River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When you get to the Flats area, the first thing you notice is the strict homogeneity of much of the housing stock. I always refer to this kind of row houses as ‘Philadelphia Style,’ with narrow sidewalk pavement and little to no space between buildings. Directly across the street from these houses is a busy railroad trestle which carries Norfolk Southern traffic, and it provides a neat division between ‘slopes’ and ‘flats’ here on the south shore of the Monongahela.
Yeah, I did hang around the tracks for a while, but at the time of day I was passing through – nada – as far as trains. As is usually the case, as soon as you get far enough away from the tracks to make it impossible to photograph the scene, you hear a train coming through. Sigh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I showed y’all a view from the opposite side of this newly cleared parcel of land a few weeks ago, a point of view some three city blocks away. This time around though, the camera was already wearing a lens that could fit through a chain link fence, I’d offer.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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 