Posts Tagged ‘Downtown Pittsburgh’
Slideways, then down, not up
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with photos from a short scuttle in Pittsburgh, on a day I got fairly lucky, were the subject of passing freight trains to come up. Your humble narrator was loathsomely crossing the Allegheny River upon one of the ‘Three Sisters’ bridges. I was busy with the self loathing and all that, so one barely even noticed the weather.
It was a lovely day, with temperatures in the high 50’s and a stiff breeze. The sky was partially overcast, but there was plenty of sunlight. My bad ankle was happy, for once.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Normally, when a municipality hangs a traffic sign on a bridge, it’s telling you what you can’t do. The signage above seems to indicate to drivers that they can do pretty much whatever they want. That kind of fits with how Pittsburgh drivers operate their vehicles, observationally.
I headed over towards a T Light Rail station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the scene Downtown, from Liberty Avenue. On a weekday afternoon. It’s like a zombie apocalypse has occurred. Where is everybody?
I pointed my toes towards the T’s Wood Street station, where my chariot would soon arrive and carry me across to the South Side area. For once I didn’t have to worry about which line I was boarding, since I’d be debarking the thing at the first stop on the Monongahela River side.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One descended into the narrow depths, using a moving staircase.
A quick ‘sit down’ ensued, while waiting for the train.
During this interval, I observed the behavioral tics of the humans Yinzers in the same manner as I’d observe zoo animals. ‘Look,’ a dominant male… and over there, that breeding age female must be in estrus, based on the veiled reactions to her from that teenaged male over there… ‘that one’ looks sick, and ‘that one’ is wearing a MAGA hat. A woman over there… she seemed to have two prosthetic legs but was walking without a cane. As it happens, I was midway through my annual listening of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ album while waiting, and these were the songs which were playing.
I’m all ‘effed up. Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘On the other side’ is at The T’s Station Square stop, and as I was debarking the facility a Pittsburgh bound T unit rumbled into scene.
The final steps of my day were all about greed.
I’d been very lucky all day in terms of syncing up with passing trains, and was thereby desirous of seeing whether or not my luck might hold out. It did, but that’s tomorrow’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A passing Towboat caught my attention while walking along, as it was all framed up by the Panhandle Bridge. Luckily, I can report to you that this was the last of my ‘rinse and repeat’ routed scuttles, wherein I was constrained in movement by ice and snow. The weather has since ‘cured up’ a bit, and all of the paths are once again clear.
I’ve also allowed my ‘lead time’ to evaporate a bit, in terms of how far in advance these posts are scheduled. These photos were captured better than a month ago, on February 13th. These words are being typed on the morning of March 13th, a Friday.
Back tomorrow with Choo-Choo’s, and a ‘Hey Now!’ or two.
“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.
Operation Ajuq Parngusuut
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Allow me to start this one by stating that before shooting this photo, I had no idea that an outfit called ‘The Pittsburgh Foundation’ existed.
Apparently, the organization is a fairly well heeled non profit. What drew me in was contemplation of exactly what the heck is going on with that building of theirs, architecturally speaking…
I stood there on the corner, running my eyes up and down the thing while trying to work it out. Some dude walked by, who then asked what I was staring at. I pointed, and He started staring at the weird building too.
Soon, there was a third, and then we were all confused… why does that… and where does this… and what purpose would… our trio soon dispersed into individual confusion.
According to Google’s AI:
MossArchitects is the architectural firm behind The Pittsburgh Foundation’s new headquarters located at 912 Fort Duquesne Blvd. The project, which was completed in early 2025, involved a 31,308-square-foot build-out across the top two floors of the building, featuring collaborative spaces, a rooftop patio, and modern office design.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One shouldn’t look upwards. It’s not where I belong.
Streets, alleys, sewer plants, junk yards… that’s where a creature like myself properly dwells.
Loathsome, antilaconic, truly annoying, and pedantic… that’s me in a nutshell. Filthy too, I need’s filth. Gotta have some soil, soot, or black grease on the ground. Everybody hates me, on sight, so it’s best to hide in the places where people aren’t. Getting stoned doesn’t necessarily involve inebriants for me, rather it’s people throwing rocks at me when I’m observed passing by. Dogs bark. Children cry. Crows circle.
The plan for my day was ‘a photowalk,’ not a ‘stand around with two random strangers and critique odd office architecture,’ so the scuttle was leaned back into. I’d need to navigate a path through Downtown Pittsburgh to get from one river to the next, so the process of kicking my feet around while leaning forward started, and soon – a pretty convincing simulacra of human locomotion was underway, just all herky jerky.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cutting through Pittsburgh’s convention center, where a cool looking semi truck caught my eye. The driver was setting up vehicle ramps to lead into the trailer, so this was likely a ‘car carrier’ setup.
11th street, as it were, is encapsulated and overshadowed by the convention center, from its intersection with Fort Duquesne Blvd. On the other side, the street bursts out into those few shafts of sunlight which might be found downtown.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This area is what I’d refer to as ‘the ritual center’ of Pittsburgh. NYC has multiples of these ‘centers,’ spread across the boroughs.
Want to have a parade, you’d do it somewhere nearby. Picklesburgh? Yup.
Pittsburgh’s City Hall, and all the corporate bigwigs, can be found in this Downtown ‘zone.’ The streets are narrow and messy, and often populated by groups of unwanted people doing undesirable things. I’m told that as recently as ten years ago, things were quite different downtown, but that’s likely sophistry. I look over the shoulder hereabouts NYC style, and keep my headphones dangling down rather than playing in my ears. You want to listen for the slap of a sneaker against the pavement, as an early alert that something is about to go down.
Saying all that, it’s really not all that dangerous here if you keep your wits about you and ‘radar’ turned up. It’s just worrying here, as there are big clots of drug enthusiasts seemingly embedded into this area.
Desperate people do desperate things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was one of the first days, after a month long interval of snow and arctic cold, that air temperatures had risen sufficiently for ice and snowpack melting to occur.
Everything was dripping and wet, and in certain spots it seemed to be raining, as the ice released from high flying masonry walls. The lack of building setbacks in Pittsburgh means that all that water dumps straight down onto the sidewalks. Given that single digit temperatures had ruled for a month, the second that the water hit the ground it froze again forming… you guessed it – Black ice, yo.
Pictured is a court building. I’m told that what appears to be a bell tower is actually a ventilation shaft, part of many accommodations which architects used to have to incorporate into large structures like this one in notoriously humid Pittsburgh prior to the era of air conditioning. Neat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found himself back in direct sunlight at the shoreline of the Monongahela River, and at the soul shaking threshold of the Smithfield Street Bridge. The plan for the rest of the day got pretty simple from this point. In short – horror, alienation, and an inconceivable sense of loneliness was what I was hoping for. Long story short: win.
I’d cross the river, look around and try to photograph some trains, and then hop back on the T to head back to HQ in Dormont.
More on all that 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.
Kurz-Bricht von da Lag
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post wraps up the tale of a short walk in a wintry Pittsburgh, with its frozen over rivers and endemic ice and snow. One had used mass transit to get here from HQ in Dormont, and that’s how I planned on getting back.
Thankfully, now that the orthopedic incident recedes into ‘something that happened,’ I no longer have to rely on expensive ride shares to get around when I don’t want to drive. The T light rail was my next goal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
People here don’t understand it… You’ve got a car in your driveway, why would you…
What can I say, I’m still a New Yorker at heart and unless you ‘need’ to drive somewhere why would you? Part of my allergy to using the car as my sole form of transportation revolves around having to get back to wherever it is that I parked the thing after walking miles and miles. Additionally, as I often opine: you can’t really see anything from a car or a bike as you’re moving too quickly.
I sometimes like stopping off at a bar to grab a drink after a walk, too. Can’t do that if you drove.
Famously, that brewery where I shoot all the CSX trains is a good example of that. Couldn’t engage with pints of beer with the car in tow. Basically, I don’t want to be bothered, and prefer leaving my options open for serendipity. Having to loop back to wherever I parked the car also creates a limitation on my wanderings.
Ultimately, I enjoy riding the trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You have to plunge through ‘the cultural district’ to get to the T Station I was aiming for. There’s a theatre or two here, and a few restaurants and bars, with the convention center a couple of blocks east of this spot.
The ‘culture’ they mention in the designation is for the ‘upper class’ version of culture – theatre, and ballets, and opera. Unless you’ve got a ticket for one of these things, the culture you’ll actually observe hereabouts is one that proudly exhorts: ‘Opioids are great, and so are amphetamines.’ A lot of people you’ll meet hereabouts, on the street, will loudly proclaim ‘I don’t give a ‘eff,’ about a broad range of subjects.
The older I’ve gotten the more I’ve realized that you should give as many ‘effs as you’ve got. Life’s like that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I made it to the T’s Wood Street station, and then entered the facility.
A Red Line T soon arrived and thusly I was heading back to HQ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s what it looks like onboard, if anyone is curious, while riding the T light rail away from Pittsburgh.
Soon, I was back in Dormont and uncomfortably slushing my feet through the snow, back towards home. Maybe four to five miles worth of walking this time around, all told and door to door.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Couldn’t help but get a shot of this enigmatic snowman for my last shot of the day. It was a frustrating walk, this one, but I’ve got to keep moving or I’ll stop moving so there we are.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“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.
Gazing, a ride, and then a ‘hey now’
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot involves the ‘gazing’ part from the title. Downtown Pittsburgh, with its shadow casting monoliths.
They don’t seem to do ‘set backs’ out here, so the massing of the upper floors of these towers mirror their bases. This causes a permanent sense of ‘dusk’ for these downtown streets, except for those narrow stripes of sunlight which somehow manage to beam past them. No Bueno.
This walk had been a pretty involved multi hour effort, but I wasn’t done yet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T light rail stop at Gateway Center was entered. I used the elevator to get down to the platform level, just to see how well it functioned. Your humble narrator will often go out of his way to see what people who are less abled might be experiencing in these sorts of municipal systems. But for the grace of god…
I boarded the first T that came into the station, and merrily sat down. First time I had sit down since I was moving through Skunk Hollow about two hours prior.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It would only be a few stops on the T, and all in the ‘free zone.’ The light rail runs for free at the City’s core. It’s all very civilized.
The light rail unit made its underground stops, then emerged back onto an elevated causeway at First Avenue Station, whereupon it then proceeded across the Panhandle Bridge spanning the Monongahela River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The transit service vomited me forth and onto the mean streets of the South Side Flats section, at the Station Square stop. Soon, I was kicking dirt again.
My plan for the rest of my day involved reward for the effort.
The brewery which I haunt is a 15 minute walk from this spot, and I was powerfully thirsty by this point. Hadn’t had a drop of liquid pass my lips since leaving the house, and I’d pretty much walked here from all the way over in East Liberty.
I’ve had to break my usual rule of not carrying water with me on photowalks in Pittsburgh during the summer months, but during the winter months? Not so much. If you drink liquid, you’ll need to pee. That creates a logistical problem, even in a place which routinely deploys Porta-Potties around the city for use as public bathrooms.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The light was pretty great, so I cracked out a shot or two of the Liberty Bridge. This bridge is the ‘other side’ of West Liberty Avenue and the Liberty Tunnels which I showed y’all recently.
A quick call to HQ revealed to Our Lady where I was and served well enough as ‘confirmation of life’ for her to say ‘Have Fun.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It had been about a month since I was able to grab a beer and hang out by the CSX tracks here on the South Side. Missed that.
Tomorrow – lotsa Choo Choo.
“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.
Dark by design
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mid scuttle begins today’s post, between my starting point up on Troy Hill and what could be called a middle point here on the 16th street bridge.
As mentioned previously, this was the first set of clear skies that Pittsburgh had offered in a couple of weeks, and the cloudless situation was causing no end of trouble for the camera, regarding the unoccluded burning thermonuclear eye of god itself bobbing about in the sky.
All caught up.
Look at me, complaining about the sun after I decided to walk south west while facing into it in the middle of a clear afternoon. Schmuck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thing is, I really like inclement lighting conditions as they’re so difficult to capture. Strobing, hot spots, deep contrast – difficult. Nepenthe.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been carrying a ‘bare minimum’ kit in my camera bag. Haven’t been able to handle the thought of dragging the big knap sack around, so it’s been a sling bag with two prime lenses and a few necessities like extra batteries. The big 24-240mm zoom lens is installed on the camera for this sort of duty.
I like an ‘all in one’ for photowalks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Exiting the 16th street bridge, discovery of where all of Pittsburgh’s pigeons like to hang out occurred. A gigantic flock of the rock doves were involved in a panicked murmuration, sparked off by the passing of a semi truck on the streets below.
This section of my scuttle was little more than an inconvenience, passing through the Downtown section, as I didn’t have anything to shoot in this zone which would draw me here or there.
The goal was to just push through the warren of ‘Dahntahn’ streets as quickly as possible, and emerge onto the Monongahela River’s shoreline to continue with my peregrinations in search of interesting things to point the lens at.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a whole generation of urban planners from the 1960’s and 70’s whom I hope went straight to hell when they died. Shadowing the streets with massive bridges and buildings, eliminating any possibility of organic growth in pursuance of… ‘traffic flow’… bah! They do a lot better these days, but… hell… they rammed this monstrous thing right through middle of their downtown back in the 1980’s to complete an idea that Robert Moses gave them back during the Great Depression.
Pittsburgh didn’t have a Jane Jacobs to lead the charge, I guess.
One of the things that’s just maddening about ‘Dahntahn’ is that the office buildings were built without setbacks on the upper stories, creating monolithic shapes that form forever shadows on the streets below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not exactly an inviting pedestrian experience, downtown, nor one that draws me into it with the idea of spending some cash. The big draws in the particular direction pictured above are a series of high end and middle of the road hotels. A few blocks away from that there are dying shops, bars, restaurants which suffer from a lack of foot traffic. The owners of the buildings blame all on a hangover from Covid, work from home policies, and everything else they can think of.
It’s their high rents, in an area that’s not exactly ‘salubrious.’ Think Downtown Brooklyn’s Flatbush Avenue Corridor in the late 1980’s for what I mean by that.
Also, the downtown area is a bit ‘crimey.’ Literally the only place in Pittsburgh where I’m looking over my shoulder, and doing those little NYC style heel spins on the regular to see if anyone’s following me. A few times, somebody was – in fact – following me. Junkies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lighting. Lighting fixes a lot of a City’s problems. In areas of persistent shadow, like the ‘way’ alley pictured above, a 24/7 street lamp will solve whatever it is you’re worrying about. The trick with modernity is that junkies have cell phones, and I’ve developed a perception about this. You walk past one group of junkies and one of them starts texting. Guy coming has got a camera, that’s probably what the text says. By the next corner there’s somebody already waiting, and watching. Networked junkies.
Now, yeah – I’m a bit paranoid. Saying that, I also lived in NYC for half a century and I can literally sense ‘it’ coming, almost in the manner of extra sensory perception or ‘ESP.’ I can ‘feel it’ when I’m being watched by the creatures of the street. There was some character who was following me for a spell while I was shooting these, as a note. I did the ‘stand and stare’ move, which this fellow found disconcerting and he broke off.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 