Posts Tagged ‘Birmingham Bridge’
Urban Anaphylaxis can be shocking
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing today with a medium length scuttle, one that started at the edge of ‘The Hill’ neighborhood and now continues into the ‘Uptown’ section of Pittsburgh in today’s post.
I’ve been really trying to not ‘deep dive’ into history these days, after spending fifteen years doing so at Newtown Creek. Saying that, I’m led to believe – by the various texts which I’m definitely not diving into – that Uptown was historically a working class and largely Jewish neighborhood. That changed in the post steel environment, and there’s a lot of abandoned and decrepit buildings found there now.
Supposedly, a redevelopment scheme is afoot. Hope so, as this ‘zone’ is fortuitously placed between the very busy and wealthy Oakland and the office buildings of Downtown Pittsburgh. Hope that there’s a plan to include the people who are living here now in this redevelopment… ha, see what I did there – expressed hope that things wouldn’t work out as awfully as they probably will… lol.
It’s got negatives, Uptown does, notably being hemmed in by a couple of nearby and quite busy highway interchanges. It’s also currently kind of ‘crimey,’ according to local residents with whom I’ve conversed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A dead end street called Allequippa sits on the border between ‘The Hill’ and ‘Uptown,’ and one became intrigued by that yellow house for some reason.
‘Keep on keeping on’ is one of my mottoes, though, so one scuttled forth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d be walking over the Birmingham Bridge (pictured above) to the other side of the Monongahela River soon enough, but a few blocks of adjustment to the path were required to aim my carcass at the entrance of its pedestrian lane. Just out of frame to the left, in the shot above, was a homeless encampment of some size and sophistication.
Negotiating the street crossing here is not a comfortable experience, I’d mention. A high volume intersection, with vehicle traffic pouring off of that bridge and also out of Oakland. Luckily, this walk took place on Thanksgiving Weekend, and the city of Pittsburgh was largely empty and somewhat depopulated. Made me miss Covid, actually, this walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An intriguing industrial building, seemingly empty, sits at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and the Birmingham Bridge. Burrell Scientific is the name on the painted sign, which also promises availability of all sorts of scientific laboratory related glass products from the company.
According to Google’s AI:
Burrell Scientific is permanently closed and was formerly located in the Uptown area of Pittsburgh at 2223 5th Ave. While the original company is gone, its legacy lives on through its products, such as the iconic Wrist Action® Shaker, which are still available through other suppliers like Reagents. There are also related companies like Burrell Corporation, which is headquartered in the city but focuses on technology solutions, not laboratory equipment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, lots of abandoned buildings can be observed here in Uptown. I’ve been told by people who live here that it can be a rough section to live in, particularly so at night.
All will be mended, however, by affordable housing and the loving embrace and good intentions of the real estate industrial complex. Look how great that worked out in Brooklyn and Queens, with the whole ‘affordable housing’ dealie. What could go wrong?
Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inexorably, one scuttled on. Thump, drag, thump, drag… I try to be aware of the position of the busted ankle while shlepping along. Habit sees me falling back into the sort of gait which emerged during my invalid interval. Thump right foot, drag left foot, etc.
A bit of mental discipline asserts itself here, and an attempt to force the rebelling body parts into obeisance to the command organ is made.
Thump, thump, thump, indeed.
More tomorrow.
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Hill, and dale
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular scuttle began on the corner of Reed and Kirkpatrick Streets, here in Pittsburgh. This intersection is found at the edge of a neighborhood called ‘The Hill.’ Kirkpatrick Street in particular has interested me when driving along its length, due to the near complete abandonment of its building lots. A rideshare was used to drop me off here, and your humble narrator soon found himself kicking dirt and scuttling downwards towards the Monongahela River.
The Hill District is somewhat analogous (yup, comparing Pittsburgh to NYC again, me) to Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, or Harlem in Manhattan, as far as its cultural significance to the local African American Community. I’m largely ignorant regarding its story.
Visitpittburgh.com offers this primer, but the story of this neighborhood is something that academic careers, and a good amount of jurisprudence, are based on upon. Politics surrounding this topic are apparently generational and quite volatile.
I’m just walking here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Kirkpatrick Street winds down the side of a geographic prominence, heading in a southerly direction towards the bluffs of the Monongahela River, and the Birmingham Bridge which spans it. Oakland, with its universities and hospitals, is just to the east. Downtown, with its office towers and governmental outposts, is to the west. Uptown, with its busted streets and abandoned tenements, lurks squamously at the base of the steep hill which Kirkpatrick twirls about on. Other side of the river? Glad you asked.
Yeah… everything is starting to come into focus.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My stride was halted upon encountering this stout iron cage, affixed to a storm sewer’s open drain. This was peculiar, as its design seemed to lean more towards keeping something inside of the sewer pipe, rather than keeping things out of it. Curious.
What? You don’t notice sewer infrastructure when out and about?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A small Baptist church was observed, tucked into an odd sized lot, and it caught my eye for some reason. Looking out into the verge from either side of the road, building foundations and the remnants of retaining walls were observed.
Your humble narrator was once again the singular pedestrian, incidentally. Plenty of vehicle traffic passed me by, but the only person walking about was encased in a filthy black raincoat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weather has turned cold here in Pittsburgh, and this was the first walk of the year in which I had to wear ‘long John’s.’ That’s a layer of thermal underwear, for the colloquially or sartorially challenged. Beyond the underwear, I was encased in my normal mass of swirling black sackcloth, festooned with secure pockets. I’ve lost count of how many there are at this point… pants have something like 8 velcro sealable pockets and the sweatshirt offers 19 zippered/velcro pockets as well as channels for me to run headphone wires through the thing. Local area network guy, that’s me.
A fuligin shroud which adorns and protects the delicate skinvelope of the decaying pre-corpse which ferries my brain about, that’s what my ‘couture’ is. I consider the brain to be ‘me,’ as in that’s where the perception of consciousness resides – ‘between the ears and behind the eyes’ – whereas the jangly limbs and obtuse chemical factory in the belly and chest are perceived as being somehow external to the operation (until something goes wrong). I’m all ‘effed up.
I had the camera bag strapped across my back, of course, and the camera itself was being ‘worn’ beneath the raincoat to protect it from prying eyes, and possible precipitation. I was also wearing the flash orange ball cap which has become my regular ‘cover’ these days. ‘Cover’ is soldier talk for a hat, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator was deeply involved with one of his self deprecating internal monologues, literally beating himself up about something ugly which occurred several decades ago. Whether it was actually my fault or not, I’ve decided to take personal credit as having been the villain of that story. I doubt the other parties would even remember the conflict all these years later.
Regrets, I’ve got a few.
Y’know, this is why I always thought it was silly to assign readings of Dostoyevsky or Camus to students under the age of 20. Regret? What can you possibly regret at that age, as nothing has actually happened to you yet and you haven’t had the time to really screw up enough to cause lasting harm to others?
Late 50’s? Yeah…
Back next week with more – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Always heading nowhere
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Aimlessly wandering down Pittsburgh’s East Carson street with Our Lady of the Pentacle, in the south side flats area of Pittsburgh, where the ghostly outline of a former structure was spotted on the wall of an 1888 vintage merchant’s building. It made me want to deep dive a bit into the history thereof, but I stopped myself.
Sometime in the future, I’ll use my magnifying glass to study the historic building stock found along this corridor, its story, and learn about all the ‘once, long ago, used to be…’ but that’s not today.
The rest of the walk was uneventful, and then we headed back to HQ, where Moe the Dog awaited.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Separately, we were wandering around Pittsburgh’s Dormont during the evening of a different day, Dormont being where Newtown Pentacle HQ is currently found, and the T light rail suddenly exploded into view.
I cannot stop myself, so… HEY NOW!
Our Lady and myself were going out for dinner at a local burger joint, one which offers a fantastic happy hour menu if you sit at their bar. I had a bourbon/apple cider cocktail that ‘rocked the bells,’ alongside a double smash burger. Yum.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot, depicting the Sterling Street steps, which I returned to with Our Lady in tow (she’s caught the bug for exploring the steps), was shot in a manner that attempts to visually describe the PTSD symptoms I’ve been experiencing when traversing stairs, since breaking my ankle on a set of steps at home last year. It kind of looks like this to me, that moment when the blossom of terror opens.
Enough of all that personal terror and weakness, though, it was a beautiful day and that was the focal point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One truly odd holdover from that experience is that due to all of the opioid pain killers that the Docs were feeding me after the surgery, my memory of this exact period (approx. September to November) from last year is extremely fragmented, or nonexistent. I’m missing about 5-6 weeks of time.
Constant agony, yes. That I remember.
I promise I’ll eventually stop talking about this. Don’t worry, something else that’s horrible or profound will happen to me and then that’ll be my new ‘thing’ to worry about. Sigh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our final set of stairs for the day were attained, and we returned to more or less flat ground at the bottom of the hill. The rest of our walk would be mundane, visiting shops and eating lunch, along the commercial corridor of East Carson Street in the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh, which brings you back to the first photo and the end of the the last steps story.
It was nice having company for a scuttle, must say. I used to sell tickets in NYC to groups of people who wanted to walk around with me. Narrators need to narrate, occasionally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Eventually, we found ourselves at the shoreline of the Monongahela River, nearby the Birmingham Bridge. It was time to head back to HQ again, and Moe the Dog. He’s sort of our constant, Moe.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“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 level ground
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator was highly satiated and satisfied by scuttling the spectacular Sterling Street Steps in Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes section, as described in prior posts. The subsequence of this walk played out on the way downhill, and then into the South Side Flats area. I was already thinking about photographing trains.
Saying that, what a fascinating place this neighborhood must be to live. Challenging, though.
What if you drop an apple or orange on your way back from shopping?
The tumbling cultivar might build up enough momentum, rolling down that hill, to achieve ballistic speeds. You wouldn’t expect that, an orange moving faster than the speed of sound smacking into you. That’s ‘how they get ya.’
Also, as you’ll recall from a few posts ago, I’m quite concerned about the idea of Diurnal Vampires – Day Walkers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just like back in NYC’s Queens, all those centuried waves of immigration to Pittsburgh have also allowed egress for hordes of parasitic ghouls, devils, and all the horrors that bedeviled these populations in the old world who followed their victims overseas. These entities have long set up shop here in the Republic.
Vampires are just part of the ‘evil equation,’ and luckily they’re pretty rare. You can’t have too many human hunters in one area, even in NYC, for the same reason that Tigers are solitary and have to maintain huge hunting ranges. A wolf, for instance, needs to consume 5-7 pounds of meat a day. Too many predator vampires, not enough blood. Basic economics suggest thereby that the price of keeping a human alive prior to exsanguination becomes expensive, and inflated. Best to spread out.
There’s persistent local legend here in Western PA., about ‘hill people’ who secretly inhabit the larger Appalachian region – as in they’re cannibalistic ‘people’ who live inside, and under, the hills who grab and carry away kids and hikers from the woods. It doesn’t get talked about.
Actually, Lore Lodge recently did discuss it extensively.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wittering and worrying about the armies of the night on a brightly lit afternoon just speaks so much about my psychology… I can find a ray of darkness in any point of light…
This part of Pittsburgh was extensively mined in the 18th and 19th century. Mount Washington, which is the landform that these steps are set into, used to be called ‘Coal Hill.’
Coal mines that were abandoned, even the ones which the State environmental people know about, are a real problem in these parts.
About a year ago, some poor woman and her dog were swallowed up by a sink hole that spontaneously subsided in their back yard. That hole dropped them down about 40 feet into an old coal mine which nobody knew about. The lady died, but the dog was rescued by Fire Dept. personnel. Concrete was poured into the mine’s void and the ground restored.
It seems that you didn’t need to file a building plan with the local Government, back to the 1830’s and most of the way to the 20th century, when you wanted to start digging into the verge in search of fortune. Lots and lots of small scale mining activity happened below the surface, and no records were left behind of the subterrene corridors, columns, and chambers which were carved out and then abandoned.
Pennsylvania has maps of the abandoned mines which are known to exist, but every Academic and Authority bemoans that it’s incomplete.
Beyond these abandoned voids allowing a place for the ‘Hill People’ and other legends to congregate and lurk in fuligin darkness, abandoned mines also produce acid runoff and other environmental hazards. Good news is that Pennsylvania leads the nation in terms of mushroom harvest.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A rickety steel bridge at Mission Street, overflying a park and also neighboring a municipal water pumping facility, marked my turn off from the Sterling Street Steps and corridor. From this point out, it was all fairly familiar ground.
The plan from here out was to really lean into my strides and walk as quickly as I could, these days. Flat ground was nearby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve walked down South 18th street quite a few times. Steeply graded, South 18th’s severely angled pavements have helped me regain the strength in my calves after the broken ankle incident.
South Side Flats isn’t an area where I’ll worry about esoteric things like Ghasts or Day Walkers, instead I’m looking out for the ‘dope sick’ and desperate who might decide to try and take something from me to feed their habits.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Were I younger, and I mean in my early thirties, the South Side Flats would have been where I wanted to settle here in Pittsburgh. A nearby commercial street is full of restaurants, bars, nightlife. Great spot. Lots of junkies, street people, and tons of ‘law and order’ trouble at night, however. Very much reminds me of First Avenue or Avenue A in NYC’s East Village.
I’m old, though, so we moved to the suburbs, and just come down here when a night out is desired.
My toes had already pointed in the direction of the Sly Fox Brewery, where a pint of beer and – hopefully – a bunch of CSX trains would be waiting for me for the price of walking another mile or so.
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.
Skedaddling through the sky
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A wide angle 16mm prime lens had been affixed to my camera while walking over the Birmingham Bridge, which spans the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh, and an attempt was made to tap into the lens’ potential.
You have to be mindful, with a lens like this, of weird optical distortions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s one of them now.
It really matters where the ‘what’ you focus on is ‘in’ the frame with this lens, due to severe barrel distortion. A hemispheric knob of glass forms the lens’ objective, rather than a flat element on the face of the thing.
I wasn’t listening to anything interesting on this walk, preferring to stay cognizant of my surroundings while moving through an area of urban density.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot with the wide angle lens, as I crossed over the bridge and got to the south side of the river. I sat down again, and refitted a zoom lens to the camera. Options.
I looked down and saw a set of rail tracks, thinking to myself that it would be super cool if a train came through just then.
Then I heard a train’s horn…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX was rolling through, hauling a line of mineral cars. Y’know what? It was ‘super cool.’
Sorry, but I’m going to have to say this bit again…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It looks like coal, or maybe ‘coke,’ which is cooked coal. I don’t know for sure, and long practice has taught me not to make assumptions about the things I see and photograph. I can say pretty categorically that it’s ‘minerals’ in those train cars.
This is a practice which I learned to follow on the fabulous Newtown Creek, which is that ‘unless you know for a fact what ‘something’ is, don’t try to ‘sound smart’ and guess.’ The hardest thing in the world for someone like me is to just utter the phrase ‘I don’t know.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a quick stop off at a Saloon for a rehydrating pint of Guinness, accompanied by a quick sit down and conversation with some amiable company, one set off for the final destination of the evening – a restaurant and pub which specialized in British food, of the specifically Scottish variety. Our Lady of the Pentacle is from England, so… homeland chow for her.
Back tomorrow with something different – 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 