Dahntahn Yinzerville
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start, the Pittsburgh people refer to the regional culture they enjoy as being ‘Yinzer.’ The local accent, which pronounces the word ‘downtown’ as ‘Dahntahn’ and says ‘aht’ when they want to say ‘at,’ uses a contraction for ‘you all’ that sounds like ‘y’inz.’ Use it in place of ‘y’all.’
There’s a cultural conceit and marketing gimmick built in here, therefore, centering around ‘Yinz.’ It’s common for people in the Pittsburgh Metro to describe themselves as ‘Yinzers,’ although you already figured out they’re ‘from here’ due to a Steelers jersey, worn with shorts in January. There’s a strain of masculinity here which likes to project that they don’t feel cold, as they’re far too tough for that.
That’s the explanation for the title of this post, ‘Dahntahn Yinzerville.’
After passing under the 1922 vintage ‘David McCullough 16th street bridge’ on the waterfront trail, I was definitively ‘Dahntahn.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s another patch of tall buildings about five to six miles to the east in Oakland, where CMU and Pitt’s campuses are found, but most of the businesses hereabouts enjoy horizontal setups rather than vertical ones.
Density ain’t what it used to be.
Another interesting wrinkle to Yinzer talk involves the supposition of a past tense variant for the word while using a verb in present tense. It’s not ‘the car needs to be washed,’ rather it’s ‘the car needs warsh.’
Fascinating.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before plunging into the urban core, in pursuance of acquiring the T light rail at Wood Street Station, a few last wave arounds of the camera occurred. This one looks across the Allegheny towards its northern shoreline.
It was time to begin the last steps of this scuttle, and ‘the final paht of this scuttle needs walk.’
Back tomorrow.
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Almost, almost…
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After reacquiring the waterfront trail here in Pittsburgh, which follows the shoreline of the Allegheny River, your humble narrator continued on his lonely path. I wasn’t using headphones on this walk, as I wished to remain very aware of my surroundings for some reason. Wasn’t worried about getting jumped at all, although I was likely the best target on the trail due to the camera. A vast physical coward, if somebody tried to mug me, I’d probably just end up vomiting on them out of fear. Experience states that puke ends a street fight faster than Kung Fu does.
This walk ended up being six and half miles long (that’s 411, 840 inches), a new personal best in this post broken ankle season I’m living through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was fascinated by the tree growth seen around the lumber piles above, which makes the wood look like it was molten and poured. There’s a ghastly life and death narrative at work there, with the cut lumber piles being subsumed by the living trees. Wonder what used to be here that needed docks…
This is where I soon found myself marching into another ‘angle’ between neighborhood areas, as it’s where Pittsburgh’s ‘The Strip’ metastasizes into ‘Downtown.’ Still wondering what was here that required docks…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I cannot express the sense of joy I get from my ignorance, and then getting curious about something. Recent background reading has focused in on Zinc, as in the mining/processing/industrial application thereof. Positively galvanizing, the story of zinc is. It’s anodizing, as well.
Guess I’m going to have to start reading up on the history here, as I’m getting curious about all the ‘once, long ago/used to be’ stuff. Sigh. I’ve been enjoying my ignorance… did you know that Zinc is the 4th most abundant metal on the Earth, despite its relatively low melting point?
Your humble narrator still had a little bit of walking ahead of him to get to that T station where the light rail would be boarded for a ride back to HQ.
Come with? Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Hammer time
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Railroad Street pictured above, with some of the newly constructed housing units and concurrent parking lots which Pittsburgh’s Strip District now houses. Observationally, many of the people who live in these new buildings are students, or young professionals employed in the nearby downtown section. Personally, I’m not at all interested in living here in what look to me like a great deal like barracks, despite their colorful and shiny facades. I said the same thing about LIC, as a note.
I’m also determined never to share walls with anybody else other than Our Lady of the Pentacle and Moe the Dog by choice again. The nearly three years which we’ve been living in a private house is the longest period in my life I’ve gone without seeing a roach or a mouse appear inside my home.
Astoria was freaking infested. I knew a guy there whose back yard became infested with cats. Cats! What do you do, bring in dogs? It’s like that old Porky Pig and Daffy Duck cartoon. The mind boggles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not for me, as I often say. If I wanted apartment living, I’d have stayed in NYC. My song will probably be different when I’m in my late sixties rather than fifties.
The development projects here have been a great success, apparently, and brought a 24/7 population into an area that used to empty out at night and on weekends. Tax rolls are up, but the lousy architecture contagion is spreading. Hey, people are voting with their feet to live here, who cares what I think. It would have been smart for the city to demand green roofs on all those parking lots though, to offset the storm water situation, but that’s me. Maybe they like building sewers and treatment plants at City Hall, I don’t know.
Things started getting a little boring, as they do in these sorts of areas, so I hung a right and headed towards the Allegheny River waterfront in pursuance of acquiring the trail which follows it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s really the same old story here. ‘Used to be, once, long ago,’ replaced by new and shiny quick construction designed to minimize development and maintenance costs by using common wet walls and utility conduits. Very ‘YIMBY.’ Have they built schools, fire houses, police capability to serve the new populations? Sewerage? Anything? I really don’t know.
At any rate, the ankle was really starting to sing its song at this point in the walk. I had just passed through my former threshold point of five miles in terms of what I could reasonably expect myself to be capable of.
The current ‘uncomfortable’ thing that happens in the ankle and foot is a sensation that I have two shoelaces wrapped tightly against the heel of my foot and then something ‘clicks’ during heel strikes. The Docs tell me these symptoms are tendon related and will ameliorate with time and exercise. Stretch and strengthen, they tell me.
Push on, weakling, push.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Transitional zone
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may recall from last week’s folderol, thy humble narrator was busy scuttling along the Allegheny River side of Pittsburgh, towards its ‘Golden Triangle,’ on a constitutional and exploratory walk. The effort began in Lawrenceville, to the east, and the goal was to get to the ‘Downtown’ section where a T light rail station would provide me with transport back to HQ about five miles away in the Boro of Dormont.
Pictured above is the massive 31st street bridge.
Beyond a bit of exploring on foot, and snapping a bunch of photos, the purpose behind this walk – specifically – was to take advantage of one of the very few places in Pittsburgh that is ‘flood plain flat’ to give the still recovering broken ankle some much needed exercise. Flat walks of this type are one of the legs of a three legged stool for me at the moment, along with walking down steep slopes and negotiating ‘natural’ surfaces. By ‘natural’ I mean walking through grass and soil in semi woodland environments. Still having trouble with sloped surfaces.
If my ankle, hips, and legs ain’t sore at the end of a walk, I didn’t walk far enough. Rebuilding muscle is not very much fun. Nevertheless, push on, push, push, push. I’ve had enough sitting down for a lifetime.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Appalachian soil which underlies the Pittsburgh metro is famous for producing potholes during the winter, as well as promulgating the formation of sinkholes. Seriously, this happened here in 2019. Saying all that, this is precisely the sort of obstacle course which I’d normally dance my way through and barely even notice, but which – at the moment – I need to stop and scry a path through before stepping forward.
My walking speed has suffered tremendously from the inactivity, and I’m currently scuttling along at a speed which most would describe as ‘normal’ or ‘understandable’ but which I call pathetic. I’ve often mentioned here how toxic my inner dialogue is, and this circumstance im in has found me mentally berating myself for breaking the ankle in the first place, like an asshole would. My Jewish mother may be dead, but part of her lives on rent free in my head.
Push on, weakling. Push. Do better. Do more.
This inner voice of mine is quite profane and mean spirited, and it speaks in a dialectical manner that would have been judged as politically incorrect even back in 1980’s Brooklyn, let alone these days. None of this self abuse is ‘machismo’ based, by the way, nor is it sympathy speaking. I just know that I can and will do better if I overlook the pain and atrophied weakness. It’s temporary. Everything is temporary, the tyranny of the ‘now.’
Push, push, push.
One of my literary heroes, and the originator of an oft repeated motto, is Boxer the Horse from Animal Farm, with ‘I will work harder.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Anyway, back to Pittsburgh.
Having just wandered about in the shrinking sclerosis of an industrial zone in Lawrenceville, and having crossed under the 31st street Bridge, I was now officially in a ‘transition zone’ – or as I used to call such areas back in NYC – the angle – between Lawrenceville and The Strip District.
The cognomen ‘Strip District’ refers to an area in Pittsburgh which used to serve the larger city as a food warehousing and distribution center, with rail and boats bringing fresh produce in for wholesale distribution to urban markets and shops.
As I understand it; 19th and 20th century pre-supermarket era, that’s when the Strip’s glory days were. There’s a section of it which is a sort of historic district, with businesses that predate the modern era and seem to be a big part of the multi-generational cultural heritage around here. People drive to this zone, over multiple hours, to then wait on line for a certain cheese to ‘bring’ on Thanksgiving or Christmas or just ‘for the holidays,’ that sort of thing.
I’ve been here a few times since coming to Pittsburgh, but my experiences in the area are fairly limited. There was lots and lots of intriguing stuff on this walk which hasn’t been featured because I have got to know more about it before mentioning it.
More tomorrow.
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Turty Turd st. bridge, and such
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 33rd street rail bridge isn’t just a bridge, it’s a complex of ramps and trestles which sprawls along both sides of the Allegheny River, between Herr’s Island and Millvale on the northern shore, and Lawrenceville on the southern. It was erected in 1921 by the B&O RR people, which replaced an earlier rail bridge here that was built in 1884. It’s massive.
Would love to see a train moving on this thing, but it’s serviced by the Allegheny Valley Rail Road (AVRR), a Class 3 railroad which moves and switches rail cars around in service to the Class 1 railroads (CSX, Norfolk Southern, Wheeling & Lake Erie) here in the Pittsburgh region. AVRR doesn’t have many train sets operating at any given time, so spotting one is like spotting ‘a white whale’ ala Melville.
If I do get a shot of a train on this bridge, ever, it’s going to be a lucky stroke and pure serendipity for me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, the structure is massive. To the right of the roadway pictured above is a Restaurant Depot warehouse, and yeah – I was having serious ‘memberberries’ while walking through their parking lot to get a few shots of a gigantic bridge. To the left of the shot is a complex of theatrical studios (TV and Movies) set up in former warehouses, which are dubbed as the ‘31st street studios.’ Made me think about Broadway Stages back in Brooklyn. Lots of tv and movies film hereabouts. ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ keeps them busy these days.
One continued on with the scuttling. Walking involves a lot of conscious thought for me at the moment. ‘Don’t protect the ankle,’ ‘don’t waddle like a penguin,’ ‘keep your eyes on where your next heel strike is going to land,’ ‘stride, don’t step.’ All of this used to be simply autonomic, but for the late recovery stage of this horrific injury, it’s required.
I’ve relearned how to walk, now I need to relearn ‘walking with a purpose’ and ‘Brooklyn strut.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying all that, the path I ended up walking was an incredibly difficult one. Torn up pavement, potholes filled with six inches of street runoff, gravel and rock ballast everywhere, all sorts of obstacles. Not ankle friendly at all, but the goal is ‘stretch and strengthen’ so that means I need to challenge myself by not walking solely on flat pavement. As mentioned in prior posts, the end goal for this walk would involve getting a ride on the ‘T’ light rail back to HQ. The station I was heading for was underneath that orange colored building in the distance, the one with the ‘KL Gates’ logo on it, as that’s where the T’s ‘Wood Street’ station awaited.
Back next week with more, from the Paris of Appalachia – 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 