Posts Tagged ‘Dormont’
Rise, run, rise, ride
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One had been positively cooped up for several days while handling the ultramundane – obligation, duty, ‘have to’s.’ Finally, a day I could call my own arrived and it was decided to ‘really hit it.’
By the time this particular scuttle ended, my legs and particularly the knees would be sore for days.
Just a couple of blocks from HQ, a street called ‘Louisiana Avenue’ terminates at a pedestrian bridge that leads to a set of City Steps. On this path, you quietly pass through a municipal border – from the Borough of Dormont to the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Beechview.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beechview’s terrain is severe. Canton Avenue, the steepest street in North America and possibly the world, is found within its confines. These steps, which don’t have a name (apparently) allow pedestrian egress from the low point of Louisiana Avenue all the way up to Neeld Avenue in Beechview, which is a few footfalls away from Broadway Avenue, which is the street that the T light rail runs on. Street level tracks, they are, and this is one of the sections of the service where the T runs as a streetcar/trolley.
I had to climb up those City Steps first.
Must have been about 2-300 feet of them. It’s actually a good thing, to get your heart racing at the start of a walk. My practice has always been to start off at a bit of sprint and warm up the internally lubricated parts before setting off on a full scale ‘wander.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Good cardio, this.
It’s also obeying my self imposed form of exposure therapy to stairs, shaking the PTSD cobwebs out of the brain which have haunted me since the busted ankle incident last year. The psychological after effects of that experience have been with me on every walk since, and every single time that I walk up or down the stairs at home where my accident occurred.
If you’re curious, I was listening to a favorite audiobook: an unabridged reading of Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle.’
The linked file isn’t the version I was listening to, as a note, but it’s at YouTube so that’s more accessible than something you’d have to sign up for to listen to it. The America which the Jungle describes wasn’t so ‘great’ back then – according to actual history – and it’s an era which so many people opine as having been a better time than our current day. Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After reaching the end of the first set of steps, a hazardous road crossing leads to yet another set of steps, and these ones are solidly in the Beechview section. The plan for the day was loose. My intention involved using the T to get me to a certain midway point, but not to go all the way into town. From there, I’d improvise and follow my nose.
There’s been a construction project underway at the transit tunnel which the T normally routes through. The people who run the service have been routing the light rails instead up and over the landform which that tunnel is bored through, and the route has added an extra and temporary stop at the apex of the prominence, in the Allentown section.
That’s a great spring board, for one such as myself.
The T uses the tracks and wires of a no longer in service light rail line for this task. It adds about ten minutes onto the commute for riders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back on regular pavement, but I still had hills to climb. After letting my heart rate drift back from rapid to elevated, I leaned into it. The plan was to walk over to one of the T stops and ride it up to Allentown and then… and then… and then…
That’s a little bridge which the T uses to surmount the valleys and hills. Really, the engineering challenges underlying this service are wild.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After arriving at the stop which I had climbed both stairs and hills to get to, my chariot arrived. I could have walked to a different station via a far less rigorous route, but the point of exercise is ‘exercise,’ not comfort or ease.
The light rail people are nearing the end of their constructive labors on the transit tunnel, and it’s likely been reopened by the time you’re reading this. I wanted to take advantage of the temporary stop at the top in Allentown.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
Now more than ever, for always
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator recently found himself driving past the Wheeling & Lake Erie rail yard in Greentree, which neighbors Pittsburgh’s Dormont – where Newtown Pentacle HQ is found. They weren’t doing anything terribly exciting down there, mainly maneuvering the rolling stock around from one track to the other. I was just passing by, and then I parked the automobile, cracked out a few shots and then got back to my daily round.
The shots in today’s post are were captured mid October, incidentally. I’m still maintaining my advance ‘lead time’ here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Usually, some variation of this scene is the first shot I take when going out for a walk. It’s my front yard, and the corner at the bottom of the steep hill which I sometimes mention. Not a terribly exciting composition, admittedly, but the reason I pop out this shot is to figure out the ‘median’ exposure triangle which I’ll likely be using for the rest of the day’s effort.
It’s like a gray card for the photographic environment, this practice. lets me know that the ‘sun is dark today’ or that ‘there’s too much light.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady and myself attended another festival/town event here in Dormont, and the titular ‘main street’ of the Borough was closed to traffic while a music festival was underway.
Hundreds, I tell you, hundreds of people were there. There were vendors ‘tabling,’ which included the PA Constable’s Office doing recruiting, and the officer therein was a really nice guy who answered several of my rather specific questions about their patrol and responsibilities. I’m not looking to become a constable, but now I know what their enforcement duties are and what they do. Neat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The clarion call of lonely places was singing in my ears. Empty alleys where… but this was a ‘social’ day, however. Hanging out with and getting to know the neighbors. Music was playing from three stages, and a couple of the local breweries were set up nearby selling beers.
It was a warm day in Pittsburgh, middle 70’s and bright sunlight. Shirt sleeve weather, basically.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I find this sort of thing somewhat emotionally draining. To start – afternoon alcohol drinks put me to sleep early these days, and there’s lots of potential hazards to pay attention to as the human still about. Increasingly, my ‘all too human’ need to be ‘amongst people’ is squashed by my ‘I hate everyone’ instincts. I’m really, really, struggling to try and ‘remain positive.’ Staying ‘chipper’ is a bit of a challenge.
I don’t belong in this sort of scene… happy people being nice, while the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself is bouncing around above… this sort of thing is more my speed.
Human… all too human… me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the festival, our neighbors and Our Lady decided on one last beverage, which we obtained at the local dive bar. While staring out the window of this joint (which I’m not really a fan of), a passing ‘T’ Light Rail unit caught my attentions. I’d be riding one of these the next morning, when my next scuttle would occur.
Back tomorrow with something different, thereby – 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.
Six unrelated photos
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Pentacle HQ is currently housed in Pittsburgh’s Borough of Dormont, where the local governing body has been working assiduously to build a sense of community amongst the thousand or so households contained within its confines. On one recent event, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself wandered the borough and got friendly.
One of the neighbors has fashioned himself as the ‘Hogfather’ in honor of the pigs his family keeps as pets. Pictured with them (partially) is the ‘Hogmama’ as the former personage had to go to work that day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Found myself sitting in a parking spot in downtown Pittsburgh one day, and admiring the exterior of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh. As soon as I can make it happen, I want to get the camera up close and personal with this building. Wow.
As is the case with these sorts of posts, I crack out a lot of shots during my daily rounds. Most of them are gathered in pursuit of narrative – I’m taking a walk, or I went to a thing, or saw something cool. Posts like this one gather together shots I like, but couldn’t easily fit them into the narrative ‘flow’ of whatever else it is I might be rattling on about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was nearby the Monongahela River one day, behind the wheel of the car, when I noticed three military helicopters just hanging static in the air over ‘Technology Drive,’ which is another former steel mill site that has been developed as a scholastic and business incubator for next level ‘tech’ that’s populated by Carnegie Mellon and other institutions.
The helicoptors were Air National Guard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dormont Borough has been busy, and they organized another great event called ‘Porchmont,’ wherein about sixty households signed up to welcome visiting neighbors onto their porch for a ‘get to know each other’ conversation. People put out food and beverages, and one guy named Vinnie was even BBQing Japanese style chicken. Great event, this.
Couldn’t help but get a shot of a passing T light rail from one of my neighbor’s porches.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bridgeville is practically next door to Dormont. It’s a residential community, but there’s an enormous agglomeration of strip mall development along its main drag. Chain shops, from Home Depot to Walmart and Texas Roadhouse, mainly. On one of the ‘back roads’ an enormous Flea Market can be found.
Our Lady asked me to drive her over for a ‘browse,’ and after parking the car in the Flea Market’s lot, I couldn’t help but get a couple of shots of their enormous flag. Wow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey now! This one is from that walk across the Fort Duquesne Bridge described last week. I was zoomed all the way out, but still had to crop the image a bit. That’s the Duquesne Incline in the background, and CSX was heading away from Ohio in a southeastern direction, along the Monongahela River.
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.
Avoiding day vampires, and Mr. Rogers
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An unexpected interval of personal freedom was suddenly loosed upon me, and a surge of intent rose from within. I broke my camera bag down to its barest essentials and shlepped up the hill to the T light rail station here in Pittsburgh’s Dormont. Soon, one found himself riding on the electrical conveyance, towards the beating heart of the Steel City.
It was a hot day in Pittsburgh, with temperatures in the upper 80’s, and a fairly high dew point made things humid and sticky. This was a short walk, incidentally, and I wasn’t planning on doing anything complicated, rather the effort was solely about ‘taking a walk.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T was ridden to its terminal stop nearby Acrisure/Heinz stadium, where the Steelers dwell and play. This spot is nearby the North Shore of the Allegheny River, as a note.
My headphones were in, and this time around I was listening to an ‘old time radio’ podcast which offered episodes of the old Dragnet radio dramas, produced during the late 1950’s and early 60’s. Joe Friday hadn’t risen to the rank of Sergeant yet in these, and his partner/superior officer was a Detective named Ben.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I stopped off to visit the Mr. Rogers memorial, since I was in its neighborhood.
There was a college sportsball game setting up at the football stadium, and thereby the humans were infesting and then forming into clots. These clots were beginning to congeal, forming arterial blockages on the streets and sidewalks, so a plan was hatched to ‘get out of dodge.’
Hate crowds, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You can dock private boats in downtown Pittsburgh. I don’t know if you have to make prior arrangements to do so, but there you are.
It’s been a while since I walked over the Fort Duquesne Bridge, thought a humble narrator, so my toes were pointed in the appropriate direction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Brr, stairs…
Happily, I can report that the PTSD symptomatology regarding stairs that I’ve been enjoying for the last year seems to be retreating into the rear view mirror. Luckily, that means I can now obsess over other irrational terrors and ideations. Like Vampires.
It’s been a while since I worried about the Nosferatu, or Strigas. Or Rakshashaa. Those were Astoria problems.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vampires are the best thing to worry about.
Don’t have to worry about the country slouching roughly towards a Civil War, the seeming collapse of Western Civilization, or the fact that the Russians and NATO are essentially testing each other’s borders militarily.
Day Vampires… now that sounds scary, doesn’t it?
Think about day vampires, and nothing else… trust me.
“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.
To zee T
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T light rail runs directly through Pittsburgh’s Dormont section, where Newtown Pentacle HQ is found. It’s one of the reasons that Our Lady and myself decided to settle here when we relocated out of NYC. It’s awesome having a car and being able to drive all over hill and dale, but your humble narrator doesn’t always want to be burdened by having to be responsible. It also ties my hands as far as wandering about goes, since you need to loop back to where you started.
Additionally: You cant really ‘see’ things from inside a motor vehicle that you’re operating, or from a moving bike, as you’re moving too fast and are distracted by road rules and hazards. Recent endeavor, thereby, saw me scuttling up the steep hill which HQ is at the bottom of, and then up to the tracks of the T at ‘Potomac Station.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the actual T unit which I rode into town on. The system uses (amongst other fare collection methods, apps etc.) a ‘ConnectCard,’ which is either pre-loaded up with cash or connected to a credit card or bank account. You pay upon boarding, when heading into the city, and when debarking on the ‘away from Pittsburgh’ side of the station. It’s a zone system they use, for the T. You’re just sort of expected to know the way that the system works, a part of the presumed Pittsburgh ‘vernacular knowledge’ thing which I mention a lot.
These light rail units are electrically powered, by suspended catenary wires.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is actually from a completely different walk/day, but I wanted to show what it looks like when a Pittsburgh bound T is leaving Potomac station. Normally, I’d be on board that train, so…
Back tomorrow with where I was going – and all that – it’s photowalk time.
“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 