Under the on and off
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I know, I’m obsessed. To be fair, though, I’ve been showing you all pictures of highway and expressway ramps for better than a decade now. LIE, BQE, Grand Central etc., all back in NYC. I’ve got new ones to puzzle over now.
Once I walked past the interchange pictured above, on a more or less eastward path, the entire streetscape suddenly altered. As mentioned yesterday, these highway on and off ramps are serving many masters. Interstates, local roads, even the approaches leading to bridges and tunnels – all were set into long arcing shapes suspended above the ground. There had to be a spot where the overflying concrete and steel occluded the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself and supernal darkness could be found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a few blocks of ‘forever shadows,’ which are used as parking lots, but this might be a great place to grow mushrooms too. There’s private parking spaces associated with this business or that hotel, but it seemed that most of the space down here was of the ‘park all day’ type. Of course, the Steelers stadium was behind me and the Pirates stadium lay ahead, so yeah – you’d need a serious inventory of lot parking in a sports town like Pittsburgh.
Truth be told, I was kind of expecting to see homeless encampments down here, or at least some sort of messy condition reminiscent of what I saw under the BQE in North Brooklyn back at the start of 2022. Nope. Barely even any graffiti.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scuttling along towards my eventual crossing of the Allegheny River, which would bring me onto the so called ‘Golden Triangle,’ which forms the city of Pittsburgh’s corporate and political center. From there, my planned route would carry me to a crossing of the Monongahela River to the south. There’s a local street moving at ground level between the ramps, one which I’ve driven down a few times and can’t really recommend.
That’s another post, for another day, however. Back next week with more from Pittsburgh at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Parabola City
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Several interstates and other high speed roads cross through the center of Pittsburgh, which makes sense given its former occupation as one of America’s primary manufacturing centers. An astounding series of off and on ramps, as well as connections between the various highways, fly about overhead and allow egress to and from these high speed roads. Add in light rail, numerous freight line tracks, and a corduroy terrain composed of steep hills and valleys that have water running through them and you’ve got an absolute buffet of wonders on display for the infrastructure enthusiast.
As described yesterday, one rode the T light rail service to its terminal stop in Pittsburgh’s North Side section (nearby the Steelers and Pirates stadiums) and then proceeded first east and then south, back towards a T stop on the other side of the Monongahela River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If you needed to urinate, as I did, it wouldn’t take long before you encountered a Porta-Pottie stationed on the sidewalk as I did. After taking care of business, one scuttled forth. Continually, my eyes were drawn to the arcing shapes hanging above me.
My former neighbors from NYC have asked me questions – time and again – about the situation in Pittsburgh. The universal answer to the following questions are resoundingly ‘I don’t know.’
‘Who pays for the Porta-Potties? Who is paying to remove the graffiti? Why isn’t there any graffiti? Why aren’t there piles of garbage and trash blowing around in the street? Where’s all the illegal dumping? Don’t Homeless people use the Porta-Potties as shooting galleries and temporary shelters? Where are all the security cameras?’
I don’t know. Maybe it’s the populace not wanting to treat their home like an open air toilet? Maybe the Cops land on you like a palette of bricks if you step too far out of line here? Maybe New York has become a dystopian shithole ruled over by a performative political group of less than’s who once saw AOC on the cover of Time Magazine and said ‘why not me too?’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At any rate, and I could soliloquy endlessly on the subject of what’s wrong with NYC (for instance: save the MTA by auditing the MTA, not by giving them more cash without public oversight), but there you are. My path at this stage of the walk was still moving in a generally eastwards direction, along Pittsburgh’s North Side. All of these parabolas were jazzing me up.
Also, I really like not knowing the answer to everything.
Back tomorrow with more.
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North, Miss Teschmacher, north!
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My current walkie walkie schedule revolves around having a couple of days a week wherein I leave the car back at HQ and head ‘into town’ via the T Light Rail system. The T is an electrically driven street car which operates off of a catenary system. Usually, they run two car train sets, but occasionally – particularly during Steelers or Pirates games – you’ll see the service offer a three car setup. It’s an odd system inasmuch as you pay your zone based fare differently depending on where you’re going. In the downtown ‘zone,’ or if you’re a Senior Citizen, it’s actually a free ride. Otherwise, you pay when boarding if you’re going into the ‘City,’ or when debarking if you’re heading away from it. This sort of thing is something you’re just expected to know.
Pittsburgh has a lot of ‘vernacular’ built into its culture. People will say something like ‘I’ll see you at Smith’s at 8.’ The presumption is that you know what and where that something is, since such knowledge is second nature and familiar to all the Yinzers. It’s the same thing with transit. Of course you know and understand the system, so why erect signage or anything? I think this might be why the amazing culture, food, and circumstances here are practically unknown in the rest of the Northeast. It is such an interesting place to live, this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator rode the T to its terminal stop on the ‘North Side’ of Pittsburgh, which is found across the Allegheny River and at the doorsteps of the Steelers stadium. It used to the Heinz Stadium, but a company called Acrisure recently secured naming rights to the place. Most of the Pittsburghers I’ve spoken to use ‘Heinz’ still.
It was a beautiful day – sweatshirt weather, as I call it – and after riding the T to the North Side station one began to scuttle forth. The loose path I had laid out for myself was going to be a fairly long one, and I would end up walking most of the T’s path through the center of the City and crossing both the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers on foot.
It was actually quite a productive day, in the end. I had a nice time, too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve always had a fascination for the massing shapes of elevated trackways and vehicular ramps, and the way that they interact with the cubic massing shapes of surrounding buildings in urban environments. On the right is the back door of the Steelers stadium, and the curvilinear shape on the left is the trackway of the T. This is on the north side of Pittsburgh, in what used to be a separate municipality called Allegheny City which was annexed early in the 20th century.
Getting back to that ‘vernacular thing,’ the North Side is one of those terms which carries a lot of implied meaning for the folks who grew up here. I can’t describe to you what that meaning is, but when I told a neighbor that I spent a bit of time walking around the North Side, their eyes narrowed and I was admonished to be careful. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
For any of you who aren’t devotees of comic book movies, here’s the reference behind the title of today’s post.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Poale Zedeck Synagogue
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself have secured tickets for several tour events here in Pittsburgh. Several of these events are on offer from Doors Open Pittsburgh, a non profit outfit which is a regional analogue of organizations back in NYC like Open House NY. Our Lady and I are still finding our footing here, and there is so much to learn, so why not take part in a few historic tours, and experience the cultural resources of this amazing American City? Don’t worry, I’ll be bringing all of you along for the trip.
We thereby found ourselves visiting the Poale Zedeck Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill section on a Sunday morning. Representing the institution was a fellow named Abbie Mendehlson (not sure if that’s correct spelling, but there you are), and after a brief introduction in the ‘meeting room’ of the Synagogue we entered the main room. A ‘meeting room’ in Jewish tradition is a non consecrated space which is used for a variety of purposes. Kids practice their Bar Mitzvah dealie in the meeting room, the faithful gather to ‘davan,’ community groups discuss the issues of the day – that sort of thing. Also, you don’t have to heat or air condition the big chapel room when it’s only a few people so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cornerstone for this building says 1881. Now, that’s fairly recent if you’re talking NYC, Boston, or… Philadelphia…, but remember that in Pittsburgh you still had cowboys and native peoples riding in and out of the woods to sell fur pelts in 1881. Conversely, at the same interval as the cowboy thing, a 40 family group of recently emigrated Hungarian Jews were organizing this institution.
For you Goyem: there’s basically three branches of Judaism – Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed. This synagogue is part of the Orthodox interpretation. Full time yarmulkes, kosher house, strict observance of the ritual calendar described in the Torah and Talmud, all that. The “frums” that follow the Hasidim and Lubavitcher pathways are considered to be “Ultra Orthodox.” The Frums are here in Pittsburgh as well, I’d mention. There’s other variants of the faith, incidentally, most notably the Sephardic ones.
Me? My Dad would drive me over to an Italian Pork Store (a Salumeria) on Avenue N in Old Mill Basin on Saturday mornings to pick up ham and others deli meats for the week, and I accidentally said “Oh, Shit” in stead of ‘amen’ after screwing up the Haftorah at my Bar Mitzvah, so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The modern Synagogue was opened in 1929, and its a beauty. Our host answered questions from the crowd about a wide range of subjects. Special interest was paid to descriptions of the segregated by age and gender sections (a common practice for the Orthodox), and to the stained glass windows. A consequence of the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue massacre, which happened in another section of Squirrel Hill, saw emergency Police signal boxes installed throughout the building.
The last Synagogue I was in that used a similar floor plan to this one was on NYC’s Lower East Side, on Eldridge Street. There’s basically two altars – one where the Cantor and others do their thing, and another which directly involves the Torah and the ark.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A massive chandelier caught my attention, and it was set into a dome. I could deep dive into a lot of the iconography here, but am resisting the urge. Suffice to say, if you notice a repeating design motif in an orthodox synagogue, count how many iterations of that repeat occur. That number will have some sort of ritual meaning for initiates. 18’s, 144’s, that sort of thing. I’ve learned to pay attention to and notice this sort of thing over the years.
One of the things I noticed, and asked our host about, was the presence of a design motif on the wall behind the altar depicting grape vines and fruit (with 16 grapes in each twist of three vines) to which he laughed in reply and said it’s just a design.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the other hand, a good friend of mine – referred to here in the past only as the “Hermetic Hungarian” – is descended from an Orthodox Hungarian line so I called him up the next day. The first thing he says when I described the motif is “Oh yeah, Hungarian Jews were large and in charge in the Austro Hungarian Wine business. My family used to own several Vineyards there before the wars.” I then hung up the phone without saying thank you. The Hermetic Hungarian does not tolerate pleasantries. Smelt and Spelt eaters like him have zero patience for the western habits of small talk, preferring seriousness and intellectual pursuits instead.
At any rate, the motif is probably something wine related. Saying that, numbers, numbers, numbers. Symbolism.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We were allowed to visit the ladies section upstairs, which allowed for a wider view of the Poale Zedeck setup. Mr. Mendehlson had another tour group to move through the space, and after a short interval Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself were back out on the street.
We drove around the Squirrel Hill neighborhood a bit afterwards. Squirrel Hill is a nicely kept neighborhood which I’d describe as being ‘upper middle class’ but ‘not rich.’ It reminded me a great deal of the section of Brooklyn that follows Ocean Parkway through the middle of the alphabet avenues – I, J, K, L etc. to Kings Highway.
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.
Rivers of Steel Boat Tour, part 3
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the community of Hays, found along the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh, they’ve got a pack of Bald Eagles nesting in some sort of conservation area. I only had a 300mm lens with me, so a bunch of cropping had to be applied to the above POV. I was onboard a ‘Rivers of Steel’ narrated boat tour of the Monongahela, as described in the two posts preceding this one.
It was somewhat cold out, and the atmosphere was positively churning with moisture and low flying clouds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ‘turn around point’ on the boat trip would be the actual Carrie Furnace site, a national historic landmark, which is where the Rivers of Steel outfit is based out of. The still active Mon Valley Works of US Steel is found one town over from the defunct Carrie site, and the corollary industrial ‘stuff’ – rail yards, truck depots, etc. – can be observed as you travel along the river.
I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed that we didn’t travel that extra half mile to observe the still active mill from the water. Next time I guess, but truth be told I’m quite desirous of obtaining that POV.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Carrie Furnace. I’ve obtained a ticket for a ‘photo safari’ event they’re holding next month and look forward to exploring the place a bit. It’s meant to be an early evening thing, if I recall correctly, so if it’s not raining it should be a pretty cool shoot for me.
It is overcast or raining at least half of the time here in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the boat turned and began navigating back towards dock, the weather turned misty instead of ‘straight raining.’ This sort of atmosphere is called a ‘precipitating mist’ incidentally, meaning that at any second the low flying cloud can burst and release its moisture.
You need to pay some attention to keeping your lens clean, but this sort of foggy/misty thing always makes for nice photos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had purchased several tour and event tickets at the end of the winter. The Rivers of Steel people offer a lot of interesting programming, and there’s also an outfit called Doors Open Pittsburgh which is not unlike the Open House NY operation which I used to produce walking and boat tours with back in NYC. You’ll see the fruit of one of their efforts tomorrow.
You want to get educated about a place? You can read all the books you want (and you should), but there’s nothing like actually going to places with a local guide who knows the where’s and when’s and ‘don’t do that’s.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The boat we were riding on docks nearby Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center, and the Mobile Oppression Platform was sitting in a nearby parking lot waiting for our return. $6 for all day parking, if you’re curious.
Back tomorrow with something completely 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 