Posts Tagged ‘Bloomfield’
Penn Avenue and the Doughboy
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, Pittsburgh has started showing me ‘cool cars’ on my walks, although in this case it was a fire engine red scooter. Must have been hard to find a color matching helmet. Also, speaking as an ex-New Yorker – you just leave your helmet outside on the bike?
Really, people leave their cars and homes unlocked out here. Sometimes, you’ll encounter a car in a lot, with a running engine and the driver’s side door either ajar or wide open, just sitting there ready for stealing. I’m from Brooklyn – and often – my challenge in Pittsburgh is not doing any of the Brooklyn things – even if it’s just to ‘teach you a lesson.’
This is Pittsburgh’s ‘Sixth Ward,’ incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This ‘sixth ward scuttle’ of mine was steadily moving down Pittsburgh’s Penn Avenue, and I was specifically in the Lawrenceville section at this stage. One of the landmarks along the route is a memorial to the 3,100 soldiers from the sixth ward who were lost during WW1.
They call this ‘Doughboy Park.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This statuary is found at 34th street and Penn Avenue. It’s used as a landmark by the locals, I’m told. A ‘meet me at…’ sort of thing.
I enjoyed a quick sit down, and then rose back up to complete the day’s constitutional. Now that I can reliably walk again, I just can’t get enough of the activity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking to the north, there’s that industrial zone in which we took a walk back in April, with this shot offering a nearly opposite view from the perspectives offered above. Notice that rail trestle against the tree line, that’s right about where I was walking in this post.
It’s time for an ankle talk – It seems that I’ve overcome the pronounced limping which saw me walking around like the Batman villain Penguin for a while. Striding is back. Things still get weird when steps are on the menu, and my biggest ‘ankle hangover’ problem at the moment involves small and discrete movements of the foot during locomotion. For instance: stepping on a raised sidewalk seam and having my foot rotate forward, or back, can often turn into a bit of an ordeal. Heavily sloped surfaces moving upwards and away from me remains an issue as well.
It’s been a year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s part of the 33rd street rail bridge which that school bus is passing under. This is one of those transitional zones, what I used to describe as the ‘angle between neighborhoods’ back in NYC. On the other side of the bridge, it’s the start of the ‘Strip District.’
I was going all the way downtown, so this was basically the middle point of the walk, about 2 and change miles in. These days, I shoot for five or six miles at a pop. Hopefully, by the time it gets well and truly cold I’ll be averaging seven to eight miles rather than five to six. Given where things were for me at the start of 2025, I’m just glad to be able to do whatever the hell I want to do, whenever the hell I want to do it again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 31st street Bridge, and here’s another view of it from Rialto Street, and another one from a walk over the thing.
Back tomorrow with more.
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Kicking dirt in Bloomfield
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This latest of scuttles began in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield section, which is aka Little Italy.
One had summoned a rideshare to transport my carcass from Dormont to this spot, in pursuance of executing a medium length constitutional walk. All summer long, I’ve been picking spots along several of the major ‘avenues’ found on Pittsburgh’s ‘Golden Triangle’ and then following where my toes were pointing towards the titular center of things downtown, where that triangle forms it’s acute point.
This scuttle started here, and then proceeded downtown.
It was a lovely August day in Pittsburgh, with temperatures in the low 80’s and a tolerable level of humidity. I stuck to the shady side of the street whenever possible, however. Travel was light, with a single zoom lens on the camera, and a couple of primes in my camera bag.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the gateway to Bloomfield pictured above, but I was heading in the opposite direction and away from it. Bloomfield is fairly urban in character, with street level shops and small multi unit rental buildings sharing the streets with private homes, medical facilities, and the occasional large apartment building. Its street setup is what I’d describe as ‘Philadelphia style’ with fairly narrow sidewalks flowing past row houses.
This isn’t a dissertation on Bloomfield, by the way, rather it’s a set of surface level observations. I’ve occasionally found myself out here for a doctor’s appointment or something similar, but I don’t know anyone who lives here nor have I spent anytime in the neighborhood socializing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One proceeded to take a series of random turns at the corners, heading in the general direction of a street called ‘Penn Avenue.’ That would become my singular path all the way to the downtown area, but sometimes there’s virtue in getting a little bit lost.
Those narrow sidewalks don’t have room for street trees, which was kind of surprising. Notice that the ‘one way’ sign at top left of the shot above is attached to the building rather than being set upon a pole.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a few blocks of right/left right/left, my accursed footsteps were striking pavement on the aforementioned Penn Avenue. A firehouse had its door open, so… that’s the Pittsburgh Fire Dept.’s Engine 6 pictured above.
Now, I should mention that this walk was part of a larger plan which I cooked up while sitting in that wheelchair last year, one designed to increase my knowledge of the streets and learn what’s what and where it is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lawrenceville. That’s the neighborhood I had just wandered into from Bloomfield. Now… remember when I walked through Lawrenceville earlier in the summer, and then scuttled along one of its ‘way’ streets just a few weeks later… and then there was ‘Bigelow Boulevard’ and then also ‘Polish Hill’?
Bloomfield is a plateau on top of a hill. Lawrenceville is found on the sloping bottom of the hill of that plateau. Polish Hill and Bigelow Boulevard ride along the top of the hill, and in this series of posts – we are moving along the middle of that hill.
Dear lord, it’s all starting to make sense…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the way.
Explore, photograph, research. Go back for more, learn more based on observation. Research, observe, photograph, go deeper, learn more…
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.
Corduroy City
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The streets and layout of Pittsburgh reject all notion of a grid, due to the unique nature of the terrain here. Recent endeavor found your humble narrator gassing up the car, while out and about, whereupon the point of view above was noticed. I grabbed the camera and waved it around a bit.
The church in the shot above is the 1905 vintage Immaculate Heart of Mary RC church, and if you want a closer look at the exterior of the thing – check out this January of 2023 post. That’s Downtown Pittsburgh rearing up behind Polish Hill. I believe that I was in the Bloomfield section when capturing these shots, which I’m told used to be the ‘EyeTalian’ section ‘back in the day.’
The valley between is spanned by a local high speed road called ‘Bigelow Boulevard,’ which climbs the hills away from the shallows of downtown.
Down below in the valley there’s a Busway (I think) and a series of rail tracks mainly used by Norfolk Southern and Amtrak. Haven’t explored the zone down there yet, so I can’t speak intelligently about it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Same location, looking in a mostly easterly direction away from downtown. Our Lady of the Pentacle was with me, and we were heading for a destination that was a bit of a drive. Not far in terms of distance, but it would all be local streets we needed to cross so traffic lights and all that would slow our progress. A couple of miles were occluded by the preferences of the bicycle people, with speed humps and the bumped out corners and painted lines that form a slalom course. Not a single bicycle person was observed using this infrastructure, although it was fun watching buses and trucks navigate the obstacle course.
We hopped back into the car after the gas station and headed towards our destination in the neighborhood of Swissvale. Found along the Monongahela River, Swissvale is neighbored by Rankin, Braddock, and is just across the river – Homestead and Duquesne. This is a fairly depressed area, in terms of quality of life and economic opportunity – I’m told – but truth be told it reminds me a lot of late 1970’s and early 1980’s Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Swissvale greeted us with easy street parking, and a massive agglutination of potholes marring the road. The pothole/road condition thing is a real hazard here, due to Pittsburgh’s atmospheric conditions and an Appalachian terrain, the underlying soil is almost always moist. Get the air temperatures down and that moisture freezes, causing the street to buckle. When it warms, the asphalt breaks up and a pothole or sinkhole forms.
About six years ago, a sinkhole swallowed a bus downtown.
Back tomorrow with why we came to Swissvale.
“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.
chamber of
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle headed back to NYC in the same manner that she arrived, by airline. I dropped off the rental car at the airport and headed back into the City of Pittsburgh in a cab, as I would be heading home the following morning via Amtrak. As a note – I don’t have a phobia about flying, instead I just don’t like it. I hate being treated like a criminal, and detest the depersonalization you experience at airports. I don’t enjoy sitting in a claustrophobic space for multiple hours, nor sitting in close personal contact with anyone. Conversely, I enjoy having long hours of travel which offer me time to think and consider, and there’s always the “taking photos out of the train window” thing that I enjoy.
The cab picked me up at the Pittsburgh International Airport, and I headed back into the City in pursuance of getting back to the rented AirBNB space back in the Bloomfield section. The cab went through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, and I finally got to experience the “grand entrance” to the city that everybody talks about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On foot again, after what was essentially a week long road trip, that’s how my Saturday night was going to be spent – as a pedestrian. My first trip to Pittsburgh saw me staying in the direct center of the downtown area, literally within the so called Golden Triangle. My second trip here last winter saw me staying in rented rooms on Mt. Washington nearby the inclines. This time around, we rented rooms in Bloomfield on the south side and then Brookline on the northeastern side.
On this trip, we visited several of the outlying areas which are economically and culturally connected to Pittsburgh. This included McKeesport, Latrobe, Youngstown, Butler, Kittanning, and Wheeling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Fort Pitt Bridge leads to the Fort Duquesne Bridge, which allows access to the high speed roads found on the north side of Pittsburgh.
As you can guess from these shots, I was holding the camera on the roof of the car, and blindly pressing the shutter button. This is where that hard rubber foot which I’ve mentioned manufacturing came in handy once again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a hot afternoon in Pittsburgh, and I had decided to just chill out for a few minutes before heading out to find someone to sell me dinner. Bloomfield, pictured above, used to be considered “Little Italy” back in the Steel City decades. The housing stock is really attractive. Not sure how I’d describe the architectural style.
A quick bit of Google maps study revealed an evening’s path to me, and I gathered up my camera and kit and headed out on foot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Quirky. That’s how I’d describe the building stock in this part of Pittsburgh. I’d seen real estate listings for this sort of setup that called the structures as “Victorian” but I’m not sure what that’s supposed to indicate other than a very, very long historical period.
Quirky.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I found an outpost of the ubiquitous Pittsburgh restaurant “Primanti Brothers” about a mile away. One had to be concerned with ensuring that I had at least one meal tucked away in a bag when I boarded Amtrak at 7:30 a.m. the next morning, so I ordered dinner and luncheon on the same check. A couple of pints of Yuengling Beer were also quaffed.
After dinner, and with tomorrow’s lunch tightly wrapped up for transport, I got busy with the camera nearby the Morningside section of Pittsburgh, in a zone called “East Liberty.”
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sardonic source
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more shots from West Virginia’s Wheeling today, and offered above is one from the walkway of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, which is said to be the oldest bridge of this type still standing in the United States. Although I did offer a few observations in yesterday’s post which were colored by the political tides of the present day, that’s a subject which I assiduously avoided while “in country.”
Pepsi comes in a blue can, Coca Cola in a red one. Both are chemical concoctions that are really, really bad for your health and actually make you thirstier when you drink them. Water is clear, and when served icy cold, exactly what you need. Drink water to calm down, and avoid both red and blue talk – that’s my advice. Alternatively – take the Pepsi challenge or have a Coke and a smile and argue about which one “tastes great or is less filling” like a pack of lemmings while heading for a cliff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were several utterly vacant buildings in Wheeling, including this old department store on Main Street. It was recently purchased by a church, I’m told. Apparently, a major project is underway in the City of Wheeling, revolving around the rejuvenation of the downtown area. Were Wheeling in NYC, I’d describe most of the downtown people I’d spoken to as being “hipsters.” Saying that, these were hipsters who owned houses and drove $50,000 trucks.
The sun was absolutely brutal on the day we were there, and the locals seemed to observe what Mediterranean communities call an “intermedio” during this hot part of the day – heading inside for a rest and a meal and then re-emerging after the heat and light subsided.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mad dogs and Englishmen, right? I’m crazy, and Our Lady is British, so…
I was nevertheless still marching around with the camera, capturing whatever glimpses of this little city that I could for the short interval I was there. Fascinating place, this is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not sure what this building was originally purposed for. To me, it looks like there was a shop downstairs and warehouse space above. The windows on the street level had historic photos printed as posters displayed in them. The photos depicted street cars coming off of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, and offered a “once upon a time, long ago” narrative of a thriving industrial city.
The “Rust Belt,” that’s what this section of the United States is called. The decline in manufacturing activity in the Rust Belt is universally described as being caused by NYC’s Wall Street driving corporate consolidations and selling off the assets. 1980 is considered to be the year that this process really kicked into gear. If you want a primer on this process, watch Oliver Stone’s film “Wall Street.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One thing, politics wise, that I can report to you is that whereas in prior trips to this section of the country I observed a plethora of red MAGA hats, coupled with car flags and lawn signs advocating for the disgraced former standard bearer of the Republican Party, this time around there was barely a red baseball hat to be seen. I wasn’t in the so called “blue state” areas, either, rather I was often moving about in extremely politically “conservative” communities with agricultural based economies for much of the time. What does that mean? Who knows? Nothing matters, nobody cares – remember? Drink water instead of Coke or Pepsi.
On our return from Wheeling to Pittsburgh proper, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself checked into a different AirBNB than the one we had been staying in, this one was in the Bloomfield section. Bloomfield was apparently Pittsburgh’s Little Italy – back in the day. There was a definite “collegiate” feeling to the place, but that’s logical given the nearby Duquesne University and University of Pennsylvania (U Penn) campuses. This section of the City of Pittsburgh was quite “urban” as compared to the somewhat suburban vibe of Brookline, where our first rented room was located on the south side of the City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given that my personal frame of reference is NYC based, I pronounced Bloomfield as reminding me a great deal of North Brooklyn prior to the ignition of the gentrification furnaces. Brookline, on the other hand, reminded me a great deal of Brooklyn’s Midwood, or Queens’ Forest Hills. Monroeville and Crandberry Township were not unlike the Nassau County “Five Towns” area, Wheeling felt a great deal like Yonkers or Newark, and Youngstown was reminiscent of the borderlands between Mt. Vernon and the Northern Bronx or the Queens/Nassau County line nearby JFK Airport. Latrobe was eerily similar to the rural counties around Albany and southern Vermont, and both Butler and Bethel Park reminded me of Westchester County’s tony Katonah or Mahopac.
Distance means something very different in this part of the country than it does in NYC. The highway speed limits range between 55 and 70, and a web of high speed roads penetrate even into the city center. “Traffic” is not what a New Yorker would call the congestion encountered on these roads. A “traffic jam” moves along at about 30-40 mph. I was chatting with one of the “Yinzers” about this, and described a recent trip that My Pal Val and I made to get to Fresh Kills on Staten Island from Astoria (38 miles) as having taken nearly two hours to complete. I helped them gather their jaw up off of the bar.
“Yinzer” is Pittsburgh slang for a native of the area.
“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 