Da Fowntan a Ute’s
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Checks me out yo, I’m’s like a reg’lar Ponce De Leon wit dis… Bruh!
So, I received the good news that the Fountain of Youth is actually found right here in Pittsburgh, rather than in Florida where the legends embraced by the Imperial Spaniards indicated it as being. Seriously, how could I not wake up at 5:30 in the morning and drive there, after having just heard about it’s existence?
After piloting the Mobile Oppression platform onto the appropriate land mass just north of Pittsburgh proper, and parking the car in an informally designated area along the side of a road, I walked down a muddy slope and then across a smelly stream, and then up a muddier slope. There were many, many angry bugs forming buzzing clouds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The past is always predicate, so… Pittsburgh has nine municipal parks which together occupy a land mass of some 12,000 acres. North Park accounts for some 3,075 acres of that total, and it’s the largest of the nine. North Park dates back to 1927 when the County Commissioners of Allegheny County, in an effort led by a fellow named E.V. Babcock, voted to create a North and a South Park. They hired an landscape architect named Paul B. Riis to design North Park. The place opened to the public in 1931. ‘New Deal’ Works Projects Administration workers completed several additions to the place throughout the 1930’s, including the ‘Fountain of Youth’ spring house pictured in today’s post.
Click the following link for a cogent governmental description of the park’s history, here for a people’s history of North Park at the fantastic uncoveringpa.com, and for a fantastic historical write up by a high school student(!) check out “The Uproar.”
It wasn’t quite daytime yet when I arrived, and the scene was shadowed by the tree canopy anyway. One deployed the tripod and got busy… ruins to shoot, ruins.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I added the usage of my little but super bright Nitecore flashlight into the recipe for these shots for some fill light, but what you’re looking at above is a mere portal. Within the pictured facade is an interior room, once whose wall sports a metal framed aperture built into it. Beyond this rectangular framing is the famous, and often mentioned, fountain of youth itself.
Gingerly, one approached the edifice, in the awestruck manner of Moses moving toward the bush that burnt. Here I am, said I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Within… well, first I should mention that when I stepped inside the chamber and turned on the flashlight, the walls were positively crawling with enormous insects. I’m talking “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” sized creepy crawly bugs. Big black eyes, and large enough that you could hear their feet scratching along the wet rock while they retreated to their hidey holes… and finally… one gazed with palpitant enthusiasm at the aperture leading to the fountain itself.
Apparently, Allegheny County advises against sampling the waters of the Fountain of Youth as they are somewhat contaminated with sewage, and chemical fertilizers which leach into the ground water from a nearby golf course.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s it, right there, the fountain/spring. Kind of underwhelming, I must say, but as mentioned above – it’s a ruin. Regardless, I can tell you that my gray hair had suddenly returned to the luscious dark brown coloration of my youth, and that my tonsils seemed to have autonomously regrown themselves. That process reversed itself on the drive home, and I’ve since returned to looking like a shocking caricature of that younger fellow. It must have been the fountain’s vapors which triggered the temporary condition, no doubt due to the miasmic fumes one would expect in such a place. Feeling satisfied with what I had gathered, I headed back to the car.
Luckily, a humble narrator had done no small amount of planning before leaving HQ, and another interesting site in North Park awaited.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In accordance with the title and first line of this post, I will resume the attempt to phonetically translate my native Brooklyn Brogue into written English for the sum up to my tale:
Sose, I’s drove overs ta ‘effin Nord Pahk in Piddsboig causin I hoid that dey gots one a dem Fowntan a Ute’s type tings ovah dere. I seens a buncha bugs and shit, and somebody coulda – y’know – easily fell on his ass and cracked his melon opens cause dere’s no sets a stairs or sidewahk or nuttin, and youse gots to walk in the effin doit and a crosses a friggin streams which gets your kicks all effin wets.
Back’s tommorahs wit more of this kinda bull – at guess what – your effin Newtown Pentacle, like an icehole.
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From West End Overlook
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has mentioned, and offered views from, Pittsburgh’s West End Overlook Park in the past. This spot is about a 15 minute long and quite easily executed drive from HQ in the nearby Borough of Dormont, and the overlook provides commanding views of the city center. You’re actually executing about a half mile of change in altitude while driving through three and change miles horizontally – it’s a thousand feet down to the level of the river from Dormont, and then around a thousand feet up through the neighborhoods of West End and Elliot. Proximity means I find myself heading up there periodically to wave the camera about.
This time around, it was that interval of the day during which the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself disappears behind Ohio.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the juncture, right in front of the fountain at Point State Park, of the three rivers – where the Monongahela and Allegheny combine to form the Ohio River. I’m told Lewis and Clark left for their famous adventure on the Jeffersonian mission to examine the western territories gained via the Louisiana Purchase from somewhere nearby. I’m also led to believe that the stand of tall buildings on the right hand side of the ‘point’ used to be a rather busy rail yard.
Moe the Dog was along for this excursion, and so was Our Lady of the Pentacle, whom he was hauling about at her end of his leash. This spot is absolutely infested with Spotted Lantern Flies, I would mention, and as Moe considers the pests to be flying popcorn… let’s just say Moe did his part to combat the infestation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’ve probably discerned, I was playing about with various methods of capturing the scenery. I shot a few panoramas as well, such as this one. A humble narrator really likes this spot for several reasons.
There’s ample parking, and a Port A Potty is found in the parking lot at the entrance to the place. There’s lot of strollers, pot smokers, and dog walkers who frequent the spot and on more than one occasion, I’ve seen and chatted with other members of the tripod and lens crowd as well as Drone pilots, and even a broadcast television videographer up here. It reminds me of the scene long enjoyed along the East River along Long Island City’s piers during Manhattanhenge.
If I’m coming here though, it’s always at the bookends of the day – very early or nearly late. I haven’t done the ‘dead of night’ here. Yet.
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Whiskey Boys Trail
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I find myself having to head over to Home Depot about once a month for some needed gizmo or material or tool or ‘something random.’ The drive to the nearest outpost of the retail giant takes me from the Pittsburgh suburb of Dormont through another town, dubbed Scott Township, on my way to a third community called Bridgeville (which counterintuitively doesn’t have all that much going on in the way of bridges). About midway through the 20 minute drive from Dormont, where HQ is located, I’ve been noticing signage indicating the presence of the “Whiskey Boys Trail” and “Kane Woods.”
Normally this sort of thing ain’t exactly my bag, but Moe the Dog prospers in natural areas. I still can’t let him off the leash, as he’s a puppy and thereby a total idiot, but part of his training and development requires trees and dirt. I don’t like taking him places that I haven’t checked out first, so… Hence.
A good dog is a tired dog, that’s the mantra.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are basically three or four paths set into a fairly steep hill here. Every now and then, you’ll find a visual break in the ‘sylvania’ thing and see a road, or as in the case of the shot above, a bunch of utility poles. An hour’s drive from Pittsburgh will land you in actual, real woods, the kind people go hunting in and which are known for Sasquatch sightings. This ain’t that, but after shlepping around this trail for about an hour or so I realized that the little bastard would love this spot.
I’ve since returned with Moe, who proceeded to pull me up a hill at running puppy speeds. He ate about 25 pounds of spotted lantern flies, composted a few cubits worth of sticks and branches with his snapping puppy jaws, and was generally exhausted after we returned back home. He slept for an hour, puked lantern fly parts, and was a bit calmer than normal for about 24 hours. Then he bit me in the crotch again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moe has the advantage on this sort of substrate, I would mention, with his quadruped stance and pointy toes. I was wearing a pair of Merrel hiking boots with nearly bald soles, and he more or less was able to drag my fat butt anywhere he wanted to. If I had a sled with me, we could have delivered presents to orphans.
Back next week.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
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Chillin like a villain
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a medium length walk, one needed to wait out the oncoming sunset, so I visited that bar I’ve been hanging out in that offers somewhat unparalleled railroad views. I ordered a pint, and sat down about 7 pm, with sunset meant to occur just before 8 pm. It didn’t take long.
That’s CSX #3356, a General Electric ET44AC model locomotive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In case you’re curious, this is the scene from a more personal perspective and occupation. This bar is called “Sly Fox Brewery,” and it seems to be connected to a real estate project called ‘The Highline.’ Said development sits across the tracks from the HQ of the local bicycle people, and a public park called ‘The Color Park.’ Visiting the latter is how I stumbled upon the former.
Pretty decent cup of beer, I’d mention. That’s a Pilsner. I like a cold yellow beer during warm weather, but switch over to stouts like Guinness when it’s cooler. Despite the abundance of postings from this establishment in recent weeks, I don’t actually drink all that much, rather I’m a ‘nurser’ and that pint glass lasted me around 40 minutes. At any rate, I like sitting outside and I especially like the fact that a nearby series of grade crossings for the rail tracks means that alarm bells go off in advance of the trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Trains are damnably difficult to photograph. First off – they’re huge. Secondly, they are moving much faster than the human eye would suggest they are. Even with the signal alarm bells going off, it’s a panic to get your settings right and compose a shot as the train comes rocketing through.
I’m actually pretty happy with the sun dogs and strobing in the shot above, as a note. I was using a counterintuitive formula for these – f11 at 1/2000th of a second at ISO 6400. That combination gave me a broad hyperfocal range, froze the action, and also produced a nice pixel density in the RAW file for me to work with during the developing stage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I paid my tab as the sun was going down and proceeded to the so called Highline, which is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about 60 feet or so over the spot pictured in the second shot. It’s the overpass you see in the third one directly above.
One unfurled the tripod and set the camera up for ‘low and slow’ shooting at ISO 100 and a narrow aperture of f18. The shutter speed for the shot above was 15 seconds, which preserved some of the texture of the waters of the Monongahela River and the clouds. That’s a concrete outfit at the left, and the busy Liberty Bridge is in silhouette.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As it got darker, the settings changed. The camera’s aperture got wider and the exposure times longer. One of the tricks to low light photography is being conscious of the color temperature of the scene. Digital capture happens on three plates – RGB, or Red, Green Blue. If you’ve got your camera set up with a capture temperature that leans red, it means very little representation on the blue plate and you get a noisy image. Yes, you can change the temperature in Adobe camera RAW, but I’ve learned that the capture temperature really matters.
Pittsburgh still uses old school sodium bulb street lamps, so you need to compensate for the saturated yellows and oranges which that sort of scenario creates and casts. Lately, I set my custom temperature to about 2750 Kelvin, whereas back in NYC with its modern LED street light luminaires I’d use 3800 K.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While heading back out towards the street, which I’d walk a few blocks of to get to the T light rail station, where I’d in turn acquire a ride back home, I waved the camera around a bit while it was still attached to the tripod.
Why not drive? I’m an absolutist when it comes to drinking and driving, and the whole point of the day was to get some exercise anyway. Not a drop passes the lips when I’m expected to be behind the wheel. Automobiling in Pittsburgh is difficult enough without being impaired. Additionally, it kind of ties my hands in terms of wandering and discovering, since I have to worry about the car.
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DUFPBO
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I haven’t made this joke in nearly a year: Down Under the Fort Pitt Bridge Onramp, that’s where I was, and absolutely nobody in Pittsburgh calls it DUFPBO except me. Back in New York and along Newtown Creek, a humble narrator would often christen otherwise nondescript areas with nomens like ‘DUPBO’ for Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp, ‘DUKBO’ for the area around the Kosciuszcko Bridge, and there was also DUMABO (Metropolitan Avenue), DUGSBO (Grand Street), DULIE (Long Island Expressway), and ‘DUGABO’ (Greenpoint Avenue Bridge). After announcing the terminology on tours, I’d follow it up with “you have to,stay ahead of the Real Estate people with this sort of thing.” Yeah, I’m an idiot, but I have a good time.
As far as DUMABO goes, yeah – like Peter Stuyvesant – you could call it ‘Arnheim,’ but other than a few history nerds like me, nobody would have any idea what you were referring to. Arnheim is a deep cut in North Brooklyn history, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve had a few Pittsburgh people ask me what the fascination with trains is about, lately. Short answer is that non passenger rail was such a scarce commodity back in my old stomping grounds, the frequency and variety of rail moving through Pittsburgh just grabs at my attentions.
CSX #5417, a General Electric ES44DC locomotive, is a positive infant by CSX standards having been built in January of 2007. It was doing Coke train duty. The coke was likely coming from one of U.S. Steel’s mills further up the river, and the train was heading westwards in the direction of Ohio.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This ‘zone’ used to be all rail yards, I’m told, belonging to the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie RR outfit. Me? I was heading more or less eastwards. As mentioned yesterday, I was traveling light with a fairly minimal kit in my camera bag, but I had a tripod with me and sunset in mind.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 