Posts Tagged ‘Construction equipment’
The road is closed, pal
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some days it seems as if every single mile of road you travel in Pittsburgh finds another construction project underway. Some of this work is being done by utility companies who are replacing old cast iron and lead pipes with modern pvc ones. There’s also large sewer upgrade projects underway, pictured below, which open up multi block long trenches and fill the street’s travel lanes with heavy equipment and trucks for weeks or months.
It’s all very inconvenient.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If I was still back in Queens, I’d be able to tell you which politician gave the job to which contractor and what series of unions were benefiting from the projects. Alas, I’m no longer ‘wired in.’
This lack of connection has been quite intentional, by the way. I’m staying the hell out of it here as long as I can. Inevitably, somebody is going to do something stupid that affects me and I’ll have to get involved again, but I’ve really enjoyed spending the last couple of years completely disconnected and not having to be ‘politique’ with people I can’t stand.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Twice. That’s how many times in the last 26 months I’ve been compelled to attend a governmental meeting. One was about the T service’s various construction projects (directly affects me), and the other was attending a meeting of Dormont’s Borough Council so that I could get a look at the otherwise faceless people spending my taxes. How’s about you?
Your humble narrator is reactivating and reimagining himself these days. Figuring out my next set of moves… who I’m going to pretend to be for the next few years… all that.
Tremble, as something wicked this way comes.
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Old fashioned
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That Porta Potty in the shot above might actually be a Tardis, used by a Time Lord like Doctor Who to travel through time and space. At least that’s what it looks like to me. The rubble used to be a cold storage warehouse which is in the process of demolishment, but there’s a stoppage at the site currently since the process has destabilized buildings on neighboring lots. Guess what they’re going to build here? Yup, ‘affordable housing.’
After the Doors Open tour we attended, which allowed us access to a few amazing spots including two very interesting Roman Catholic Churches, it was time to head home. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had left the Mobile Oppression Platform (the Toyota) back at HQ and were traveling ‘to and from’ using the T Light Rail system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After negotiating our way on foot to one of the T stations in Downtown Pittsburgh, we had about a 15 minute interval to wait before we boarded. The T runs off a catenary wire when it’s outside, but I think it uses a third rail shoe underground. The service is fairly frequent, even on the weekends, and there are multiple lines. It costs $2.75 to get back and forth from HQ.
Seriously, I’m absolutely loving having a car, especially one with a hybrid engine that regularly clocks in at 39 mpg while I’m living in a City where ‘all day parking’ costs something between $6 and $9, but there are days when I’d rather cut my head off than drive. The availability of transit is one of the factors that drove our choice of location regarding HQ here in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Red Line T arriving at the station. Notice the absence of garbage on the tracks, the lack of graffiti, and that nothing is dripping mystery sludge onto the platforms, and also the complete absence of pizza rats. Old ladies sat on a bench chatting while waiting for their train, without a care in the world. Nobody’s head was ‘on a swivel,’ except mine.
I used to always refer to NYC as ‘Home Sweet Hell’ in a joking matter. I don’t smile anymore when saying that.
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.
I miss my Tonka trucks
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ok, one more from that long walk, an ‘odds and ends’ post. While walking off Pittsburgh’s Liberty Bridge towards the T Light Rail and my ride back to HQ, I noticed that the action at the concrete factory below me had ceased operations for the day and their equipment was sitting there lit up all pretty like by the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. Couldn’t resist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wouldn’t it be great to have a crane as your second car? Easy to park, when you think about it, a crane is. If you can’t find a spot, you can make one by hoisting somebody else’s wheels out of the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just as I was walking over to the T to get back to HQ, the light began to bounce around inside the steel of the Liberty Bridge which I had just walked over. Fun walk, this one was.
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.
fantastic figment
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in NYC, just as the Omicron variant Covid surge began, one put all thoughts about holiday merrymaking and socializing out of his head. You can’t argue with a logarithmic curve, so the logic of the entire Covid period – at this particular moment, it’s been 1,057 days, if my math is correct – was followed. Go out at night, by myself, and wander around the industrial zones where I’m going to encounter few if any other people. As the old Christmas cartoon would offer: put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking out the door.
Good golly, Miss Molly, are we ever going to escape from this looping form of existence? Everyday is like the last day, same old, same old. When this is all over, I’m going to start wearing different colored clothes or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular evening in early December was quite a cold one. My simple desire was to get some exercise, but I was engaging in a “short walk.” For me, that meant heading out from Astoria, crossing the Sunnyside Yards to Skillman Avenue and following that to Queens Plaza and then back down Northern Blvd. towards HQ. Just under three miles, round trip, I guess?
Was wondering, while shooting these, if I had recently been riding on any of those trains down there. Sigh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sunnyside Yards is a railroad coach yard. What that means is that you can’t catch a train here, despite it being an 180 and change square acres Federal and State railroad facility. The purpose of the Sunnyside Yards is to provide holding areas and turn around trackage for commuter rail that’ve already been to Manhattan. You see New Jersey Transit, Long Island Railroad, and Amtrak units down there regularly. Every now and then you’ll see some train set branded with Pennsylvania colors. I always figure they must’ve gotten lost when I see them. “Queens, what do you mean Queens? We must’ve taken a wrong turn at Lancaster… Crap.”
The yards are divvied up between the various entities housed here. The official owner is Amtrak, but MTA has sway over significant acreages of the place. They’ve recently finished building out an enormous new holding yard on the north side of the facility, which is a part of the East Side Access project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator famously maintains a catalog of the holes in Amtrak’s fences which are large enough to fit a camera lens into. The best of the Federal holes were cut for surveyor usage. They’re generally the size of a deck of cards, these holes, but are far and few between. There’s also tears in the chain link fencing, which is also fairly easy to work with. Then, there’s the set of holes formed by weathering and material failure. Those are irregular and difficult to use, but I manage.
The shot above comes from one of the latter kind, where – I think – what must have been a vehicle accident caused a steel plate to bend away from the rest of the fence structure. Holes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back onto Skillman Avenue nearby Queens Plaza, where I spent a few minutes pondering whether or not I wanted to head down to Dutch Kills for a lookie loo. One decided not to. It was, after all, freezing out.
One pointed his toes north and east, and started shlepping back to the rolling hillocks of almond eyed Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the way, a discarded Book of Psalms and pile of Cheerios caught my attention. Fascinating, the way that these manufactured items end up where they do once somebody is done with them.
One thing you notice, upon returning to NYC from nearly anywhere else, is how dirty it is. Piles of crap are everywhere.
“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.
frightful velocity
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Reliable actuations of the new(ish) camera, wherein I can point it at a scene and get back what I’m expecting, have been achieved. What I’m up to right now is figuring out how far I can push the thing before the images fall apart. These shots were captured at an ungodly high ISO (128,000) to see what that might look like if I needed it in a pinch.
The answer is that it looks fairly “otherworldly” and a little weird, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is beyond the range of human vision. Literally, I could barely make out anything but the shape of the concrete truck above when I was shooting it. Frankly, I was startled when the autofocus found something to bite into when the camera was pointed at the shadowy mass.
That puddle under the truck was basically the only standing water I encountered on this walk. And the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek is right on the other side of that truck, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Again, the startling fact that I was seeing so little damage in the industrial zone from the Ida deluge was staggering. I was expecting hydrological evidences – mud slicks, debris piles stacked against chain link fences, puddles. Nothing, nada.
Back next week with more wonders at this, 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 