Posts Tagged ‘Downtown Pittsburgh’
Art Deco, always catches my eye
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh’s Grant Street hosts a catalogue of truly monumental and architecturally important buildings. City Hall and the Allegheny Courthouse are just down the block, as is the US Steel Building and several other skyscrapers.
Also important to my tale is that there’s a station for the T light rail just a few blocks away from Grant’s intersection with Liberty Avenue, which is more or less where these shots were gathered.
On Grant Street, there’s a ‘Federal’ Building, a big 1930’s style Post Office, and a giant hotel or two. Lots of the ‘big,’ and ‘important,’ and ‘power elite’ in the business and governmental world types of people spend their days along this stretch who make random decisions that the rest of us have to figure out how to live with.
The ‘Big Shots’ work on Grant Street, basically.
Click here for a Google Maps waypoint, centered on Grant Street, and have a look around using the street view feature. That’s how I remotely scout out an area which is unfamiliar. An interesting urban corridor.
As mentioned in previous posts, it was a fairly hot summer day when these shots were gathered, and one was forced to abandon the idea of walking in direct sunlight for hours and hours. After shaving a couple of miles off my walk by riding a bus on one of the busways, your humble narrator was soon roughly shambling towards a T light rail station to do the same on the way to the next destination.
Along the way, the ‘Drury Plaza Hotel Pittsburgh Downtown’ pictured above and below caught my eye, or at least parts of it did.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Federal Eagles? New Deal style construction…. Hmm… as it turned out, this is the former Federal Reserve Bank of Pittsburgh’s building.
Luckily, regarding the suffering of Our Lady of the Pentacle, I didn’t need to become obsessed with researching this one as the Drury people offer a fantastic and detailed account of this building, and its purpose prior to their renovation of the place which turned it into a hotelier space.
Neat!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Three of these capitols really caught my eye.
These are all mythological/allegorical characters, and I wonder if that one might be Pluto, the Roman God of the Underworld who was known for his fortune. The term ‘Plutocracy’ means Government of and for the wealthy, after all. As far as the other capitols, since I only had room for one in today’s missive; here is one which I think is meant to represent either Artemis or Ceres, and another which looks like it represents Mercury- here.
Again… neat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Handsome structure, but I had spent too much time nearby a medium high security Federal Building while waving a camera around, and so rejoined my efforts to get to the train. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
The amended plan would involve debarking the light rail at the Station Square stop, whereupon I’d again be walking directly beneath the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself for a spell.
There’d be about 15 minutes of air conditioning though, once I got into the station, so…
Up and over!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle – that’s me.
Always going somewhere, with no actual place to go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Liminal Spaces like this just keep on popping up for me lately.
Wait till you see what’s coming your way in just a few posts… whew!
There’s spaces like this all over Pittsburgh, which feel like walking through and into the Backrooms.
Empty, but with exquisitely maintained space. Floors are clean and clear of litter, glass is polished, all the lights work, air conditioning on. Not dusty, floors mopped. No visible commercial or human activity whatsoever, though.
Back tomorrow, with a big bunch of hey now!
“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.
Mass trans-sitting
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the historical curatives, embraced during the City of Pittsburgh’s steel industry apocalypse and subsequent multi-decade economic recovery period, involved the conversion of former railroad and industrial property’s ‘right of way’ over to an alternative purpose.
Some of these rights of way were converted over to ‘rail trails’ for active, and often waterfront facing, recreation purposes.
Several others were converted over to ‘Busways.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These are municipal vehicle only high speed roads.
You see Cops, Firemen, Ambulances, even the sundry fleets of agency vehicles associated with City or State, using these ‘back door’ routes. The agency which ultimately administers this system is called the ‘PRT,’ and they are the master agency behind both the T light Rail and the extensive bus system which replaced Pittsburgh’s historical network of trolleys.
PRT is Pennsylvania’s counterpart to the MTA, back in NY.
The transit agency people claim that their buses can move as fast at 50mph on these private roads.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are three of these busways, and I’m planning on getting to know where they all go this autumn and winter.
Seems like a good choice, weather wise. The busways interface with local streets, obviously, where the buses leave their private roadways to do the usual thing on the shared public streets.
This was literally the first time I’d darkened the pavement of this system with my odious presence.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was taking this shot when my downtown focused bus arrived. Paid my fare with a special fare card they use here – the Pittsburgh version of the OMNY or Metrocard used for the NYC Subway and Bus system.
It was standing room only on the bus, but this was a short hop and the air conditioning was welcome after walking about in ‘the hot.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bus, whose routing indicated it as a ‘P1,’ dropped myself and others off alongside what used to be one of the most important locations in the United States – the HQ of the Pennsylvania Rail Road.
Said HQ is now an expensive condo, with the train station run by Amtrak below, and it looks like a Soviet Orthodontist’s office.
Having enjoyed my retreat from the heat, and desirous of photographing some railroad action, a new and cunning plan emerged from within the head noodle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One would make his way over to the T light Rail station associated with the U.S. Steel Building, and use that to cross the Monongahela River.
That would put me where I wanted to be, on the south side of the river, where CSX’s frequent travels have been documented before.
The irony of my stated purpose for this walk as ‘getting some cardio in’ devolving factually down to riding a bus, and then a train – this fact does not escape me. What can I say?
You have to ‘go with the flow,’ and as sweat was oozing freely from your humble narrator’s skinvelope on this super hot day, there was the ‘flow’ part for you.
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.
Pittsburgh Scuttle, ignoring the phone
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a warm but comfortable day in Pittsburgh, and your humble narrator was scuttling along all peaceful and calm. I had my headphones with me, but wasn’t listening to anything on this walk. Phone was in my pocket, and I don’t ‘check it’ on any sort of regular basis.
I like to maintain situational awareness when out and about in populated areas. Wasn’t worrying about getting ‘jumped’ or anything like that, instead I just enjoy hearing the staccato song of a city. The sound of people joking around, or telling workplace horror stories, just… talking to each other…
Dozens of people were milling about, and all of them had a smart phone held directly in front of them in the manner of a small shield, which held their gaze. Everybody had headphones going, too. Nobody talked to each other, or formed into friendly conversational groups.
The office working smokers, on their smoke breaks, were all smoking solo, while staring at their phones, as they silently smoked.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One picked his way through the streets, with the fairly inhuman architectural plans of these curbside monoliths positively looming.
My toes began to point towards the Monongahela River shoreline.
There’s a few routes to that waterfront which are possible, on foot, from the position pictured above. Two of them would see me scuttling past a homeless shelter and the city jail, a section where there’s always a large and boisterous crowd on the sidewalks, whereas a different and familiar route could provide me with the desired egress and maintain solitude.
Off I went.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Regular readers of Newtown Pentacle might recall a post, describing a walk around Duquesne University which had published back in July, wherein an antipodal view of the corner above was discussed.
I should mention, again, that the Newtown Pentacle time warp effect has deepened. These photos were captured at the end of June! The words are being typed into existence at the end of the second week of July! If my scheduling is correct, you’re seeing this in early September.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I found myself back at the portal to the Armstrong Tunnel, which was utilized to get to the other side of the Bluff.
One is incredulous at the manner in which the smartphone has completely altered human social interactivity in just under twenty years. Fascinating to me as well that people don’t talk to each other casually anymore, for fear of getting into a conflict about ideological interpretations of the news of the day, and that’s likely what’s wrong with our ‘body politic’ these days.
Luckily, I don’t feel bound by this new etiquette. Old one either.
A good friend of mine once said, before I moved out here to Pittsburgh from Queens, that ‘you don’t have to talk to everyone you see, y’know,’ to which I replied ‘what?… but… yes… yes, I do.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Truth be told, I’m absolutely busting with stuff to talk about at all times. It’s always been kind of a problem for me. Always got in trouble in school for talking out of turn. Hell… I started a blog to get some of it out.
The cell phone thing is weird to me. Sometimes I’ll be out, at a bar or restaurant or something, and there’ll be a table of younger people who are apparently all friends but not talking to each other. Instead, they’ve all been focused in on whatever their individual scrolls are feeding them. Sometimes they’ll show each other the screens, and laugh or scowl.
Your humble narrator has long treated online folderol in the same manner that I do television watching. Something to do while you’re bored and ‘alone’ at home, and not appropriate activity when in a social setting. The whole point of going out is to interact in ‘meatspace,’ where there are consequences for your iniquity or rewards for your glamour.
Yeah, I do understand that it’s ‘work’ you’re checking in to on your phone, at 8:50 p.m. on a Saturday night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The humans are a curious lot.
I’ve witnessed multiple people just striding blindly off the curb and onto busy streets while paying 100% of their attention to that little screen on their phone, ignoring the multi ton vehicles which are whizzing about them. Not even a glance.
For one such as myself, this is astounding.
It’s everything I can do to try and not pay as much attention as possible to every single tiny or semi-hidden detail of a landscape which I’m temporarily inhabiting… as ultimately – you really, really have to watch out for incoming zombies, at the very least.
Only chance you’ve got with a horde of zombies is that you can see them coming, but you’d probably smell them before you saw them, so… Pay attention and be prepared to evacuate. A ‘shelter in place’ during a zombie outbreak is a death sentence.
People are strange, but I’m somehow always stranger.
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.
Pittsburgh’s FNB Tower, and pedestrian hell
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shiny. Your humble narrator found himself wandering about in a quite urban section of Pittsburgh, nearby the brand spanking new 26 story FNB tower. It sits at the foot of the Hill District, and it’s the most easterly of the tall buildings that are considered to be ‘DownTown.’
My interest in the building itself is fairly minor, as it’s just another office building occupied by the financial industry, but the area it squats upon is fascinating to me. There’s an urban highway interchange here called Crosstown Boulevard, which I’ve mentioned in the past.
Interestingly enough, somebody seems to have a plan to deck over the chasm here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This zone is another one of Pittsburgh’s horror shows, from a pedestrian point of view. It’s designed for cars and trucks, period.
There’s lights and walk/don’t walk signs found around the occasional crosswalk, mind you, but the setup hereabouts is ‘don’t cross the street here, instead you cross way over there, and then there, and then way over there, and then you can work your way back to the opposite corner from where you started.
Amazing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The centerpiece of downtown, and the tallest building in the city, is the U.S. Steel Tower. USS maintains a small footprint in the building these days, with the structure’s naming rights – and the vast majority of office space within – being currently occupied by employees of health care giant ‘UPMC.’ University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is a non-profit, incidentally.
Have to say – the legends about Pittsburgh’s health care system being top notch are true, at least in my experience. They did find a cure for Polio out here in Pittsburgh, a couple of generations ago, after all. The health care situation hereabouts was a huge contributor to picking Pittsburgh as our new home base after leaving NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Alternatively – I’d mention that it’s also a challenging and somewhat confusing drive, navigating around this section of Pittsburgh behind the wheel of a car. The various ramps and interchanges overlay each other, and it’s not always clear which direction you’re meant to travel in. As is the case with a lot of things here in Pittsburgh, ‘you need to know which lane you’re going to need to be in’ before you get there.
The signage pictured above indicates traffic routing towards the Liberty Bridge, and the Fort Pitt Bridge, with both spans leading out of the center of Pittsburgh and towards the South Hills region via Crosstown Boulevard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s where those ramps lead, Crosstown Boulevard itself.
To the left is the Bluff or ‘Uptown’ neighborhood where Duquesne University is found. The traffic lanes pictured above lead south to either the Liberty Bridge and Tunnel, or towards the ‘Boulevard of the Allies,’ which provides automotive traffic opportunity to head eastwards and towards interchange with an interstate.
Great transportation infrastructure here, as far as getting drivers moving quickly away from a congested downtown. Awful transportation infrastructure, as it provides few or any departures to local streets, which causes these highways to have a blighting effect on the communities they run through. Also, sucks to be a pedestrian anywhere near this complex.
As mentioned above, there’s a proposal to build a deck over this traffic pit, one which would support a linear park.
When he was still Astoria’s NYS Assemblymember, I tried to convince Zohran Mamdani that decking over the Grand Central Parkway trench in Astoria, and creating a linear park on top of it, would be the best thing that happened to that side of the neighborhood in generations. Most sure fire thing you can do to send real estate valuation into the stratosphere is build a park nearby existing buildings. Documented, that.
I tried selling the idea to Gianaris too, but they both came back with ‘great idea, but do you know how much that would cost?’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan for the day was fluid. Intentionally, I had left HQ with a fairly vague notion of the where’s and how’s. Wanted to follow my nose for this scuttle, and see where it led me. Come with?
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.
Annoying places with lots of footprints
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I spend a lot of my ‘walking around time’ hereabouts at the risible edges of Pittsburgh, so for this day’s scuttle I decided to start things off at more or less the dead bang center of the ‘Golden Triangle’ section, which hosts ‘Downtown.’ Said area is the financial and political center of the city, county, and region.
Big buildings, looks like a city, but actually a very large town, Pittsburgh is.
I found myself standing in front of the ‘St. Benedict the Moor’ Roman Catholic Church, at an ‘angle’ between ‘Downtown,’ and the ‘Hill District’ which is found on – literally – Centre Avenue.
Should I ever manage to actually start my ‘sacred spaces’ photo project, which I’ve been threatening to do for years now, St. Benedict is one of several local churches that I’d love to be able to set the tripod and camera up within.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Purposely, other than the starting point, I didn’t craft any sort of real plan for this scuttle other than to witness things on foot which I’d only seen while hurtling past in an automobile. Opining regarding this subject is an old trope for me, but you really cannot ‘see’ anything when moving at vehicle or bicycle speeds. While walking, all the ‘nitty gritty’ stuff becomes apparent, allowing one to ‘see.’ Wandering, it’s important.
This area is a politically sensitive one, with a history of awful racial stuff mixed in. Once upon a time, this section of Pittsburgh was the local equivalent of (historical) East Harlem back in NYC – a civilizational center point for the region’s working and middle class black community, replete with lots of home grown cultural institutions. August Wilson, Teenie Harris, and a lot of other cool artists, and writers, and musicians, emerged out of the Hill District’s ‘milieu’ – ‘back in the day.’
In 1961, Pittsburgh decided it would rather have a hockey stadium than a functioning black community here. The City ‘urban renewed’ the neighborhood away, built the ‘Civic Arena,’ and then a few decades later they tore that first stadium down, building another just a few blocks away for the Pittsburgh Penguins. That also demolished a bunch of people’s homes to make way for the ‘greater good.’
The footprint of the long gone civic arena is enshrined, by a multi acre plateau of commercial parking lots that serve the newer stadium.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To the west, the office buildings of ‘DownTown’ Pittsburgh, as seen from one of those parking lots where people used to live and love.
A bit of new construction has recently concluded, which saw an office building for the ‘FNB’ outfit rise from one of these lots. The project had been underway for a while when I arrived in Pittsburgh nearly four years ago, and it’s just in the last year or so that it’s become an occupied and busy building.
Urbanism and modern development projects generally aim to have a positive effect on not just the building lot itself, but the hope is often to promulgate an economic and social halo around large projects. You’re planting a tree, why not do a garden too – and since you’re planting a garden – what about a park instead? Bus shelter?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thing is, they really don’t grasp this concept in Pittsburgh.
Paying a hot dog guy to set up his cart at the end of this walkway for a year just might induce might pedestrians and office workers to go take a walk, and the presence of pedestrians just might spur other vendors into some sort of entrepreneurial action. A shop, or even a bench with a bit of shade… ‘something’ to ‘draw’ people this way or that…
It was just unrelenting sunlight, and the tyranny of the real, as I walked towards the de facto sidewalk of an urban highway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve described Pittsburgh’s office buildings as ‘inhuman in scale’ in the past. That’s a high handed statement, even for me… but…
This style of architecture isn’t consequential of humanity, instead we’re just meant to adapt into, and thereby become consequential, because of ‘it.’ Post WW2 American architecture is ‘effed up.
Buildings in Pittsburgh don’t seem to be required to have ‘set backs,’ so they soar up in straight lines and create ‘perma shadows’ on the streets around them. The office buildings’ ground floors are either occupied by empty lobbies with security desks, or high end ‘white tablecloth’ restaurants with menus designed for a businessman’s three martini lunch rather than ‘grabbing a quick bite.’ Either way, this scheme doesn’t lure ‘life’ towards itself.
You can walk no more than a few blocks in a row in this area until you find yourself having to risk your life by running across a highway onramp at a stop sign or traffic light. Pedestrian concerns were, at best, an afterthought to the generation who governed over this buildout.
Again – they had a Rachel Carson in Pittsburgh, not a Jane Jacobs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the new FNB (First National Bank) tower mentioned above.
Shiny.
Glad I brought the polarizer filter with me on this walk.
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.
