Posts Tagged ‘Chateau’
Built environment
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post is a bit of an aside, placed parenthetically within the contents of a longer walk, which will continue tomorrow.
At the intersection of Chateau Street and Beaver Avenue, on Pittsburgh’s North Side, there’s a ramped structure which allows pedestrians and bicycles vertical egress from one ground level up to the next one, and it seems to be attached to a series of highway ramps that overfly a train yard.
How complicated… tell me more…
I looked around a bit, but couldn’t find a name assigned to the structure, although it obviously has one – given how overbuilt and undoubtedly expensive this whatzit was to build. You don’t spend millions of the public’s money on something and then not give it a name.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Steel, concrete, engineering, construction… all super expensive.
Pretty wide ramps are on offer, and these pathways offer sharp right angle turns at the corners where they spiral around the core structure. I’d guess that the thing climbs up about 50-80 feet in elevation. I ran a picture of the whole assembly yesterday, here it is again.
I don’t want you to imagine that I think I’ve found the lost ark of the covenant here, but this is a pretty odd thingamabob.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If you had to, you could probably drive a non SUV sized police car through here. Width wise, it would be tight but possible. That’s about how wide these ramps were. Gently graded they are, I’d mention, so people with mobility issues and bike riders were definitely a consideration when designing the thing. These are the sort of ‘people mover’ ramps you normally see at stadiums.
Above this thingie are a series of highway trestles which overfly rail tracks, with the trestles connecting southbound drivers to the approaches of the West End Bridge, or to the interplay of ramp options that are offered nearby leading to the Fort Duquesne Bridge, and Crosstown Boulevard, interchanges.
Whew, how’s that for a geography lesson?
I just had to keep on going, until this whatzit got me up to wherever it might be leading to. This is exactly how I’m going to die, I often think.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Basically… up top, there’s another street level series of ramps, and then an overhead series of highway ramps, which this massive pile of smaller pedestrian ramps leads up to. No Shake Shack up here. Now I know.
Also, man oh man, are there ever a lot of vehicle ramps flying through the sky here in Pittsburgh or what? Feck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An eye was kept on the Allegheny Valley Railroad train sitting in the yard below, all inert. This outfit does ‘switcher’ and ‘last mile’ duty for (mainly) Norfolk Southern, and I understand they have a few Pittsburgh area clients of their own which these AVRR ‘Carload Express’ engines service. I imagine the crew was taking a break, and eating lunch or something, as they were sitting static for better than half an hour.
That above, by the way, is pretty much the sum total of what I know about these cats at AVRR. If I got something wrong, or you’d like to expand the knowledge of your fellow Newtown Pentacle readers – I’d ask you to leave a comment below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As it turned out, that conspicuous building – pictured above – was a pretty cool find for me, but all that’s for tomorrow’s post.
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.
Hey Now! twice, with ramps
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shlep, shlep, shlep.
A mile or so’s worth of scuttling brought me here, after getting dropped off by a rideshare on Pittsburgh’s North Side, to this section of ‘Beaver Avenue’ – a wide road which services an industrial zone.
The section discussed today is defined by a straight line concrete wall dominating one side of the street, part of a larger structure that carries high speed vehicle traffic upon it towards the titular center of the city, and several bridges/highway interchanges. The environment here is ‘built.’
All caught up!
Your humble narrator was soon at the border of the ‘Chateau’ neighborhood, found on Pittsburgh’s ‘North Side.’ Just to the north of this position is a smallish rail yard – the ‘Island Avenue Yard’ – which has been described in the past. I’m thinking that these tracks are a part of that complex, but that’s an assumption.
Hey Now! That’s Allegheny Valley RR’s #6004.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a number of highway interchanges and ramps which fly through here, and a pile of incredibly overbuilt pedestrian infrastructure. More on that one in a subsequent post… but… lookit that thing! Wow.
One headed towards this feat of over engineering, to hopefully gain a POV over the RR tracks, and also to find out where this design problem might lead to. First time I’ve walked through here, Y’see, and I was completely ignoring the sage advice offered by 90’s band TLC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, these tracks and the yard surrounding them aren’t fenced off in this section and they were sort of busy, so before climbing up on ‘that thing,’ I just stood there in a sort of muddy driveway along the sidewalk, waving the camera around to capture these shots.
Hey Now! Norfolk Southern turned up next, hauling a long line of tankers.
I needed to pee, of course, so I did a little dance to kill the urge. My dance recital, enjoyed by the engineer, was to the tune of – and quite resembled – the one performed by Laura Brannigan in her classic ‘Gloria’ music video.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
#1144 lumbered past, filling the air with vibration as it did.
According to Google’s AI ‘Gemini,’ #1144 was built in 2014, and:
‘Norfolk Southern (NS) locomotive #1144 is an EMD SD70ACe diesel locomotive. Originally built with a 4,300-horsepower engine and featuring a wide-cab design, this heavy-haul freight unit operates on mainlines across the Norfolk Southern network.’
I’ve just been going crazy for trains lately, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Two in one shot, yay!
Shortly after 1144 circuited through, and after having ‘watered the verge,’ your humble narrator got all curious about that other thing. The overbuilt ramp thingamabob behind me.
What can be up there? On top of this whatzit? Ramps, ramps, ramps…
I had to know.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Had to walk the entirety of this structure, and get to know it. Make a sketch. Caress its goodness. Give it a middle name. Start it a Christmas Club account at the bank…
One can imagine the governmental design process for this thing, and how it kept on getting added on to, meeting by meeting. Then – a catastrophic cut in the budget by some politician happened – and then the thing that’s pictured today became the best accommodation they could build with the resources at hand… Ahh… government…
Directly across the street is a building occupied by the people who build this sort of stuff for the County and State, and also happen to keep the mass transit systems running.
Back tomorrow, whereupon I climb this thingamabob to its titular top, and then ooze back down to the street level again – like I’m some kind of thing…
“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.
Historic districting
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As intoned yesterday, your humble narrator was scuttling about on Pittsburgh’s North Side, aka the former Allegheny City.
My crossing was through a historic district, dubbed ‘Allegheny West,’ on the way to see if a vantage point over a set of Northern Southern rail tracks might reveal something worth taking a photo of (sadly not).
Along the way, the Victorian era building above caught my eye, as so did a bit of signage adorning it. Signage photo can be accessed here, but suffice to say that this was the former home of the famous, and then quite infamous, Thaw family.
You’ve seen the movie Ragtime – I’ll presume – so, this was the childhood home of Harry K. Thaw – murderer of architect Stanford White and husband of ‘it girl’ Evelyn Nesbit. Thaw’s defense lawyers introduced the extenuating circumstance of ‘Temporary Insanity’ into American jurisprudence during his trial. For those not in the know, the Thaw trial was analogous to the OJ Simpson trial, except that it played out in headlines during the first decade of the 20th century. Celebrity involved in a murder trial, popular and press interest in the affair, scandalous behavior amongst the millionaire class – all that. Made for a great story.
Neat. This is also what is meant when I say ‘serendipity.’ Just stumbled past it, randomly. Pittsburgh was actually showing me something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A former public school seems to have been repurposed as a training facility for the gendarmerie here, but truth be told the thing that drew my eye to it was the (probably former) greenhouse on the property.
Everybody I talk to in Pittsburgh tells me to ‘watch my back’ around this section of the city, to which I usually respond ‘I’m from Brooklyn.’ They then say ‘oh, ok then.’
My biggest fear here, during daylight hours, is that one of these property openers might accidentally drop a wallet out of a second floor window, thereby crushing me to death under a voluminous billfold.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The hospital featured on the HBO series ‘The Pitt’ is nearby, as is the National Aviary and multiple target/private schools. The building stock is heterogenous, and a lot of it was built for ‘show.’ Like a lot of ‘inner city’ neighborhoods, I’m told this one experienced a bunch of trouble during the late 20th century. That must be where it acquired the reputation.
To the north are a series of steep hills lined by narrow streets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve got a few things that I look for when I’m walking around, as far as gauging whether or not a neighborhood ‘sucks.’ Is there furniture discarded on the frontage, along with untamed garbage? Are there multiple cars and bicycles just sitting there rotting away and rusting? Do the windows have curtains in them or is it cardboard, and are those window glass panes cracked and repaired with packing tape? Are there a lot of abandoned buildings?
All are ‘tells.’
Are there large groups of teenagers milling about? Brrr. That’s where the hazards emerge. No impulse control, teenagers. How about packs of stray dogs? Gotta watch out for that too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Clearly, my rubric for ‘threat level midnight’ is not even close to being met by this particular set of streets. If anything, I felt like an intruder. To be fair, I always feel like that, even amongst members of my own family,
Imagine: Nice sunny day, and you observe some monstrous wind driven conflagration approaching in a filthy black raincoat (aka the street cassock) that comes marching past, casting a pall while it is taking photos of garbage cans and sewer grates.
Yeah, the coat and gloves have been deployed. It’s getting cold here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
With a bit of fortressing, sealing off those ground floor windows with plywood for instance, that building above could probably humble a horde of zombies. The fourth floor terrace would make for an excellent spot to snipe at the mass of rotters or just hurl brickbats at them.
Ever notice that in zombie cinema you don’t see the humans using anything but guns and bladed weapons against the oncoming mass? Construction equipment, especially those little bobcats with the snow scoop on them, would turn the tide, I think. The way to handle ‘red collar’ mobs of flesh eaters might be with blue collar equipment.
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.
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