Posts Tagged ‘Brookline’
Mole Hills
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Historic research – which I’m definitely not doing – revealed something to me recently about the ‘zone’ that I’m dwelling within.
That zone is specifically called ‘Dormont,’ which is a small community, surrounded by much larger municipalities, in a larger region called ‘The South Hills.’ The ‘zone’ sits right at the edge of Pittsburgh’s official municipal border, and in the case of HQ, that border is literally across the street from me with differently colored street signs facing each other on the parallel corners.
OK – the ‘big neighbors’ next to Dormont are Beechview (which is part of Pittsburgh), Brookline (part of Pittsburgh), Mount Lebanon (its own thing), and Bethel Park (its own thing). Regionally, these communities are part of a larger area referred to as ‘The South Hills,’ which is geographically expansive.
Think the border of Queens and Nassau County, for the New Yorkers.
The shot above is from one of the crossroads, found along West Liberty Avenue (Route 19 Truck). The POV has me standing at the edge of Brookline, looking towards Beechview where the McDonalds is, with Dormont towards the left.
So – why was I standing here? What’s the deal? Did I go get a Big Mac?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Coal. It’s coal that brought me here. Coal is something I’m just starting to learn about, and it’s fascinating.
Check out this great page at Brooklineconnection.com, discussing the Oak Mine, which undermines this entire area. The location shown in the third shot on the linked page is where I was peregrinating about for the shots in today’s post. Other nearby mines were operating all the way up until the 1980’s, apparently, but this one is meant to have shut down in the early 20th.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One drove over to Brookline, parked the car, and then set out on foot to see if there was any observable remnant of the mine.
An enormous masonry structure, which appears to be a retaining wall, was jammed into the hillside. Closer inspection of the structure revealed that it was not a retaining wall, and that the large masonry blocks were stuck at least two deep into the hillside.
It seems that Brookline in particular was a central node for harvesting coal meant to serve the residential market, with estimates stating that 90-95% of the area is undermined.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As an aside, Brookline has a Flatbush Avenue within it, and a Queensboro Avenue, and there’s an Fordham Avenue there too. There’s only one true place on this planet, and the Brookline people kind of acknowledge that – despite replacing ‘lyn’ with ‘line.’ Ever read Roger Zelazny’s ‘The Chronicles of Amber’? It feels like that sometimes, to this Brooklyn Boy.
That building pictured above is a little chicken wing fry shack, but notice that its foundations don’t seem to match up with the brick building. Could this be where the first electronic vehicle scale, at the mine, in Pittsburgh was installed?
Ok… that’s obscure tech stuff… You’d drive your horse drawn wagon onto the scale, and the combination would be weighed. Then they’d fill your wagon with coal and weigh you again. The differential is what you owed the mine. Similar systems persist today, in the waste handling industry and for businesses that move rocks and soil around in trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is from directly across the street, within the parking lot of that McDonalds from the first shot.
This coal revelation has explained so many things about Pittsburgh to me. Why do these vehicular streets – built out in the 1940’s or later – follow serpentine routes? High speed routes built for cars don’t do that.
Answer: there used to freight rail alongside of, and predating, these roads, and the roads followed the tracks.
Everything is starting to make sense now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All this coal business does raise a few new questions for me, which is cool, and it also revives an older one.
The oldest question, actually, and the only one that really matters…
Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
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“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.
stifling age
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh’s Brookline neighborhood is where a rented, via AirBNB, set of rooms acted as a regional HQ for a late June trip to the area. I’ve mentioned the topography of Pittsburgh before as being extremely hilly, and the photo above was captured in pursuit of illustrating that particular point.
Photography wasn’t the primary goal of this outing, and I spent most of my waking hours behind the steering wheel of a rented car, tooling around the region.
Region, you ask?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Day one saw me drive about 50 or so miles north of Pittsburgh to a town called Butler, for luncheon with a friend who’s in the real estate business in the area. Our conversation revolved around property tax and the common business practices that typify the rental market in the area. He recommended that we take a look at a nearby town called Kittanning. We ate burgers at a roadside “local.”
In 1727, this community was a Lenape village, which is where the name Kittanning originates from. The Europeans arrived in the area, and during the French and Indian War period – in 1757 – the community was demolished by a gunpowder explosion at a local armory which was heard in Pittsburgh – 44 miles to the south west. Kittanning was incorporated as a “Borough” in the post revolutionary period in 1803. It sits on the eastern bank of the Allegheny River, and pictured above is their 1932 vintage Kittanning Citizens Bridge. Nice little down on its luck sort of town, which hosts a lot of churches along the waterfront, for some reason.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had been driving since early in the day, and the banks of the Allegheny hereabout offered me a short opportunity to set up the camera and grab a couple of shots. There was a nearby dam which I was desperate to get next to, but there’ll be plenty of time for that sort of thing in the future. This particular trip revolved around getting to know the outlying sections of the “Greater Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area.”
Basically, if it was a named place that’s found on the weather map presented by the local CBS TV affiliate, we were there on this trip. I broke the journey up into the cardinal directions, and this particular day involved north and east. We visited Butler at the North, and Latrobe to the East, and a whole bunch of other places in between. “Reconnaissance” is what the Frenchers would call the effort.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On our way back into the City of Pittsburgh from Latrobe and a bunch of other communities where Trump held his rallies, I had a pilgrimage to make. One of the suburbs of Pittsburgh is called Monroeville, and they have several shopping malls which can satisfy all the banal desires of those happy to be called “consumers.” There’s one location, however, which I had to visit.
When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth… after all…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the best horror movies EVER made is 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead,” wherein a group of survivors sit out a Zombie outbreak in a shopping mall. Director George Romero didn’t shy away from critiquing the consumerist culture of the Pittsburgh he lived in, and his movie was filmed at the Monroeville Mall. It’s been profoundly remodeled several times since the movie was filmed here, as you’d imagine.
How could I not? This is part of why I always describe Our Lady of the Pentacle as “long suffering.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We visited several of the towns and villages which comprise Pittsburgh’s greater metropolitan area, trying to get a feel for the various “zones” and their charms or vices. After a hearty meal at a roadhouse in the quite lovely Bethel Park section, we headed back to Brookline and absolutely annihilated a six pack of ice cold Yuengling beers while sitting on the porch at the AirBNB.
That’s the porch view, from Brookline PA., above.
“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 