Posts Tagged ‘Birmingham Bridge’
Down, up, over
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described in prior posts, your humble narrator was recently cavitating through a section of Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood known as ‘Millionaires Row’ along Fifth Avenue. The latter byway then offered me egress through the Oakland section, whereupon I arrived at the veritable edge of this parcel of reality.
Fifth Avenue offers vehicle traffic an entrance to a high speed arterial road, called I-376, known colloquially as the ‘Parkway ‘east’ or ‘west.’ A particular annoyance for me is that there is no accommodation in place for pedestrians or bike riders to cross at the entrance ramp to this parkway, so you have to just wait for a break in the never ending stream of automobile traffic bleeding off the local grid and then onto 376. Dangerous.
Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In this section of the country, the Governments need to install signage adjuring ‘no pedestrians’ or ‘motor vehicles only’ at on ramps for high speed roads. It may seem like overkill, that, but there’s a pretty sizable Amish and Mennonite population hereabouts. You don’t see them too often in the city, but they’re out there riding about in their horse drawn buggies. It’s also not uncommon for me to see some ‘english’ dude walking along the highway’s service lane or on the other side of the guard rails either, I’d mention.
For the Amish, everyone who’s not ‘Dutch’ is ‘English.’
It’s similar to the way that NYC’s Hasidim see the world: you’re either ‘Jewish’ or you’re ‘Goyem.’ Even other Jews, from different sects, are considered to be ‘goys’ to the fundamentalist eyes of the Hasidim.
Fundamentalists, huh? A bad joke from the neighborhood I grew up in, which was on the border of one of the Orthodox’s ‘zones’ in Midwood, was ‘Now Hasidim, now ya don’t.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inviting pathway, no?
After following this pavement, and then being forced to cross against traffic at a bridge’s off ramps – because a cross walk was occupied entirely by idle construction equipment – one negotiated the shattered pavement of the Uptown area, and began to make my way towards the pedestrian entrance of the Birmingham Bridge.
There’s a lot of obstacles, and zero signage. Luckily, I’ve walked this section before and knew where to go. I was being eyeballed by a ‘creature of the street’ so it was decided to walk a little bit faster in order to avoid trouble.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s actually startling how few intentional pedestrians there are here, outside of areas like Oakland. It’s all about the motor vehicle in Pittsburgh.
I’m famously not an ideologue on this subject, but it’s quite startling.
It’s probably because parking is fairly easy in this city. Odds are you’ll find a free or meter spot pretty close to where you’re going, except Downtown or Oakland where you have to pay for the privilege in a garage. Even then, this is not NYC, so commercial parking seldom costs more than $10 – and usually it’s less than that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Me? I like leaving the car at home in the driveway when I can, and getting around on foot. Since I don’t have to worry about getting back to the parked car, thereby, I’m free to wander and indulge in serendipity.
Additionally, if I want to stop off at a bar at the end of the walk and have a beer or two (which is often) I can without having to worry about intoxicated driving.
As you can see, I made it to the Birmingham Bridge. I took the opportunity for a quick ‘sit down’ on that concrete barrier that the lamp posts are attached to, and changed lenses. The zoom lens went into the bag, and a wide angle 16mm prime lens was affixed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crepuscular Rays. That’s what those shafts of sunlight penetrating the clouds are called. You’re looking at the Monongahela River, which is likely pretty familiar to long time readers at this point.
I was heading over towards the South Side Works area, which would then place me within the East Carson street corridor. Both areas have a surfeit of bars and restaurants, and thereby there’s a fairly thriving nightlife economy. East Carson operates and looks a lot like first or second avenue did back in NYC’s East Village.
As mentioned, I was meeting up with Our Lady of the Pentacle for a dinner out, which is a fairly rare thing for us these days. We normally cook at home, in a nicely sized suburban style kitchen.
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.
Gap Trail: Homestead to South Side, part 3
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator broke off of the Great Allegheny Passage trail during a walk from Homestead to the South Side Flats, briefly, to find somebody willing to sell me a Gatorade nearby the South Side Works development, here in Pittsburgh.
Another ‘used to be a steel mill’ and ‘redeveloped as a mixed use retail/residential zone’ sort of place, this South Side Works area is. CSX’s tracks flow through an underground tunnel here, which you can definitely tell when one is passing beneath the pavement.
Having soon attained a beverage, one set out of the last leg of this scuttle. My Dracula adaptation had run its course, in my headphones, and I opted to pocket the audio device for the remainder of the day.
Situational awareness. This is the start of an area which I colloquially refer to as ‘Junkie Town.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This warm and somewhat humid day was a perfect one for slurping a pint or two of beer, thought I, and then soon reacquired the GAP trail. Passing under the Birmingham Bridge, pictured above and then to the South Side Flats neighborhood towards the Sly Fox Brewery, which is often mentioned here. Sly Fox also happens to sit along a choke point in CSX’s Pittsburgh – or Keystone – Subdivision, with frequent rail traffic.
There were lots of people clustering around the water, and interacting with a loathsome specie of feathered reptile which kids call ‘Canada Goose.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d guess that the photos embedded in these posts from this scuttle represent about five to six miles of distance by this point, but I wasn’t keeping count on this particular day. Now that I don’t have to report progress to a Doctor anymore, it’s a lot less important for me to know it was four miles, or six miles, or whatever.
I’m probably going to buy a bike sometime in the next year, just to increase my range, but I’ll offer my usual complaint about bikes which is the same one that I do about cars – you’re traveling too fast to actually see where you are and you miss the interesting stuff. Things just shoot by you too quickly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is what most of the trail looked like on this stretch, a long and unremarkable vegetation tunnel. At least it was shady.
As I understand it, caring for these trails is a largely volunteer effort, although governmentally sourced from ‘Uncle Sugar’ or the Commonwealth are used for equipment and consumables, like the salt used for de-icing the path during winter months. The volunteers also have to regularly deal with landslide materials which migrate down from the prominences.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, I managed to scuttle out from the boring section of the walk to a more interesting section of the City, nearby the South Tenth Street Bridge and the Color Park. As mentioned above, I was already thinking about what I would order when arriving at the Sly Fox Brewery.
I also figured I’d be shooting a bunch of trains while there, so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Color Park is where you’re supposed to do graffiti or street art in Pittsburgh, and people take advantage of that in the same way that they used to at LIC’s 5ptz, or still do at Astoria’s Welling Court back in Queens.
Back tomorrow with the Choo-Choo’s.
“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.
Looking totally ‘Sus’
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ask anyone who knows me, your humble narrator always leans a bit paranoid. Part of it is that even as a child, old ladies would clutch their purses when I walked by. It’s all ‘vibe,’ I guess. If you saw me walking towards you the first thing you’d think is ‘wtf’? Accordingly, one is always quite aware of the fact that I’m being watched by suspicious eyes and acknowledgment of that fact is an admission of how ‘sus’ it must look when I stride or drive up somewhere and then whip out a camera with a huge telephoto lens. Ain’t normal. I’ve got rules, thereby, to govern my actions.
The shot above is an exception to one of these rules, and there are many rules, as it depicts a private home. The only reason it caught my interest is that it’s at the dead end of two streets, and its back yard fencing separates the property from a rail yard and the river.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I prefer large and somewhat anonymous chunks of infrastructure as a subject, as in the case of the Birmingham Bridge over the Monongahela River – pictured above. Nobody is going to emerge from the bridge with a shot gun to keep me from cracking out a shot or two. Ok, maybe the cops, but they mainly use pistols and assault rifles these days.
After a bit of exploring in Hazelwood, I had driven across the river on a different bridge and was picking my way along the south side of the river in a generally homeward direction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For all of the posts you saw this last summer and spring that involved Pittsburgh’s ‘City Steps,’ that’s the landform which the steps that I’ve so far focused in on are set into. Won’t be chancing any journeys of that type for a while, as the broken ankle continues to heal.
As far as that drama goes: the Surgeon is happy with the X-Ray, the Physical Therapist is happy with my progress, and it looks like the whole “PT” experience will be wrapping up at the end of January – barring any mishaps. I’m able to walk again, although with a bit of a limp.
Saying all that – the car will be coming with me for photowalking duties, and for a while.
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.
Temere trio
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s been an entirely odd last few weeks for a humble narrator, and my daily round keeps finding me inhabiting odd corners of Pittsburgh. Hence, three utterly unconnected images greet you today. Pictured above is the milieu as observed from the South Side Flats region, looking towards the Monongahela River and the Birmingham Bridge spanning it.
This area is a former industrial zone, as is most of Pittsburgh, one which has converted over (mostly) to residential and commercial usages. Old factory and warehouse buildings become condos and lofts, hardware stores become restaurants and remaining legacy businesses try to hold on as the tides flow through.
Sounds familiar, no? Et tu, Long Island City?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the foot of the Hill District on the ‘golden triangle,’ the St. Benedict the Moor church is hard to miss. This one looks (theoretically) southwards towards the Monongahela River.
I was practically standing on a ‘red line’ right here, wherein racial segregation occurred and a majority black neighborhood was destroyed in the name of building a hockey stadium and a highway interchange, several decades ago. Sometimes, knowing historical facts just makes you angrier and angrier.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one was closer to HQ, and shot from the back seat of a cab which I was using to get to an event where there would be alcoholic beverages served. I’ve been pretty hardcore about the not ‘drinking and driving’ thing, and sound almost like a Protestant missionary on the subject. It’s pretty common for people to throw back a few belts and get behind the wheel here, which is a scary situation to me, but then again I’m still new here.
Back tomorrow with something else – 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.
Perdidit in civitate aliena
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, an attempt at a long walk, on a very hot day, saw me circumcising the effort down to a short walk. You’ve got to acknowledge and respect the environmental conditions.
These shots are from where Pittsburgh’s Birmingham Bridge meets the ‘Uptown’ section of the city. There’s an emergency bridge reconstruction project underway hereabouts, a project which was spurred on by the collapse of the nearby Fern Hollow Bridge in 2022 and a raft of Federal funding.
I love this sort of chaotic place. The construction guys and gals are artists and they don’t even realize it, with all of the signs, and the high visibility gear, and the tarps cladding the job sites.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking through the bridge’s ramps, that curving roadway leads towards the Oakland neighborhood with its universities, museums, churches, and other cultural centers. The lower ramp carries I-279 out toward the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, and then continues to points east. The bridge receiving the emergency repairs is the one with the tarps on it, quite obviously.
Infrastructure, amirite?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Right after this shot was gathered, my phone came out of the pocket and the planned route went out the window. I figured out a more wholesome pathway which wouldn’t put me at risk of heat stroke, but there was no way that I wasn’t going to be cooking in the sun for a bit.
A humble narrator was screwed in terms of shade, given where I was, and I’d just have to suck it up and walk in the direct sunlight for at least a mile. Thing about ‘back home’ was that – with very few exceptions – multi story buildings cast broad shadows that you can use that to your advantage on hot days. Large structures also cast ‘rain shadows,’ but I digress…
I pulled the brim of that Costco brand $15 bucket style hat I’ve been wearing low down over my face, and then just leaned into it.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 