Archive for the ‘Pittsburgh’ Category
Atavist candy and the Allegheny River
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On Pittsburgh’s north side, nearby the stadium where the Steelers live and play, a former factory building can be observed. The 1928 vintage structure has obviously been renovated in modernity, with its snazzy windows and sharply pointed brick walls.
It’s called the D.L Clark Building and this structure used to be a candy factory. Over at historicpittsburgh.org, they’ve got old timey shots of the place from ‘back in the day.’
Recent scuttling brought this building onto my radar, and I’m glad of that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s peculiar, to me, that a shroud of relative obscurity greets the curious narrator, as to the specifics of this building and its renovation, which real estate representatives describe as ‘a landmark.’
This shroud, I think, is the shadow result of the sort of SEO marketing efforts that real estate people engage in. Page of search results after page of search results were unified in congratulating me on my interest in renting commercial space in the building. The listings describe cavernous and desirable spaces within. Apparently, one of Pittsburgh’s news outlets is also based herein. The SEO marketing crowds out actual search results.
As far as what Google, in modernity, has become – I think Huey Lewis said it best. Shame that, Google was a great tool once.
Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The excellent historicpittsburgh.org site offers this ‘D. L. Clark Company Papers and Photographs’ page, which discusses the Clark Company and its long history in some detail.
Manufacturers of the iconic Clark Bar, the D. L. Clark Company was. Said ‘Clark Bar’ was a sweet treat that was commonly found floating around in the ruck sacks of American Soldiers during the two world wars.
I was always a Milky Way or Three Musketeers guy, with a strong secondary preference for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Also, Lemonheads, mmmm. Of course, I was a kid in the 1970’s and early 80’s.
Forward, ever forward, and it was time to push on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator is absolutely captivated by the ramps leading to and from the Fort Duquesne Bridge in this section of Pittsburgh. It’s not a great pedestrian space, I should mention, until you’re squarely in the shadows of these things. The entire area hereabouts is all about the needs of the automobile, despite there being a light rail station and lots of bus service nearby. This is roughly the mid point between the two big stadiums – Acrisure/Steelers and PNC Park/Pirates.
There’s a lot of new construction in this zone, and a strip of high volume bar/restaurants, of the sort which the TV show ‘Bar Rescue’ extols as being ‘profit machines’ which enjoy surge business on game days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One reached the shoreline of the Allegheny River, and crossed the waterbody on the Sixth Street/Roberto Clemente bridge. One was hoping for some maritime activity, but that wasn’t happening (yet).
I was as happy as possible, for one such as myself. The filthy black raincoat was flapping about in the wind, and the light was good.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s when this set of stairs leading off of the bridge and down to one of the riverfront trails manifested itself. I’ve walked down these stairs dozens of times, it should be mentioned, but for some reason… the PTSD regarding the bum ankle manifested.
Couldn’t stop myself from ‘death gripping’ the bannister. Managed to force myself down them to the trail below, but it wasn’t pretty and I was literally clinging to the bannisters on that first turn down there. It’s getting better, but is obviously still present, this sensation.
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.
Merchant Street Bridge
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Allow me to start this post by saying that the locally grown automobile and truck drivers of Pittsburgh just suck at operating their vehicles.
They don’t seem to know what the brake pedal does, drive as if they have their heads wrapped up in gauze, and the Yinzers seem to believe that there’s only one direction their car can go – forward and at top speed. They seem to refuse to fully turn the steering wheel when required. The concept of ‘vehicular following distance’ is foreign. Collision is common.
Road rage is at epidemic levels out here. I ascribe to NYC’s version of driving, which states that taking risks and driving aggressively should be somehow connected to a victory state. If you are doing something not so sane behind the wheel, there has to be a payoff for the effort and risk. Not so with the Yinzers. About thirty people a year die in Pittsburgh because they accidentally drive off of cliffs.
After being thwarted by a lack of rail traffic at a nearby set of Norfolk Southern tracks, your humble narrator decided that he’d been standing still too long and got back to the business of the day, which was scuttling and exercising while waving the camera about.
I soon was shambling towards the Merchant Street Bridge, the filthy black raincoat flapping in the breeze.
A convenient bit of historical signage was noticed along the way, which relates the long story and circumstance of the span, which ended up being focused on for today’s missive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a pretty minor rail bridge, this, but what caught my eye was the enormous steel barrier vouchsafing it from vehicular collision.
Remember, Pittsburgh drivers just blow.
At least a third of them are texting while driving at any given time, many while on the highways and moving at speed. The interiors of their cars are decorated like a teenager’s bedroom. They arrange toys on their dashboards. This isn’t just in cars, either, it’s the heavy trucks too.
One time, I drove past a guy who was eating a Hoagie sandwich with his left arm while holding a beverage container with his right, concurrently he was watching a TV show on his phone – which was balanced on the car’s steering wheel. He was operating the steering wheel with his right elbow. On a bridge, and while heading into a tunnel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, I had to focus in on the gouges and scrapes which that height barrier – painted bright and reflective yellow gold – was sporting. There’s an 11 foot height restriction for the bridge, which is indicated on both sides by similarly reflective highway signs.
Signs would work, were drivers paying attention while driving. They’re not, as you can see.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the other side of the Merchant Street Bridge, looking back at my path. Notice that busted signage…
Just last week, I saw some dude in a pickup enter a highway at 70 mph and then accelerate into heavy highway traffic, shooting out from an on-ramp. He perpetrated a diagonal merge through fairly dense traffic – at speed – to the passing lane on the left, and then executed a 90 mph diagonal path back across the three lanes to get to the next exit. He tried to negotiate a 30 mph off ramp curve at about 70. Dude ended up in the grass but didn’t roll over. Came pretty close, to my eye.
I think this bloke is a likely candidate to join that elite group of thirty who drive off cliffs to their death every year. What’s the point of the risk? It’s one exit. What did you achieve?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even the height restriction sign isn’t safe. Jeez Louise.
I’ve been lucky enough to interact with people who are experts in many of the public facing specialities – sewer, transit, maritime, all that, over the years.
One of them designed and engineered highways and their ramps for New York State. The knowledge imparted to me from this person involved the actual science of high speed roads, as in why the roadway is slanted and where, or the different kinds of pavement you’d want to deploy depending on intended use and speed restrictions. I learned that the posted speed limit is usually set well below but within reach of the upper 15-20 mph operational speed capacity of the roadway itself.
If you’re doing 70 on a 55 mph highway, it’s risky from a physics POV as you’re operating in the upper percentile of the roadway’s design use. You can probably get away with 5-10 over the limit, and not risk rolling your vehicle or shooting over a cliff… but… why take that chance at all?
Slow down, jagoff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Merchant Street Bridge has an off shoot trestle, which is a former rail connection to a factory building, one which has incontrovertibly survived decades of urban renewal projects that have played out in this part of Pittsburgh which have demolished nearly everything else in sight. We’ll explore that tale a bit tomorrow.
Back tomorrow, with some candy.
“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.
Historic districting
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As intoned yesterday, your humble narrator was scuttling about on Pittsburgh’s North Side, aka the former Allegheny City.
My crossing was through a historic district, dubbed ‘Allegheny West,’ on the way to see if a vantage point over a set of Northern Southern rail tracks might reveal something worth taking a photo of (sadly not).
Along the way, the Victorian era building above caught my eye, as so did a bit of signage adorning it. Signage photo can be accessed here, but suffice to say that this was the former home of the famous, and then quite infamous, Thaw family.
You’ve seen the movie Ragtime – I’ll presume – so, this was the childhood home of Harry K. Thaw – murderer of architect Stanford White and husband of ‘it girl’ Evelyn Nesbit. Thaw’s defense lawyers introduced the extenuating circumstance of ‘Temporary Insanity’ into American jurisprudence during his trial. For those not in the know, the Thaw trial was analogous to the OJ Simpson trial, except that it played out in headlines during the first decade of the 20th century. Celebrity involved in a murder trial, popular and press interest in the affair, scandalous behavior amongst the millionaire class – all that. Made for a great story.
Neat. This is also what is meant when I say ‘serendipity.’ Just stumbled past it, randomly. Pittsburgh was actually showing me something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A former public school seems to have been repurposed as a training facility for the gendarmerie here, but truth be told the thing that drew my eye to it was the (probably former) greenhouse on the property.
Everybody I talk to in Pittsburgh tells me to ‘watch my back’ around this section of the city, to which I usually respond ‘I’m from Brooklyn.’ They then say ‘oh, ok then.’
My biggest fear here, during daylight hours, is that one of these property openers might accidentally drop a wallet out of a second floor window, thereby crushing me to death under a voluminous billfold.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The hospital featured on the HBO series ‘The Pitt’ is nearby, as is the National Aviary and multiple target/private schools. The building stock is heterogenous, and a lot of it was built for ‘show.’ Like a lot of ‘inner city’ neighborhoods, I’m told this one experienced a bunch of trouble during the late 20th century. That must be where it acquired the reputation.
To the north are a series of steep hills lined by narrow streets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve got a few things that I look for when I’m walking around, as far as gauging whether or not a neighborhood ‘sucks.’ Is there furniture discarded on the frontage, along with untamed garbage? Are there multiple cars and bicycles just sitting there rotting away and rusting? Do the windows have curtains in them or is it cardboard, and are those window glass panes cracked and repaired with packing tape? Are there a lot of abandoned buildings?
All are ‘tells.’
Are there large groups of teenagers milling about? Brrr. That’s where the hazards emerge. No impulse control, teenagers. How about packs of stray dogs? Gotta watch out for that too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Clearly, my rubric for ‘threat level midnight’ is not even close to being met by this particular set of streets. If anything, I felt like an intruder. To be fair, I always feel like that, even amongst members of my own family,
Imagine: Nice sunny day, and you observe some monstrous wind driven conflagration approaching in a filthy black raincoat (aka the street cassock) that comes marching past, casting a pall while it is taking photos of garbage cans and sewer grates.
Yeah, the coat and gloves have been deployed. It’s getting cold here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
With a bit of fortressing, sealing off those ground floor windows with plywood for instance, that building above could probably humble a horde of zombies. The fourth floor terrace would make for an excellent spot to snipe at the mass of rotters or just hurl brickbats at them.
Ever notice that in zombie cinema you don’t see the humans using anything but guns and bladed weapons against the oncoming mass? Construction equipment, especially those little bobcats with the snow scoop on them, would turn the tide, I think. The way to handle ‘red collar’ mobs of flesh eaters might be with blue collar equipment.
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.
Low energy adventuring
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit, after leaving HQ, a quick shot from the front yard to figure out a median exposure setting for the camera, and gauge average lighting conditions as a staring point for the day’s subsequence. This shot is looking up the fairly steep hill that I often mention. Shlep, shlep, scuttle, scuttle.
The plan for this walk was fairly wide open, and involved using the T light rail to deposit your humble narrator in an interesting area. I was hoping for serendipity, Y’see.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
HQ is located in Pittsburgh’s Borough of Dormont, and the neighbors really embrace Halloween around these parts. One of them set up a ‘Yinzer Cemetery’ in their front yard. It actually made the TV news.
The T Light Rail station is about a half mile, at most, from my front door. It’s just a bit of effort to drag my butt up the hills and get over there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another Dormont porch display of Halloween paraphernalia was encountered along the path. We get actual trick or treaters in Dormont, which is cool as heck, and the way things are supposed to be.
One leaned into it, and boarded a T light rail unit heading into the city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This time around, the service was used all the way to its terminal stop on Pittsburgh’s north side, nearby the stadium wherein the Steelers dwell. Your humble narrator vomited forth from the light rail car and onto the platform, a swirling contradiction of black sackcloth and camera gear. The filthy black raincoat, or as I call it – the street cassock – was covering my accursed back. I started moving, which began as a shamble but then sped up into a scuttle.
I was relistening to an old favorite amongst my HP Lovecraft audiobook collection on this walk – ‘The Shadow Out of Time.’ There were a few places on this scuttle where I popped the headphones out of my ear holes, wanting to remain ‘situationally aware.’
In other words, while moving through places where it makes a lot of sense to pay close attention to your surroundings, you should.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A web of high speed roadways, on-ramps and off-ramps and such, are found in this area. There’s also the elevated trackway of the T up there in the vault. There’s a rail shot which I was ‘hep’ on trying to capture this day, but that ended up being a fruitless pursuit.
North, ever northwards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On game days, tens of thousands of people – all adorned in black and gold – can be observed using these sidewalk paths to get to the football stadium. The cops deploy dozens of officers to handle traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian. It’s really something to see.
Of course, wherever your humble narrator goes, it’s all just loneliness, rejection, and isolation. Crowds of children throw rotten fruit and vegetables, their parents light torches and form mobs. The cats hiss.
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.
Always heading nowhere
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Aimlessly wandering down Pittsburgh’s East Carson street with Our Lady of the Pentacle, in the south side flats area of Pittsburgh, where the ghostly outline of a former structure was spotted on the wall of an 1888 vintage merchant’s building. It made me want to deep dive a bit into the history thereof, but I stopped myself.
Sometime in the future, I’ll use my magnifying glass to study the historic building stock found along this corridor, its story, and learn about all the ‘once, long ago, used to be…’ but that’s not today.
The rest of the walk was uneventful, and then we headed back to HQ, where Moe the Dog awaited.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Separately, we were wandering around Pittsburgh’s Dormont during the evening of a different day, Dormont being where Newtown Pentacle HQ is currently found, and the T light rail suddenly exploded into view.
I cannot stop myself, so… HEY NOW!
Our Lady and myself were going out for dinner at a local burger joint, one which offers a fantastic happy hour menu if you sit at their bar. I had a bourbon/apple cider cocktail that ‘rocked the bells,’ alongside a double smash burger. Yum.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot, depicting the Sterling Street steps, which I returned to with Our Lady in tow (she’s caught the bug for exploring the steps), was shot in a manner that attempts to visually describe the PTSD symptoms I’ve been experiencing when traversing stairs, since breaking my ankle on a set of steps at home last year. It kind of looks like this to me, that moment when the blossom of terror opens.
Enough of all that personal terror and weakness, though, it was a beautiful day and that was the focal point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One truly odd holdover from that experience is that due to all of the opioid pain killers that the Docs were feeding me after the surgery, my memory of this exact period (approx. September to November) from last year is extremely fragmented, or nonexistent. I’m missing about 5-6 weeks of time.
Constant agony, yes. That I remember.
I promise I’ll eventually stop talking about this. Don’t worry, something else that’s horrible or profound will happen to me and then that’ll be my new ‘thing’ to worry about. Sigh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our final set of stairs for the day were attained, and we returned to more or less flat ground at the bottom of the hill. The rest of our walk would be mundane, visiting shops and eating lunch, along the commercial corridor of East Carson Street in the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh, which brings you back to the first photo and the end of the the last steps story.
It was nice having company for a scuttle, must say. I used to sell tickets in NYC to groups of people who wanted to walk around with me. Narrators need to narrate, occasionally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Eventually, we found ourselves at the shoreline of the Monongahela River, nearby the Birmingham Bridge. It was time to head back to HQ again, and Moe the Dog. He’s sort of our constant, Moe.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“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 