The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Jesus Christ! Mary, Mother of God!

I was walking around the periphery of the campus enjoyed by Duquesne University, and this statuary is part of the Catholic University’s outdoor collection. It’s the centerpiece of a memorial for lost WW2 soldiers who were former Duquesne Students, that’s dubbed as ‘The Victory Garden.’

Here’s a shot of the signage, and here’s a page from American Legion about it. Couldn’t find the name of the sculptor, and I did look.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I negotiated my way from the statuary, and started heading back to the non-campus streets. They were fairly steep.

This section of my day was ‘phase one’ of a longer scuttle – which would play out all day and frankly – exhaust me. By the time I got back home, it was a quick dinner and then early to bed. I’ve mentioned that it’s gotten a bit warm around these parts, even so back in early May when these shots were gathered. It pretty much went directly from Spring to Summer in Pittsburgh, seemingly overnight.

Yes, the Newtown Pentacle time warp is indeed still in effect. Shots are from May 11, words are being typed on June 8. If my scheduling is correct, this post publishes on July 10, a Friday. From my current point of view, you’re ‘wizard’ as you know how the future comes out.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One found himself at the edge of another high speed road that was busted through an urban landscape, in the name of progress and traffic flow. This is an older example of this sort of urban renewal, called the Crosstown Boulevard (and it’s one which Robert Moses had a hand in creating!).

Crosstown Boulevard is a road in a trench, which is connected to multiple enormous concrete and steel ramps. It leads into the center of the City, through an area where urban renewal went horribly wrong to the north, then goes through a different area destroyed by urban renewal in the center of the city (pictured today), then branches off in multiple directions towards more examples of the sort of blight which urban renewal projects often bring found to the east, south, and north.

Pennsylvania is actually still up to this sort of nonsense, and is building a brand new tolled highway not too far away from here, which is blighting its way through neighborhoods and businesses all in the name of the common good, and it is dubbed the ‘Mon Fayette Expressway.’

Wow. Learn from history. Please.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s a section of the Crosstown Boulevard complex pictured above.

It forms the western border of the Bluff/Uptown/Duquesne Campus.

According to Google’s AI, dubbed Gemini, there are approximately 45,000 to 52,000 vehicles trips through this corridor every day. Admittedly, I’m often driving one of those vehicles, as this is how I get ‘there’ from ‘here’ a bunch. Don’t want to stand on a soapbox about this subject without admitting that I’m a sinner too.

Thing is, this used to be a productive part of Pittsburgh with office buildings and homes. Instead of organic privately based capital growth, you’ve instead got a thoroughfare designed to have people drive their money quickly away from Downtown Pittsburgh towards a distant suburb, and they’re going to spend it there instead of where they earned it.

That economic dog don’t hunt.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It legitimately sucks to be a pedestrian hereabouts, walking blocks and blocks just to get around all the highway ramps.

Funny thing is that Pittsburgh City Hall is only a few blocks away from this spot. All the politicians will tell you how ‘walkable’ Pittsburgh is. The surrounding architecture in this part of Pittsburgh is what I describe as ‘inhuman.’

Monolithic, building campuses are set back great distances from both the curb and sidewalk, with humanity incidental to and not welcomed into the designs. I’ve offered observations about the inhumanity of Philip Johnson’s PPG plaza before.

‘Opinions are just like ‘iceholes,’ everyone’s got one.’ My dad used to say that in a more colorful fashion, usually when I scolded him for driving too slow back in Brooklyn.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

At the bottom of the Bluff, pretty much directly beneath that crazy set of metal ‘City Steps’ I was standing on in yesterday’s post, some 10-12 stories above, is the Armstrong Tunnel.

This bit of infrastructure had been under construction for the first couple of the years I’ve spent here in Pittsburgh, but Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself actually had scuttled through it before, during an ‘Open Streets’ day in May of 2024.

This tunnel was going to be how this particular chicken got to the other side, I had decided, as it’s got a dedicated and protected bike and pedestrian lane with concrete separation from vehicle traffic. Win!

Back next week with more – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.

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