Tooty toot toot
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After all of the uphill and downhill efforts described in prior posts, your humble narrator next found himself wandering through the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh during a medium length scuttle.
This was the easy part of the walk, as it is quite obviously ‘flat’ in this area, and I took the opportunity to take long strides in obeisance to my ankle problems.
The orthopedic surgeon has ‘released me into the wild’ after my last set of X-Rays and the concurrent consultation. Saying that, a year later, the joint still aches and moans regularly. The Doc said it could be up to two years for a full recovery, but I thought they were joking and offering a worst case scenario. Sheiste!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If a wall is inserted in front of me, I will throw myself bodily at it until either it shatters or I do. I’m an idiot like that. The ‘will to power,’ it outweighs all discomfort and turns obstacles into sand.
Saying that, the ankle was ‘singing’ at this stage of the day, and I required a ‘sit down.’ I’d been walking solidly, with a brief break while riding the T light rail, for a few hours at this point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A point was made, while transiting through this increasingly familiar area, to scuttle along streets that I don’t normally route through.
The South Side Flats remind me a great deal of the East Village during the 1980’s, and Williamsburg during the early 2000’s. Gentrifying, but still edgy. I’ve had a few encounters with ‘creatures of the street’ in this area, but I can out talk anybody and I’ve had far more dangerous encounters with random strangers coveting a camera in NYC than anything Pittsburgh has thrown at me – so far.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I turned down ‘Cabot Way.’ In Pittsburgh, if a street is called a ‘way’ then it’s an alley. Dark alley? Yeah, count me in.
One was leaning into the last mile, as it were. Needed to use ‘the loo,’ and also I was extremely thirsty and somewhat hungry. I made the best possible decision then, and decided to have a glass of beer for lunch.
My toes were pointed in the direction of that brewery by the train tracks which I often visit, the one with the trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The remaining plan for the day, thereby, involved one last session of shooting trains while drinking lunch, followed by a walk over the Monongahela River via the Smithfield Street Bridge would occur, and then I’d shlep over to a T station for a ride back to Dormont. Fun.
All of that crossing the river and catching a train business is pretty minor, exercise wise, about a half hour of more or less of walking relatively flat ground. This is also the part of the walk where I was ‘striding’ and trying to move as fast as is possible these days.
I still cannot run. A quick scuttle is all I can maintain. This means that I have to wait for the walk/don’t walk signs at intersections, which is weird.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh is so damn visually interesting. The accommodation and adaptations of the terrain for the demands of everyday life… it’s neat!
Back tomorrow.
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Cage match, baby
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After ascending a set of City Steps back in Dormont and neighboring Beechview (as described last week), your humble narrator boarded a T light rail bound for Pittsburgh’s Allentown, whereupon one set out on foot heading down the very steep Arlington Avenue. My horrible path diverged at Hartford Street, where the ‘German Square’ City Steps soon suffered my odious presence while I scuttled down their course.
I like loneliness. The humans are always disappointing, fractious, and weak in body and mind. I avoid checking notifications on my phone these days, as it’s always something horrible. Better to be alone, and commune with a favorite audiobook. I was listening to Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The City Steps open up to vistas at street intersections. The particular one above is at ‘Fritz Street,’ and then another set of steps continue downwards, after a quick walk from one corner to the next. This area is called the ‘South Side Slopes’ and by the standards of this surrounding neighborhood, Fritz Street is like a superhighway with its travel lanes and parking.
It must be so challenging to live here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These steps come close to flat land at a set of Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, where a series of pedestrian bridges span and provide for egress over the trackage.
I had a feeling that I was about to see a train (seeing the signal lights change was kind of a giveaway) and I changed the camera lens over to something that could shoot through the chain link fence – my trusty 85mm f2 prime lens.
The little scanner radio I carry around with me was activated, and overheard radio chatter suggested that I was correct in my assessment that the signal lamps changing would lead to something interesting happening on the tracks below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now!
This Norfolk Southern train set was moving ‘away from Ohio,’ although it’s likely that it’s more likely moving from the Conway Yard in PA.
Unlike CSX, which I show y’all all the time, Norfolk Southern isn’t forced into routing trains through a single street grade choke point. They’ve got options, and just off the top of my head there’s at least three other ways for them to travel through, just in the central area of Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Norfolk Southern’s #4235 locomotive was apparently built in 1997, and originally called NS #9038. In August of 2019, the GE AC44C6M unit was rebuilt and renamed as #4235. At least, that’s what the internet tells me.
Again, not a railfan, I just like taking pictures of trains. If I get something wrong, in an extremely topical search, please let me know. I always take corrections and then embed them into the posts retroactively. Only way to really learn stuff is to be wrong about something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s nothing quite as ugly a sensation as getting blasted with a train’s exhaust when you’re literally standing 10-15 feet over the exhaust ports. Volcanic heat suddenly blossoms, the air is stained with diesel exhaust, it’s a real joy, that. Hey now?
Locomotive NS #4821 was providing ‘DP’ service to the main engine, adding motive power to a long chain of cargo boxes and containers.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
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Jingle janglity jingle
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Allentown PA., it’s not the one in the Billy Joel song, although it might as well be. Kind of the same story, up here in Pittsburgh, though.
Here’s the wikipedia page describing the area. It’s can be a bit dicey, Allentown. 99% of the time, you’re going to be just fine, but that 1% chance involves meeting the wrong people at the right time. Outside of my experience, so far, but police statistics are statistical. I’d kind of analogize this area to Flatbush Avenue at Church for you New Yorkers, given that all things in the world are merely reflections and shimmers of the infinity of NYC’s Brooklyn.
Roger Zelazny’s ‘Chronicles of Amber’ comes to mind, regarding the way that I think about Brooklyn – as the world’s one ‘true place.’ Anywhere you are that’s not Brooklyn, just like the fictional Amber, is ‘walking through Shadow.’ A reflection, distorted but still a reflection.
Due to construction, the T has been moving through Allentown all summer, and the agency which operates the service has created a temporary stop more or less at the apogee of the hill. That’s about to change as the construction project winds down, and I’ve been taking advantage of the temporary stop all summer and fall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One started on the downhill section of my day, after debarking the T light rail. A quick adjustment of camera bag ensued, and all the straps and other crap I carry, and then I was scuttling along again – all peaceful and calm like.
This is Arlington Avenue pictured, which curls down the face of Mount Washington and around the base of ‘Billy Buck Hill,’ on its way down to the flatlands of the Monongahela River’s flood plain. On its way to the bottom, Arlington passes by the entrance to the Mount Washington Transit Tunnel, Liberty Bridge and Tunnel, and the PJ McArdle roadway, providing commanding views of the Monongahela River valley which helps to define the Steel City.
It’s a challenging drive, I’d mention.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The rail tracks are set onto curves up here, and they just tear into your tires. If you’re on a bike, the biggest problem you’re going to have is controlling speed, due to the grade of the pavement. Since the early summer, T light rail traffic has been rerouted through this corridor.
Downhill courses like this have been essential in regaining my strength and mobility over the last six months. It’s fairly easy to find places that blast the big muscles in the back and sides of the thighs as well as your butt, but it’s more difficult to hit the fronts of the thigh and calf.
My not so secret weapon in pursuance of rebuilding flexibility and endurance, as well as stretching out all the rubber bands in my still recovering ankle, this has been. I told my surgeon about this effort, and he seemed impressed by its ingenuity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everybody asks. Yes, it still hurts. Can I sit around and cry about it? Done enough of that last year to last a lifetime. I have a half pound of titanium in my ankle now, braces and screws. Huge scars from the surgery which are quite ugly to behold are on both sides of the limb, as well. The only way forward is to walk away from it.
Hey Now, there’s a Pittsburgh bound light rail train set.
Here’s the operator flashing me a thumbs up in an extremely cropped shot. I wasn’t sure it was a thumbs up until I zoomed in, btw.
At last – somebody who apparently doesn’t mind a random stranger taking a picture of them while they’re at work. Finally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another T, moving away from Pittsburgh, was thereafter recorded. Yes, vehicle traffic and the T move through the same space here. When the tunnel retrofit is finished, these tracks will only be used during emergencies, but are maintained. Going back to the Brooklyn analogy – man, oh man, would the MTA have ‘effed this entire operation up…
My next set of moves involved more of the ‘City Steps,’ but this time around I was heading downwards, towards the South Side Flats area.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
City Steps, in Pittsburgh, have the legal status of sidewalks. The ‘public way’ as it were. I’ve walked this pathway before, but haven’t done so since the ankle incident and the installation of the PTSD software into my brain box regarding stairs.
If something scares you, go over to it and give it a kiss. Fear then dissipates.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
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Rise, run, rise, ride
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One had been positively cooped up for several days while handling the ultramundane – obligation, duty, ‘have to’s.’ Finally, a day I could call my own arrived and it was decided to ‘really hit it.’
By the time this particular scuttle ended, my legs and particularly the knees would be sore for days.
Just a couple of blocks from HQ, a street called ‘Louisiana Avenue’ terminates at a pedestrian bridge that leads to a set of City Steps. On this path, you quietly pass through a municipal border – from the Borough of Dormont to the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Beechview.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beechview’s terrain is severe. Canton Avenue, the steepest street in North America and possibly the world, is found within its confines. These steps, which don’t have a name (apparently) allow pedestrian egress from the low point of Louisiana Avenue all the way up to Neeld Avenue in Beechview, which is a few footfalls away from Broadway Avenue, which is the street that the T light rail runs on. Street level tracks, they are, and this is one of the sections of the service where the T runs as a streetcar/trolley.
I had to climb up those City Steps first.
Must have been about 2-300 feet of them. It’s actually a good thing, to get your heart racing at the start of a walk. My practice has always been to start off at a bit of sprint and warm up the internally lubricated parts before setting off on a full scale ‘wander.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Good cardio, this.
It’s also obeying my self imposed form of exposure therapy to stairs, shaking the PTSD cobwebs out of the brain which have haunted me since the busted ankle incident last year. The psychological after effects of that experience have been with me on every walk since, and every single time that I walk up or down the stairs at home where my accident occurred.
If you’re curious, I was listening to a favorite audiobook: an unabridged reading of Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle.’
The linked file isn’t the version I was listening to, as a note, but it’s at YouTube so that’s more accessible than something you’d have to sign up for to listen to it. The America which the Jungle describes wasn’t so ‘great’ back then – according to actual history – and it’s an era which so many people opine as having been a better time than our current day. Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After reaching the end of the first set of steps, a hazardous road crossing leads to yet another set of steps, and these ones are solidly in the Beechview section. The plan for the day was loose. My intention involved using the T to get me to a certain midway point, but not to go all the way into town. From there, I’d improvise and follow my nose.
There’s been a construction project underway at the transit tunnel which the T normally routes through. The people who run the service have been routing the light rails instead up and over the landform which that tunnel is bored through, and the route has added an extra and temporary stop at the apex of the prominence, in the Allentown section.
That’s a great spring board, for one such as myself.
The T uses the tracks and wires of a no longer in service light rail line for this task. It adds about ten minutes onto the commute for riders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back on regular pavement, but I still had hills to climb. After letting my heart rate drift back from rapid to elevated, I leaned into it. The plan was to walk over to one of the T stops and ride it up to Allentown and then… and then… and then…
That’s a little bridge which the T uses to surmount the valleys and hills. Really, the engineering challenges underlying this service are wild.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After arriving at the stop which I had climbed both stairs and hills to get to, my chariot arrived. I could have walked to a different station via a far less rigorous route, but the point of exercise is ‘exercise,’ not comfort or ease.
The light rail people are nearing the end of their constructive labors on the transit tunnel, and it’s likely been reopened by the time you’re reading this. I wanted to take advantage of the temporary stop at the top in Allentown.
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Now more than ever, for always
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator recently found himself driving past the Wheeling & Lake Erie rail yard in Greentree, which neighbors Pittsburgh’s Dormont – where Newtown Pentacle HQ is found. They weren’t doing anything terribly exciting down there, mainly maneuvering the rolling stock around from one track to the other. I was just passing by, and then I parked the automobile, cracked out a few shots and then got back to my daily round.
The shots in today’s post are were captured mid October, incidentally. I’m still maintaining my advance ‘lead time’ here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Usually, some variation of this scene is the first shot I take when going out for a walk. It’s my front yard, and the corner at the bottom of the steep hill which I sometimes mention. Not a terribly exciting composition, admittedly, but the reason I pop out this shot is to figure out the ‘median’ exposure triangle which I’ll likely be using for the rest of the day’s effort.
It’s like a gray card for the photographic environment, this practice. lets me know that the ‘sun is dark today’ or that ‘there’s too much light.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady and myself attended another festival/town event here in Dormont, and the titular ‘main street’ of the Borough was closed to traffic while a music festival was underway.
Hundreds, I tell you, hundreds of people were there. There were vendors ‘tabling,’ which included the PA Constable’s Office doing recruiting, and the officer therein was a really nice guy who answered several of my rather specific questions about their patrol and responsibilities. I’m not looking to become a constable, but now I know what their enforcement duties are and what they do. Neat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The clarion call of lonely places was singing in my ears. Empty alleys where… but this was a ‘social’ day, however. Hanging out with and getting to know the neighbors. Music was playing from three stages, and a couple of the local breweries were set up nearby selling beers.
It was a warm day in Pittsburgh, middle 70’s and bright sunlight. Shirt sleeve weather, basically.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I find this sort of thing somewhat emotionally draining. To start – afternoon alcohol drinks put me to sleep early these days, and there’s lots of potential hazards to pay attention to as the human still about. Increasingly, my ‘all too human’ need to be ‘amongst people’ is squashed by my ‘I hate everyone’ instincts. I’m really, really, struggling to try and ‘remain positive.’ Staying ‘chipper’ is a bit of a challenge.
I don’t belong in this sort of scene… happy people being nice, while the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself is bouncing around above… this sort of thing is more my speed.
Human… all too human… me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the festival, our neighbors and Our Lady decided on one last beverage, which we obtained at the local dive bar. While staring out the window of this joint (which I’m not really a fan of), a passing ‘T’ Light Rail unit caught my attentions. I’d be riding one of these the next morning, when my next scuttle would occur.
Back tomorrow with something different, thereby – 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 