Posts Tagged ‘Allegheny River’
Bridge to Nowhere
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Fort Duquesne Bridge was completed in 1963, but didn’t open for traffic till 1969. The reason for the delay seems to revolve around PennDOT not having secured the real estate that would be required for its off ramps on the north side of the Allegheny River prior to the start of construction. There’s a famous story about a college student who intentionally jumped a station wagon off the open end of the bridge in 1964. Pittsburghers of the time, and some you’ll encounter today, refer to this as the “Bridge to Nowhere.”
Me? I had recently walked the nearby and larger Fort Pitt Bridge, and since Fort Duquesne enjoys a particular prominence due to association with its larger neighbor I thereby figured I’d make an afternoon out of it. This structure looks a great deal like Fort Pitt, and shares its engineering problem solving theory with it – it’s a double decked bowstring arch bridge just like Fort Pitt is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fort Duquesne feeds into the north western side of the city of Pittsburgh, and allows high speed road traffic (I-279 and PA Route 65) to head north along the Ohio River coast towards wealthy and long established suburbs like Sewickley, or the rapidly growing subdivisions of Cranberry Township.
Speaking from the NYC transplant perspective for a moment; I looked at both of those places before moving out here. Sewickley was too rich for my blood, and reminded me of several wealthy coastal communities in Connecticut and Jersey which I could never afford and which would annoy me daily as a proud child of the working class. Think Westport. Cranberry was cool if you’re worried about school districts, have a young family, and are investing for the long term. Think Melville or Amityville, not Huntington – and sure as hell not Dix Hills – on Long Island. Northern part of Westchester County kind of vibe.
Given that Our Lady and myself are new to the Pittsburgh area, we decided that isolating into such an suburban existence when we’re newly arrived from the concrete devastations and dense urbanity of Home Sweet Hell (NYC) would be a mistake. We chose to land ourselves, thereby, in the South Hills of Pittsburgh and specifically the Borough of Dormont. There’s public transit for when we don’t want to drive here, and there’s still an urban vibe. Cranberry was “car culture” designed, which is fine, but it’s not what we were looking for. Saying that, if you want to buy something, anything, there’s probably somebody in Cranberry Township you’d want to do business with and their shop will have ample free parking available. There’s also likely going to be a Denny’s nearby. Thriving, it is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having driven over this bridge quite a few times now, it was surprising how short a walk this was. Fort Duquesne Bridge is only 430 feet long, not including the approaches, which is half the size of the South Tenth Street Bridge over the Monongahela River discussed last week.
I’ve spent my entire life in a place so unnatural and altered that the term “terra forming” applies, so there’s are many places in Pittsburgh that I just don’t understand. The crazy terrain constantly strikes me. I have a neighbor whose back yard slopes away from the road at something like 25 degrees. His front door is half a story lower than the road. His back door sits at something like 2 stories down.
Have these people never owned a level? Hear of soil grading? Creating a flat surface for the housing slab to be poured on? Filled in the Hudson River to build luxury condos? Proposed extending Manhattan to join with Governor’s Island using landfill in an estuary? Jeez.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The path off of the Fort Duquesne Bridge comes down to earth at Point State Park, which was my turnaround point. One negotiated a brisk scuttle back to the Allegheny River coastline, this time on the south side of the river and along Pittsburgh’s ‘Golden Triangle’ downtown area. A parting shot of the bridge was required, nested in its web of on and off ramps.
Y’know, I’ve been calling it the “Pretty City of Pittsburgh” since coming here in the late 1990’s – back when I was writing and drawing comic books – to promote a series I was doing at a comics convention. In more recent years, all of my experiences in Downtown Pittsburgh have been during the Covid period. Thereby, I haven’t seen much of the hustle and bustle here, except around Court Houses and whenever the Cops or Fire Dept. are getting busy with something. It’s popping down here when there’s a Steelers game, I’ll tell’s ya.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By this point, one was preoccupied with wonderings about when the next opportunity to demonstrate my robust renal health would present itself, and I was on the lookout for a bathroom while scuttling back towards the safely ensconced Mobile Oppression Platform back at the municipal parking lot with the cool views.
Along the way, I kept on shooting. People I passed by were jogging and bike riding, and others were smoking crack or speed. There are a lot of very skinny people found downtown with sunken eyes, skeletal nasal superstructures, and hollow cheeks in this part of the country. That opioid thing ain’t no joke. It seems that the teeth go first.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m happy to report that the Greyhound Bus Station’s lavatory was cleaner than you’d imagine, and after blowing ballast I negotiated my way back to the Mobile Oppression Platform at the municipal lot with the great views and I was soon driving home. Parking cost me $5, which was an ‘all day’ price.
Tomorrow, something different, at your Newtown Pentacle.
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Someday, when the stars are right…
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent afternoon walk began with finding the point of view above, which includes an active railroad bridge that carries both Norfolk Southern freight and Amtrak passenger services to and fro. This was from a parking lot, which is seeming confirmation of a theory I’ve been developing about while scouting, which hypothesizes that ‘for pay’ day parking in Pittsburgh is pretty affordable and that the multi story municipal parking lots around the city offer commanding views of the municipal surroundings. Trust me on this, the easiest sort of walking tour you can conduct is one that’s got an aerial perspective. “This, that, and the other thing, Teddy Roosevelt.”
I got to chat with a Security Guard right after shooting this one. Nice enough bloke, but he hit me with the usual security guy speech. This time around, it was something about people in the neighboring apartment building complaining about people taking photos. He then asked if I was parked in the lot. It was all cool after I offered to show him my parking stub and pointed out the ‘MOP’ or Mobile Oppression Platform (my Toyota) parked neatly in a spot nearby. Paying customer, me. We actually talked about rail and that bridge afterwards for a minute, whereupon he said he was getting off work in a half hour anyway, so whatever. He literally said “so, whatever.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My goal for the day was at the titular extant of the Allegheny River at the Fort Duquesne Bridge, once known as the ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’ I’d recently walked over the nearby Fort Pitt Bridge (here and here) so why not pay a visit to its neighbor on a nice sunny day?
One scuttled along on the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, after securing the MOP back at that photogenic 7 story tall Municpal Parking Lot. That’s the Convention Center jutting into the shot, and there was a weekend event underway that drew a lot of families into town. Something with animatronic dinosaurs. It drew a real crowd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular day was the first sunny one in a while, and one was quite enjoying the radiate stare of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, unveiled. The light of judgement was pretty good, too.
For my plans to walk over the bridge to play out, I’d need to get over to the north shore of the Allegheny River, but I was on the south side of it. Luckily, it’s a ‘pick your crossing’ kind of thing in this section. An unusual abundance of bridges are found in this section of Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My intention for the day was defined by the particular kit I left the house with. Two zoom lenses, one of which stayed in my bag the whole time, are all that I carried with me. No camera support and not one bell nor a whistle. Just some weirdo with a camera, scuttling along the waterfront.
That’s the Rachel Carson Bridge pictured above, one of the so called ‘Three Sister’ bridges over the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh. Rachel Carson was a Pittsburgh native and the author of the seminal book “Silent Spring” which is what kicked off the American environmental movement, in the modern age at least.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One came to ground on the north side of the Allegheny nearby the HQ campus of the aluminum company Alcoa, and it’s doppelgänger partner Arconic. The waterfront was pretty well populated, but I managed to get one of my patented ‘zombie apocalypse depopulated City’ shots here anyway.
If you don’t like the weather in Pittsburgh, just wait 20 minutes and it’ll change. The sky grew tumescent with clouds, but it was still quite bright and fulsome out, so a humble narrator continued scuttling along.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Having grown up in NYC’s Brooklyn, where you pronounce things as they’re spelled, I have had to install a mental check around the word “Duquesne.” It’s supposed to be pronounced frencher style – Doo Kane. My instinct is Doo Kess Knee.
They have a curious relationship with the French language hereabouts. Certain words, like Duquesne, are spoken frencher style. There’s a community nearby called “Versailles” but it’s “Ver Sales” rather than “Ver sigh.” Wilkes Barre is pronounced as “Wilks Berry.” Pittsburgh sits right at the edge of what was once the French Empire in the Ohio Valley and battles of the French and Indian War actually were fought in this part of the country.
Back next week for a walk over the Fort Duquesne Bridge, at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Scouting in Sharpsburg
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back to the Allegheny River, and my desire to get some photos of the United States Army Corps of Engineers Lock and Dam 2, after diverting away to check out the Highland Park Reservoir. Remote scouting using Google Maps had suggested several locations which might provide a point of view, and an attempt was made to visit them all.
That’s the Highland Park Bridge’s interchange ramp structure, as seen from below, on the south side of the Allegheny River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An ice cream shop, closed for the season, had a parking lot set on a prominence which overlooked the river. The shop actually had one of those tourist binoculars things that you pay a quarter to look through set up in the parking lot, along with picnic benches. It was “customers only” but since they were closed and I couldn’t purchase a vanilla cone, photos were gathered instead. That’s the Highland Park bridge again, and the dark shape in the river is the USACE dam.
Simple concrete based modifications to the natural flow of water has long been a potential remedy for Newtown Creek, back in NYC, that I’ve supported. Flow is Newtown’s problem, ultimately. Cheap and simple alterations like fish ladders and fixed crest dams are the way to encourage the laminar movement of water through the system. The City and all the other powers that be favor pumps and other mechanical contrivance instead. If you’ve got to plug it in, you’ve already lost, I always say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the river, in the north shore community of Sharpsburg, one had spotted a marina of sorts which sat on the river side of a railroad trestle. Said trestle is more or less at the center of the shot above. The island at the left side is called Six Mile Island, which I understand as being a nature preserve overseen by the USACE.
One packed up the gear and hopped into the Mobile Oppression Platform (my nickname for the Toyota RAV4), whereupon a quick crossing of the river on the Highland Park Bridge was executed. I soon found myself staring down a series of weathered “No Trespassing” signs at what seems to be a defunct or at least closed for the season boat launch.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I could probably spend an hour or two just photographing the trestle found there, to be honest. Nitre cloaked, moldy, mossy, dripping… There was a dirt road one could have easily accessed with the MOP (all wheel drive, me) but the fence posts had “posted” signage. It probably would have been a “nothing burger” heading back there, but as is often mentioned – I’m like a vampire, inasmuch as I need to be invited in to do my work. What would Superman do? Answer – the Man of Steel doesn’t knowingly trespass even if he, unlike me, is bulletproof.
People are extremely well armed out here in Western Pennsylvania. There are gun shops in shopping malls, and as the saying goes – if you fuck around, you’ll find out. I intend not to fuck around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The trestle carries railroad tracks above it, ones which the Norfolk Southern railroad outfit travel on. Beneath the tracks, it’s a dripping mess, and exactly the sort of post industrial sight that draws somebody like me directly in. As I was completely alone while driving through the thing to get back onto an actual paved road that goes somewhere, I opened the moon roof on the MOP and shot a few exposures on my way out through the roof of the car.
Monday’s post described the recent climate in Pittsburgh, with bands of rain and snow moving through the area, that have been inimical to my pursuits.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thereby, given that this particular day out was likely the only opportunity I would have – another system of winter storms was in the forecast – for a few days, I decided to make the most of it and scout out another potential “POV” spot in another community nestled up against the Allegheny. You’ll see that one tomorrow.
More scouting from Pittsburgh and its riverfronts, at your Newtown Pentacle, in Friday’s installment.
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Lock and Dam too, Allegheny River
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 1932 vintage Allegheny River Lock and Dam No. 2 (aka Highland Park Lock and Dam) along the Allegheny River drew my interest recently. The St. Patrick’s day flood of 1936 in Pittsburgh, which is part of the same climatological event that drowned nearby Johnstown, resulted in a lot of Federal attention to the rivers surrounding Pittsburgh. The United States Army Corps of Engineers got busy planning a solution after the Flood Control Acts of 1936 and 1938 were passed by Congress. The USACE realized flood control over the Allegheny River after the Kinzua Dam was completed in 1965. Of course, they’ve got three rivers to worry about here (four, actually) and there’s similar USACE infrastructure found on both the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers.
It seems that the USACE design creates about 24 miles of level navigable water on the three rivers, which is referred to as the “Pittsburgh Pool,” and the water level is meant to be some 710 feet above sea level. When a ship navigates into this particular Allegheny River lock, it’s raised or lowered 11 feet from the pool’s altitude depending on direction. There’s a long series of these fixed crest dams and boat locks on the Allegheny River leading all the way back to the Kinzua Dam, which is on the New York side of Pennsylvania’s northern border.
Pennsylvania is wild, man.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After becoming interested in this sort of infrastructural goodness, I began the usual scouring of Google maps’ satellite views for potential locations from which I could get a look at the thing in action and maybe even set up the tripod for a few “low and slows.”
That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I mean long exposure, tripod mounted landscape shots, not any of the things you could slot “low and slow” into. Aww, that sounds even worse…
“Highland Park Dam Overlook” is what it says this spot is called on Google maps, and after following a Google street view truck’s ride into the area, I decided that this would be the first of several nearby spots where I’d try to find some points of view and maybe the odd natural composition or two.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The furthest out into the water, and the closest clear shot of the Lock and Dam I could get near in this Overlook section, was literally the spot pictured above – on a chunk of what was probably 90 year old concrete sticking out into the Allegheny River. The 1937 vintage bridge in the shot is called the Highland Park Bridge.
I did walk down to the gates of the USACE compound which operates the machinery of the lock, but it was all chain link with barbed wire with security cameras there. I made a mental note to try and charm the pants off of whomever is in charge of this stuff and strive to get some future access for photos from them. I’ve done it before.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had to drive a bit of a circuitous route to hit my list of “POV’s,” and since something else that I wanted a look at was found along this route, I diverted away from my lock and dam fever for about an hour. More on that tomorrow.
One arrived at another previously remote scouted location for the point of view above after the diversion. That dark line in the water is a fixed crest dam, a concrete structure in the water column which introduces an 11 foot drop in elevation to the Allegheny River. The USACE maintains a minimum depth of nine feet for the Allegheny, it’s deeper in many places, but that’s a lot of water cascading about.
I had a couple of other locations marked down, including a few other potential points of view on the opposite shoreline. I hopped into the Mobile Oppression Platform and crossed the Highland Park Bridge, heading into the community of Sharpsburg.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Somebody probably wasn’t supposed to be where he was, while shooting these last two shots. Saying that, the property definitely seemed to be out of business or abandoned, but the former occupants left their “no trespassing” signs behind. That’s my story. I pulled the MOP over, cracked out a couple of shots, and then moved on.
The scouting area I’ve been looking at and writing about, since relocating to Pennsylvania, forms a rough circle with circumference points no further than a 30 minute drive from HQ, which is located about 4.5 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh. Using HQ as the center of that circle, I’ve been exploring triangular “pizza slice” sections of the new surroundings, slice by slice. Nerd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was too far away to get a decent shot of it, but right after this shot, a tug and barge appeared and began to navigate into the lock. Wow.
As mentioned, in yesterday’s post, we’ve had a run of wet and snowy weather here in Pittsburgh for the last week. I know this is shocking news for late January. All the shots you’re seeing in this week’s six picture posts were frenetically gathered in a single day. Whew!
More tomorrow, from the Paris of Appalachia, at 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.
back to West End Overlook Park
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On December 29th, a humble narrator negotiated his way back to the West End Elliot Overlook Park in the Elliot section of Pittsburgh in the late afternoon. I offered a couple of shots I’d captured up here at dawn last week, but even while I was shooting those I was thinking “I have to come back here at sunset, this “view” is a sunset thing.” Also mentioned last week, sunset in Pittsburgh isn’t a couple of hours long like it is in NYC, with its oceanic skies. Due to the geography here, the setting sun casts the hard shadow of Mount Washington across the confluence of the three rivers and the city’s center midway through its descent.
One got to the spot in West End with plenty of time to spare and set up my gear. I had a nice conversation with some kid from the surrounding neighborhood, who was imbibing the devil’s cabbage and chilling out. He was the first of several folks I interacted with while shooting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the West End Bridge over the Ohio River, lit up all sexy like in the shot above. I had erroneously called it the McKees Rocks Bridge in a prior post but received a correction in the comments from one of you brilliant people.
Alexander McKee, for whom McKees Rocks and both the eponymous bridge and the nearby community of McKeesport are named for, was an early trader based in this region, whom initial research reveals as having displayed a surprisingly modern point of view towards the “First Nation” Native Americans that populated this part of the continent.
At any rate, while I was waiting for the sky and sun to align to my liking, and the local kid whom I was chatting with had departed, I began twisting my tripod head around. “Up, down, all around,” that’s one of my mottoes. A passing couple struck up conversation with me next. They were wearing Steelers gear, and told me that they were “Yinzers” or Pittsburgh “born and bred’s” who had moved out to “the country” a couple of decades ago and were “in town” for a few days to see a theatrical show and attend a sports ball game.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Off in the distance, I spotted the Allegheny Observatory which I had described to you – lords and ladies – a couple of weeks ago. As mentioned in that post, I’m attempting to visit the prominences surrounding the three rivers’ valleys to try and develop a sense of spatial relationship. When you’re driving along on the many, many high speed roads that transect Pittsburgh, it is fairly impossible to do so.
I’ve mentioned that there’s a different “etiquette” as far as driving here, as in with the “Pittsburgh Left,” but there’s also a very different polity at work on the roads. They don’t honk quite as much here, but it’s fairly common for somebody to crawl right up your butt if they think you’re driving too slowly. “Too slowly” in this area means you’re only exceeding the speed limit by 20-30%. Following distance is one of the most important thing to be aware of when driving on a highway. For every ten miles of speed, maintain at least one car length of space between you and the car in front of you. If you needed to jam down on and lock your brakes to screech to a complete stop, the minimum amount of space you’d need to come to a complete stop is one car length per ten miles of speed. Yup – that’s close to a hundred feet at 55 mph, which sounds crazy and unrealistic but isn’t. When I can see the brand of sunglasses you’re wearing in my rear view mirror, that’s way too close. Also…
I’m seriously having to learn a new style of performance driving around here, with the crazy hills and the serpentine curves that bend around prominences or along cliffs. Lots of hidden driveways as well, with blind turns happening at high speed, there’s highway exits that appear out of seemingly nowhere, stop signs on highway entrance ramps… a dynamic driving environment, Pittsburgh is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
See what I mean about that hard sunset shadow cast by Mount Washington? One hung about at the park overlook, and some woman with a very enthusiastic dog arrived and set herself up nearby to play some sort of steel drum like instrument as the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself disappeared. I was enjoying the jam she was playing and decided that I’d like to stick around until the lights in Pittsburgh came on.
Since I’m a suburban asshole now, I feel like I should refer to this downtown section as “The City” but there’s only one place which I’ll ever use that term for and it’s 400 miles diagonally east and north of here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post is being written at the end of the first week of January, and it was literally this morning that – for the first time in 5 weeks – I actually had a fond “miss that” thought about NYC. It was bagel related. The bagels here are strange and anemic little things.
Thankfully, Pittsburgh actually has decent Pizza. Finding a pizzeria that does slices is a bit of a deal (they do 8” personal pizzas instead), but the local Pizza is actually pretty good. They tend to overdo it with toppings, giving into the tendency in this part of the country to throw every kind of meat you can imagine on top of the thing, but the thick crust is nice. Thankfully, it’s not the abrogation of all that’s right which… Philadelphia… calls Pizza.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot was the one I was waiting around for, and soon after shooting it I decided to get out of dodge and back to HQ in neighboring Dormont. This decision was influenced by the dynamic driving environment mentioned above, as I don’t feel at all confident driving around at night around here and won’t until I get to know these roads and their peculiarities a bit better.
I had a rare moment of spare time, in between “have-to’s” and rainy days, so I decided to try and make the most of an unusually warm week in Pittsburgh over the first few days of 2023. My reward for the efforts of December and November was the few days I had to explore, I’d posit.
More tomorrow 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 