The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Continuing with a fairly long walk here in the Paris of Appalachia, called Pittsburgh by most of the nation’s children.

After marching down Baum Blvd., once known as “Auto Row,” from the East Liberty neighborhood, one turned rightward onto a side street called Melwood Avenue. Just before the turn, a viewpoint of the ‘Neville Street Ramp’ which serves one of the busways was recorded, and it sits alongside a set of RR tracks that used to belong to the Pennsylvania Rail Road Company.

Presumptively, these tracks might be the path through town which Amtrak uses, then? Time will tell. I’ll let you know. (Amtrak does use these tracks for its Floridian service, as it turns out, so yes).

Certainly not doing any sort of research, me.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As I’ve often mentioned over the last 36 months, I still haven’t taken a ‘regular’ bus here in Pittsburgh. Part of that is that we own a car, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself. Another reason is that I’m a 15 minute walk away from a light rail line. I have been on a Pittsburgh bus for a short interval, but it was a construction shuttle that was running when the T light rail’s tracks were receiving maintenance attention.

The bus system is fairly byzantine here. When Pittsburgh began mothballing its old Trolley system, it seems, the bus lines which replaced the trolley used the old Trolley line route numbering system. The 51 Trolley became the 51 bus, in essence. This was done in order to avoid confusion in the 1960’s, mind you, but since there’s virtually zero connectivity between ‘then’ and ‘now’… it’s a bit of a challenge to understand the system.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That’s where Google’s AI comes in, which I’m planning a ‘busway day’ with. The plan will be to use an express bus to go to the terminal stops on the three busways and then use local buses which I’ll ‘hop on and off’ of so as to absorb as much of the scenery as I can along these discrete corridors. Should be interesting. To me, at least.

Something to do… breaking up the gray expanses… offering myself up to probable derision and hatred from strangers while out in the world…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Belgian Blocks. I’ll even accept pavers. These are NOT cobblestones.

Sorry, point of pedantry there for me.

The right turn was executed, and Baum Blvd. was left behind.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Melwood Avenue, pictured above.

This was a short leg of the walk, only about two to three blocks in length before it dead ended (that’s what the ‘No Outlet’ sign indicates.) This was a mixed zoning area, with high density residential sharing the street with automotive, commercial, and light industrial businesses.

I was actively looking for the left turn I’d need to make to continue with the plan. As mentioned at the start of all this – it was a great day weather wise and I really wanted to push myself and see where the ankle is. Ever since the orthopedic incident literally hobbled me, I’ve been absolutely attacking the ideation of limitations on my movements. Lots and lots of walking during the last year has delivered me back into fettle, and I need to continue improving the situation.

As is often stated: If I stop moving, I’ll stop moving.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This is the intersection I was looking for. A steep one block ascent to a street called ‘Gold Way.’ As previously stated – if a street in Pittsburgh is called a ‘Way,’ it’s an alley. I normally avoid walking through the ‘Way’ streets since it’s essentially someone’s back yard (New Yorkers, think ‘community drive’) and it’s got to be weird seeing a stranger with a camera walking through.

Back tomorrow with the Golden Path, or just a ‘Gold Way.’

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