Posts Tagged ‘Allegheny River’
Kicking dirt, north shore style
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a lovely walk down Troy Hill, where a cemetery was visited and the very steep Troy Hill Road walked upon, your humble narrator soon found himself crossing one of those pedestrian bridges which overfly a vast complex of high speed roads here in Pittsburgh.
The Fort Duquesne, Fort Pitt, Veterans, and West End Bridges are nearby, and the complex of interchanges between I-376/I-279/I-579/Route 28 and the primary and secondary local ‘arterial streets’ dominate this formerly industrial section of Pittsburgh.
As you’d deduce from the shot above, the former Heinz factory is found nearby. It’s been turned into residential lofts in the post industrial period.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These pedestrian ramps hide the presence of a fairly well established homeless encampment, one that can be observed below them. There’s a few holes cut into the fences here and there for egress. The encampment, seems to use a different spot, under and towards the end of the ramp as a latrine. It’s easy to find, if you follow your nose. Heroin is apparently one heck of a drug.
Other than leaving a bag of old clothes here and there for the unhoused, or passing off cans of dog food to a particular fellow that hangs around one of the tunnel exits whose pup I feel bad for, I try not to get involved in the lives of the street people. Trouble.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh offers drivers a series of confusing choices which they need to make at the very last second. The city has odd road usage conventions that indicate needing to use this left lane – or the right one – to proceed. In some spots, you need to shift into the right lane for less than a block – before reaching a mandatory right turn – and then shift back into the original travel lane you were in to continue straight – merging right in the middle of the intersection after the lane you started in has to make a mandatory left turn. Confusing. This works out well once you can anticipate the situation, presuming you’re overly familiar with the place and its mores, but for a newcomer or visitor – it’s chaos. As I call it – Pittsburgh Vernacular – you just have to ‘know.’
Regardless, I was on foot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I passed through the campus of the former Heinz Factory. Spectacular terra cotta and industrial design here. Beautiful spot, in the middle of a not so beautiful spot. There’s a number of things which, as a former New Yorker, it’s hard to reconcile about this city. There are entire neighborhoods which should be ‘popping,’ but aren’t. This is one of them.
Bah! I really aspire to not care about anything anymore.
Google’s AI tells me that ‘A lack of emotion is often defined as apathy, meaning an absence of feeling, interest, or concern, leading to reduced motivation; it can also manifest as emotional numbness, detachment, or flat affect, a reduced expression of emotion, often seen in conditions like depression, PTSD, or neurological disorders, with specific terms like alexithymia describing difficulty identifying/describing feelings.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next on my list for a walk around is actually this section of the North Side. Looks seedy, but Andy Warhol’s family is still in the scrap metal business back there somewhere. Maybe there’s a giant soup can or something. I’ve wandered through here in the past, but not while consciously cataloging what I’m seeing. Most of the time in this zone, I’m walking on the waterfront trail when rolling through and heading somewhere else.
Maybe that’s the problem this section of the North Side has – it’s a liminal space that people pass through but seldom dwell in. I used to be familiar with a waterway in Brooklyn and Queens that had the same problem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I crossed the Allegheny River on the 16th street David McCullough bridge. This brought me to Pittsburgh’s so called ‘golden triangle,’ which is the peninsular section where most of the corporate and governmental powers reside.
The orthopedic incident had seriously retarded my efforts in 2025. That’s more or less over now, and your humble narrator is enthusiastic about being back on the prowl in a free roaming manner.
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.
2025’s Penultimate Posting
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with shots from a longish walk around Pittsburgh, captured on a winter’s day….All the leaves were brown, and the sky was gray…. That song was right.
Pictured above is the 16th street Bridge, over the Allegheny River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The trail I was walking upon led to the 31st street bridge, where I’d be turning south and reattaining access to the peninsular landform which Pittsburgh refers to as ‘the Golden Triangle.’
So far, my attempt at speeding up my gait had been successful, but the amount of force I was focusing into the pursuit had angered the noisome joint in my left leg. It was singing, the ankle, in a manner reminiscent of Elmer Fudd singing Wagnerian Opera with ‘Kill the Wabbit.’
Pain is just another thing you feel, like love or hate, so just get past it like you do those other things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Many people have told me, after having met me in real life, that it can be overwhelming. It’s like trying to interact with ocean waves, or a fire.
I tend to ‘come atcha,’ in numbing sense impacts of verbosity. Try getting a word in edgewise, I dare’s ya! When this behavior is pointed out to me as a chide, my response is always ‘yeah… I know… I’m stuck dealing with this asshole in my head all the freaking time, you have no idea what it’s like.’ At least the rest of you don’t have to deal with the bullshit 24/7, rather it’s in delimited doses and gets published five days a week at 11 a.m. right here.
I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I usually have three or four versions of myself ready for deployment, as situations may require. One or two of them speak in a slightly slower, louder, and more basso voice, so if you think I’m being reasonable – you’ve probably met those versions of me.
The manic asshole version? Yup, he’s useful too, but in certain circumstance, and that’s usually the part of my brain that gets me both in and out of trouble.
There’s also that part of me that gives people exactly three chances and no more, who doesn’t make threats but does offer promises, and acts like an egomaniacal jerk. I don’t like that side of me at all terribly much, but it’s useful to be able to abandon polity when you need to so there you are.
I’m like the Kiwi, a fuzzy little fruit with a lot of personalities.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks southerly, towards Polish Hill. Behind me is Rialto Street.
The neighborhood that the bridge drops you into on the southerly side is a bit of what I used to call ‘an angle between neighborhoods.’ It’s not ‘Lower Lawrenceville’, nor is it ‘the Strip.’ There’s a big blob of municipal properties in this zone, including an enormous structure wherein Pittsburgh stores cars and trucks from its fleets while they’re awaiting servicing.
Apparently, there’s a huge backlog and budget criss regarding the scheduling for this maintenance, which has created an expensive crisis for the bureaucrats who caused it to solve, by spending more tax money.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was about the four mile/turnaround point for the walk. The plan from here would be to scuttle along the edges of man’s world through the Strip District and then shlep over to the one of the T light rail stations downtown.
Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit…
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.
Antisummer scuttles
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with a scuttle along the Allegheny River, here in Pittsburgh, in today’s post.
As mentioned last week, this walk occurred on a fairly chilly day. I was double insulated, with a layer of ‘long john’ thermal underwear under my black sackcloth outer shell. When all done up like this, I actually have to ensure that my body has a place to dump the excess heat generated while walking. To that point, my fingers and hands were toasty warm, even without gloves on. Gotta get that blood pumping, bro.
To my left was the HQ building of ALCOA, or whatever that aluminum giant and market dominar calls itself this week.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The last time that I undertook this particular walk in 2024, it was quite a hot day for early summer and I ended up feeling overheated and weird. Your humble narrator was still operating under his NYC rules, which state that you’re never more than a twenty minute walk from a Bodega where you can buy a Gatorade, so why carry liquids with you?
I was plotzing, and getting light headed. No good. Luckily, I found an open cafe that served me up a glass of Orange Juice and a few glasses of water.
Well, since that incident, my NYC rules have been thrown away and warm weather walks now include a water flask attached to the camera bag when I leave HQ. Lesson learned.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying all that, on this day it was under 40 degrees outside, so getting dehydrated wasn’t something I worried about this time around. Usually, if my mouth is feeling dry (if you want to determine if you’re dehydrated or not, force a smile. If your lips drag over the teeth in a sticky fashion, you are. Not medical advice, this, just colloquial experience) a piece of gum is usually all that’s required to get my saliva flowing again. Dentyne Ice peppermint, that’s me.
This shot looks across the river towards the Convention Center in the downtown section of Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The trail crosses under the Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge, which normally serves Norfolk Southern’s locomotives, but this time around it was the white whale – Allegheny Valley RR. These tracks lead directly into the old PA RR Station, the former home base for the entire Pennsylvania Rail Road empire, and flow past the current home of Amtrak in Pittsburgh.
It’s absolutely ‘gob smacking’ that there’s only one place in Pittsburgh to catch a ride for interstate passenger rail. Pittsburgh… seat of the Pennsy Empire…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of these days, I’ll drag my butt out of bed early and get over to one of those pedestrian bridges which overfly the rail tracks beyond the Amtrak Station. There’s basically two passenger trains a day to expect, one east bound from Chicago and one west bound from NYC. Both arrive and depart in the dead of night. Again, this city used to be the absolute locus point of railroading in the United States. Bah!
On did I scuttle. Forward, ever forward…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The former Heinz factory, converted to luxury lofts and condos in modernity, appeared before me. There’s a couple of ‘new construction’ office type buildings which adjoin the lofts, which must have been built during the Heinz property’s residential conversion. These structures seem abandoned, which is kind of an odd thing for this ‘zone.’
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.
Citrus fruit needed
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found your humble narrator scuttling the misery away while heading towards the T light rail, here in Pittsburgh’s Dormont.
The shot was my ‘gray card’ photo, wherein I figure out the ‘ball park’ that the day’s photo exposures will require – as far as aperture/ ISO/ and a base shutter speed. The ‘gray card’ street pictured above is dubbed ‘Mattern Avenue,’ and it’s just off the main drag of Dormont’s Potomac Avenue, with the latter byway leading to the T light Rail station.
This wasn’t going to be a ‘photo day’ per se, as in the main goal for the effort revolved around exercise, and burning out a few miles of pure walkie walkie cardio style time while shooting a ‘photowalk’ series as I did so. Got to keep it interesting.
In fact, my goal for the day was six to seven miles, which I hit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A T light Rail unit arrived, and after paying the fare, your humble narrator settled into a seat. They use a zone system on the service, and the customer pays when boarding on a rail unit heading into Pittsburgh, and conversely when debarking after heading away from Pittsburgh. They’ve also got a sliding fare scale with discounts for kids, senior citizens, and others. It’s all very confusing.
It’s about a 20-30 minute trip, from Dormont to one of the T stations that’s nearby a baseball stadium, on Pittsburgh’s North Shore.
The ‘North Shore’ is a complex of high volume bars and restaurants with a football and baseball stadium, and there’s a very well used pedestrian/bicycle trail. Apparently ‘North Shore’ is the colloquial name for this northern bank of the Allegheny River, distinguishing it from ‘North Side,’ which is an entirely different ‘zone.’ Also very confusing.
The T deposited me on an underground platform beneath said baseball stadium, PNC Park. This is the section of the T’s route where it runs like a subway. This too is confusing, but I’m slow and old.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, the escalators were working just fine, and soon this device rudely thrust me back up onto the streets where I belong.
The plan for the day revolved around ‘flat’ and pushing my busted up ankle’s capabilities in pursuit of speeding up both gait and stride. I’ve always been quite aware of my walking postures, as it’s a ‘thing,’ but this injury really forced me into analytical thought about stride and gait. Where the toe is pointed, how the heel strikes, the rolling nature of a step, the push off at the end of said step… all that.
A weird thing about this walk was that I was experiencing emotions, of an almost human nature. All of my prior twelve months were swirling about, between the ears and behind the eyes, a year which started with me confined to a wheelchair and stuck in the house with a shattered ankle. Now look at me, walking about aimlessly like a big boy, again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My footfalls, which now omit the ‘drag’ and have become just a steady ‘thump, thump, thump,’ carried me to the shoreline of the Allegheny River and the popular waterfront trail mentioned above.
The plan was to hang a left on the trail, and follow a more or less northwesterly path to either the 31st or 40th street bridges upriver. From there, I’d then cross the river and hang a right, following one of the avenue streets back downtown where I’d catch a ride back to HQ on the T at one of the downtown area stations.
About 6-7 miles, this plan, ended up being about 6.5 miles ultimately. Some interesting stuff was encountered along the way, but as stated – this was an exercise walk which would provide opportunities for photography – rather than the other way around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An access ramp for wheelchair users to access the baseball stadium from the riverfront trail is adorned with a series of numbers fabricated from steel. Apparently, these are historical and retired numbers which were worn by hall of fame members of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Me? I just thought it looked neat, and I wanted to check out how the ramp functioned, given my recent acquaintance with the challenges of losing your mobility.
To be fair, though, I was always the singular voice in Western Queens who asked ‘what about people in wheelchairs’ when the bike people were shouting and accusing car owners of existing in a ‘state of pre murder.’
When I was on the Astoria community board in NYC, I actually boxed the bike people in during one meeting when a statement from the Deputy ‘Commish’ of the DOT included the phrase ‘all electric and human powered wheeled vehicles will be welcome in the Crescent Street Bike Lane.’ I asked ‘so… the one big wheel skateboard things… they’re welcome too?’ They said ‘yes.’ ‘Scooters?’ I asked. ‘Yes.’ ‘What about electric wheelchairs?’
The DOT people got up and huddled in the corner, having a quick meeting of whispers. They came back and said ‘yes.’
The ‘death eyes’ stare I got from the Transportation Alternatives crowd and their allies in NYC DOT is something that still makes me giggle, years later. Ableist iceholes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One continued on his lonely way, filthy black raincoat flapping about in the breeze. It was cold in Pittsburgh, and overcast. This time around, I was relistening to another old favorite in my audio books collection – a podcast by a fellow named Mike Duncan called ‘The History of Rome.’
On did I scuttle…
Back next week with more – 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.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 