Ritmo
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator always attempts to follow a certain rhythm to his life, a staccato beat that was interrupted by the ankle injury last year.
Despite my servicing of the ultramundanities of daily existence, the rythyms of the walking schedule are increasing in frequency somehow. For much of the last six months, I’ve been hampered by physical constraints and limitations, but that’s mostly behind me. The ankle still hurts, pretty much all the time, but pain (like fear) is the mind killer. Best to just tough it out and get on with things.
Launching myself up the steep hill I dwell at the bottom of and towards the T light rail has become a bit of a ritual for me. Heart rate gets noticeably quicker by the time I reach the next corner, after climbing up that steep elevation, and after a ‘catch my breath’ moment, it’s a quick and easy push up to get to the Patomac Station on the T. I try to keep my ticker ticking at an elevated rate for the length of these endeavors, but not racing or pounding.
Along the way, this scene caught my eye for some reason.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a misty and foggy day in Pittsburgh, with temperatures in the 50’s. Despite all the atmospherics, rain was not forecast, and one decided that at the end of this day’s effort a pint or two of beer and a set of locomotive photos would be on my list of things to do.
This was one of the walks where I was working on ‘speeding up’ my gait. As mentioned previously, one finds himself casually striding again, but I’m moving a lot slower than formerly, before the injury. I’m concerned at the moment with regaining ‘burst speed,’ aka the ability to ‘maximum boogie’ if needed. I’m hoping to get to being able to manifest about 100 feet worth of ‘boogie’ by the end of the winter.
Maximum boogie? Yeah, that’s when you sprint across an intersection or bust a move while trying to catch a train or a bus.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured is a T moving away from Pittsburgh towards the South Hills section. It’s a better shot than the one of the actual T which I rode into the city on, as I dig all of those catenary wires forming into the background.
On the platform, I was chatting with some dude that was a recently retired Army Drill Sergeant, while we were mutually waiting for the train, and he was a surprisingly nice guy for someone whose entire career was based around telling people they’re not good enough and calling them weaklings or sister lovers.
I should have asked him what he’d charge to follow me around, and yell at me to move faster, while questioning my ancestry and telling me how much I suck. It would be like my Jewish mother had come back to life.
It’s just over a half hour’s journey from Dormont to the end of the line on Pittsburgh’s ‘North Shore.’ That’s the part of Pittsburgh nearby the stadiums, and a mass of entertainment and night life businesses. I wasn’t going there, though.
On this occasion, I was going to be debarking the T in Allentown, at a temporary stop which the T people have established while they rebuild a transit tunnel that the service normally uses.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Stepping off the T actually triggered the PTSD I’ve been experiencing regarding steps, but such moments of existential panic have become common. This walk was focused on exercising the calfs and the top and frontage of the thighs, so the City Steps of Pittsburgh would once again be utilized as my gymnasium.
The camera bag and camera strap were adjusted and set into a comfortable manner against the decay of my pre-corpse, and then off I scuttled. I was ‘wearing’ the camera under the filthy black raincoat, just in case it started raining. It didn’t.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This time around, I was listening to music on the headphones, specifically a ‘mix tape’ playlist on my phone. I don’t do Spotify or any of the streaming services for music, instead I buy and download from the Apple Store. I’m told that I’m old fashioned, which cracks me up.
My problem with streaming is the same one that I have with those little air buds which everyone uses – doesn’t fit my lifestyle.
When I go out, it can be all day. I cannot run the battery down on my phone for something frivolous like streaming music. The audio files on my phone have virtually zero impact on the battery when they’re playing through wired headphones. I use the white Apple wired headphones, which pop out of my ears on their own accord all the time, and then dangle on their wires until I place them back in my ear holes.
The only piece of gear which ever gotten away from me and was lost, in all these years. was a ‘rocket blower’ which ended up splashing into Newtown Creek (nearby the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge).
Those super expensive air buds which are the current ‘de rigueur’ use Bluetooth to connect wirelessly to the phone and thereby eat a lot of battery juice. I really don’t want to have to carry a power bank and a cable around with me, too. I do so when traveling, but for day to day? Bluetooth headphones just create a problem that needs additional gear for me to solve.
Best to use the wired headphones, for me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I can’t help but take advantage of serendipity and crack out a shot when a vista just appears like this.
This section I was scuttling through, dubbed the ‘South Side Slopes,’ is carved onto a very steep elevation. Multiple posts over the last few months have explored several of the many, many pathways from ‘up here’ to ‘down there.’
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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BAH! to the sixth power
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After an afternoon of shlepping about on a misty and then rainy walk of about three hours duration here in Pittsburgh, it was time to return back home to HQ, over in the Dormont section. I sloshed over to a nearby light rail station for a ride.
Unfortunately, upon arriving at the ‘T’ Light Rail’s service’s First Avenue station, it became apparent that – for the ‘Red Line’ at least – the transit agency that operates the service was in the midst of shitting the bed. Ended up standing around for about forty minutes, while a succession of ‘Blue Line’ and ‘Silver Line’ units cycled through the station. Bah!
What do you do to pass time while transiting? Me? I take pictures of trains, and other stuff which catches the eye.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An office building alongside the station is apparently the HQ of PNC Bank, and is pictured above. Some poor schmuck was at his desk and working late, in the top left window. Back in my advertising days, that would have been me, working after everybody else went home, trying to hit some important but completely fabricated deadline. Bah!
You really stand out in Pittsburgh when you’re waving a DSLR around, I’d mention. Catch lots of glances, I do, but nobody confronts – at least so far.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In a way, I miss the pregnant lunacy of the NYC Subway system. I’m interested in the trains, tracks, and tunnels – and specifically not the human infestation – I should mention. People are messy.
Inevitably, some ‘icehole’ on the platform would walk over to me and announce that I was taking pictures of them without permission (you don’t need permission in public, and longtime NP readers may have noticed over the years that I prefer my urban vistas depopulated so… definitely wasn’t photographing ‘you’) and demand that I delete an image or let them inspect the camera or usually it was to ‘pay them something.’
If confrontation was brewing, I’d let them know exactly who the madman was in the exchange, and then they’d run away. It was always ‘people’ back home, and seldom the cops, with a couple of notable exceptions. Seriously, most NYPD cops have other problems that keep them up nights and worry about far worse things than middle aged photographers taking pictures of sewers.
Once on the 7, at Hunters Point, one of the cops they station in that little security booth at the end of the platform as a punishment accused me of taking flash photos of an approaching train (MTA rules state that handheld cameras are kosher, but no lights/camera supports like tripods/flashes). I assured him I didn’t, but he claimed he saw a flash.
I offered to go back to the station house with him so that he and his Sergeant could look through my camera bag and discover that I wasn’t carrying a flash unit with me at all. We argued. Towards the end of the encounter, I again volunteered to go to the precinct with him, so as to let his commanding officer (whom I knew from various encounters and events) know that Mitch Waxman had been caught taking photos in Long Island City.
The cop then recognized my name, and then backed down when he realized that I could push back – but I didn’t. I lectured him about former Police Commissioner Kelly’s standing order regarding photography in post 9/11 NYC and a policy to leave photographers alone, and then offered a quick refresher on the first, second, and fourth amendments.
I soon boarded the next Flushing bound train. Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Panhandle Bridge provides egress over the Monongahela River for the T Light Rail service. There’s two tracks on this trestle, a former freight rail bridge, but the ramp leading to it on the southern side is singular. This creates a choke point. Normally operations aren’t quite so hampered, but ‘normally’ they have access to a dedicated transit tunnel that’s punched through Mount Washington which offers light rail two tracks, a vital chunk of infrastructure that’s still under renovation due to construction delays. Bah!
At any rate, at least I could pass the time taking pics of passing trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another cop encounter occurred during the height of Covid, when I was out wandering around the deserted streets of NYC at night with the camera.
I’m standing there on a the sidewalk of Review Avenue, alongside Calvary Cemetery and across from the Kosciuszcko Bridge at about ten at night, with the camera sitting on top of the tripod. I’ve got a cable release going and everything.
Two ‘DT’s’ roll up on me and ask ‘what are you doing?’ I answer with ‘orthodonture’ and then gesture towards the camera with a smile. They ask ‘why,’ which they soon regretted as that was my opening.
Newtown Creek Alliance, the Kosciuszcko Bridge Stakeholders Committee, and my role as Chair of the Transportation Committee for Community Board 1 (this location was actually in CB2) were brought up and discussed at length. The Cops’ eyes glazed over, and then they just drove away without wanting to see my ID.
I bored them into not caring. Bah!
This is right about the time that I started wearing reflective safety vests when out and about, the kind that the Union guys favor. The ‘high visibility’ gear just allowed me to blend into the background at Newtown Creek. High-Visibility is excellent camouflage, as I’ve discovered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, a Red Line light rail unit arrived and then after a short ride, I was back in Dormont and walking down the steep hill that HQ is found at the base of. It was proper dark.
There’s a little laundromat along the way, one which just caught my eye on the way home. Bah?
Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Rampapalooza
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Memories of childhood are sparse. I remember dwelling in dusty apartments outfitted with atavist furnishings, populated by the very old.
My early years were spent in a forgotten world, one suffused with rules and customs forged in faraway Eurasian backwaters, and in an absolute desert of joy, music, or warmth. I was told to go ‘read a book,’ but without any curation, and that command was usually uttered by illiterates.
One is often startled and filled with denial when confronted when an unwanted image, shimmering across some random plane of silvered glass accidentally encountered and noticed. Horrible to see, but unfortunately that’s me.
A swirling conflagration of filthy black fabrics blowing about on the wind, such is your humble narrator. Everybody hates me, whether they know it or not or yet. I am the unwanted and the not missed, the unimportant and the uncommented upon. God’s lonely man, wandering strange streets in a foreign city, searching for meaning and purpose – one step at a time.
When people ask ‘how are you,’ my reply is ‘loathsome.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Actually, when people ask how I am, I usually reply with either ‘everything’s great, all the time’ or ‘it’s just another day in paradise.’
Nothing matters and nobody cares, after all, and these petitioners don’t want to hear an actual answer, they’re just being polite. Polity is another one of the things I’m not great at or can understand fully, so I snip conversations off with aphorisms and ‘canned’ sayings these days.
It’s disingenuous to pretend, though, so I usually apologize for my sins by throwing out a quote from Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ when confronted about my iniquity, something like ‘I will work harder.’ Boxer the Horse is a proletarian role model for me.
Even punk type rocker people will often state that ‘you’re rude, dude.’
Everybody turns their back on me eventually, after all. There’s a different set of rules at work for everyone else’s behavioral quirks, it seems – and as it turns out – maybe I’m not the hero of my own story, rather, I might be the villain instead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Villainy would be an interesting turn for your humble narrator.
Snatching candy away from babies, kicking dogs, being mean to old ladies, twirling my mustache. I still haven’t found the two or three things here which could destroy Pittsburgh, yet. Back in NYC, I knew of two vectors by which the forced evacuation, and destruction, of lower Manhattan could be triggered – but don’t ask as I won’t pass that info along.
Villain maybe, but not super villain, yo.
There’s acting like a dick, and there’s actual top level dickery. One step at a time, folks. Let’s start with posting some nasty memes, build up some evil momentum, and then we can begin planning the giant robot attack on Manhattan.
That’s coming anyway, when AI escapes the lab and goes all Prometheus on its creators, and the rest of us for good measure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the actual thought process which was swirling about, behind my eyes and between the ears, while walking along this river trail in Downtown Pittsburgh. Avoided the rain all this way by scuttling about under highway ramps, however the intensity of the rain had forced the deployment of my trusty umbrella, which a loathsome moment in any hero or villain’s timeline.
I was heading for the T light rail station a few blocks away, at Pittsburgh’s First Avenue. If it wasn’t raining, I’d be crossing that bridge in the shot above, and heading to the brewery with the train tracks on the other side. The drizzle had become a soaking rain, so there would be no point in that activity.
Next time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A murmuration of ramps allow egress from below to above in this spot.
The parking lot section I had just walked through, under the ramps, is known colloquially as ‘the bath tub’ due to its proclivity to flood when the Monongahela River reaches high water levels during the spring melt.
Thump, drag, thump, drag… on did your humble narrator scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been working extremely hard for the last few months to regain physicality and strength in my legs after the ‘orthopedic incident.’
Recent experience has indicated that this process has been somewhat successful. I’m planning on really leaning into things during the winter months, and returning to my old discipline of two short walks and one long one every week by the thaw. The goal is to start the spring season in finer fettle than I’ve been dwelling within.
Saying that, I’ll always be an outsider, found in the shadows of cities.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Buzz buzz buzz, just b’cuz
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, a misty day in Pittsburgh saw rising clouds of fog beginning to congeal into rain up in the vault, and your humble narrator negotiated an alteration to his walking path which would offer some cover should the sky ‘open up.’ Saying that, I’m fairly waterproofed.
Today’s title? Glad you asked.
I was wearing the filthy black raincoat, with the camera secreted beneath it. The camera bag on my back is fairly water repellent, and if things went sour there’s an umbrella attached to it. The biggest weather related issue I actually had involved my glasses steaming up whenever the camera got pushed against the repellent sensory stalk I call a face.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bridge people were testing out a lighting kit, recently installed on the Three Sisters Bridges, and several water facing buildings were also lit up. Pittsburgh does an event called ‘Light Up Night’ wherein the municipal Christmas Tree is lit up, which was meant to happen a day or two later than this walk. There’s fireworks too. Tradition.
I didn’t go, Light Up Night is a real crowd scene – not unlike New Year’s Eve in Time Square – and I really, really don’t like crowds these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fountain at Point State Park has been subject a rebuild/maintenance project for a while now, and it was a surprise to see it on.
The NFL Draft is coming to Pittsburgh next year, and a bunch of tax money is being spent to accomodate the event and give Pittsburgh a ‘glow up’ while the whole country is paying attention to it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One continued down the Monongahela River shoreline trail, and luckily for me, just as I stepped under the ramps leading to Fort Pitt Bridge the sky opened up and the precipitation turned from a mist into a proper bout of rain.
The path I was on followed along under a series of highway and bridge on and off ramps, so there was cover to be found in the rain shadows. Didn’t need to deploy the umbrella, at least at this interval.
It’s nice, as an aside, to not have to worry overly about atmospheric conditions again. The busted ankle is stable enough now for normal and all-weather duty, which it hasn’t been all year. That’s part of the reason that for the last six months or so all of the photos presented here were captured on fairly nice days with lots of sun and a distinct lack of ‘weather.’ Going out shooting at night is in the cards again as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An abundance of light wasn’t an issue on this section of the scuttle. This shot was from about 4-5 in the afternoon.
The rain began to intensify, and it wasn’t long before I opened the umbrella and hid beneath it. My mind was already focused on getting to the First Avenue T light rail station, as this was plainly not going to be one of those happy evenings where I drink beers while waiting for CSX trains to pass me by, at the Sly Fox Brewery found on the opposing shore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was still an interval of scuttling ahead of me, though, so it was leaned into. This ‘corridor’ used to host some rather large encampments established by the ‘unhoused,’ but a recent Mayoral plebiscite saw an unpopular incumbent trying to buoy up the opinions of the electorate in an attempt to win a second term.
He booted the street people and their belongings away and out of public view, using the usual methodology of ‘outreach, policing, and sanitation dept.’ but that incumbent lost the election anyway.
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.
White Whale Spotted
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Allegheny Valley RR’s ‘Carload Express’ locomotive #6002 pictured above, rolling through a rail trench found in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Commons Park, on the city’s ‘North Shore.’ I more commonly see Norfolk Southern and CSX traffic in Pittsburgh, as AVRR is a far smaller outfit than either of the two giants. Sightings of them are so rare, for me, that I’ve come to refer to them as the ‘White Whale.’
This park is surrounded by a historic district, and it’s also one of the places which I regularly move through in Pittsburgh which seems ‘safe as houses,’ but most of the ‘Yinzers’ tell me this area is a crime ridden cesspit. ‘You’ll get shot,’ they say.
Honestly…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The train continued on its way, crossing over the Merchant Street Bridge on its course to points eastwards of here. The first shot in today’s post was what I came to this ‘zone’ to get, and my plan for the rest of the afternoon would end with eventually riding the T back to HQ in Dormont. Saying that, I had budgeted away a few hours for ‘serendipity’ and decided to walk through a section of the area which I hadn’t formerly.
Looked over my shoulder the whole way for approaching hordes of East Asian horse archers, cannibal gangs of tooth sharpeners, and of course – Diurnal Vampires – was called for.
The way seemed clear. No feral kids in the trees firing poison darts at me, either, and most of the people I passed by seemed like I could take them in a fight – as they were either young children or quite elderly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, pictured is a former post office which is now part of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. A street has been pedestrianized into a plaza around it, and there were a few late 1980’s style apartment buildings surrounding the spot. A few people were walking around, moms with kids and a security guard or two.
There were no ogres, pirates, or barbarians. Just folks.
I was finishing up a relisten of an audio book offered by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society, adapting ‘The Dunwich Horror.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Practice, that’s how I got here, practice.
The rain started kicking up a bit, and thereby my pathway options began to narrow. I would be seeking ‘rain shadows’ for the rest of my scuttle.
If you spend a lot of time outside in urban spaces, rain and wind shadows can be your best friends. You see the former all the time, especially so back in NYC, where a three to four foot wide dry pavement patch around the bases of tall buildings can be observed during rain events. You also see them under elevated highway ramps and train trestles. When outside, use this unintended architectural consequence to your advantage.
Connect with whatever the environment you happen to be in is, and use its quirks to your advantage.
Back at Newtown Creek, for instance, you can pretty much pee wherever you want to, and I’d offer the advice to avoid industrial Maspeth during the summer months due to the heat island effect.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thusly, I found myself shambling towards the ramps of the highway connections which overfly the surface streets and move towards the direction of the Allegheny and Monongahela River’s confluence. From there I’d be walking under yet another set of ramps carrying different high speed roads, on my way to a T station for my ride back to HQ.
I still haven’t taken a bus in Pittsburgh, other than a shuttle which was running when the T was under construction. One of my winter plans is to get familiar with the ‘busways’ hereabouts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cannot tell you what was going on here, but I did wonder if lifting that ball would summon a fireman. Most people call 911.
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 