Posts Tagged ‘Downtown Pittsburgh’
Engage
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, a day arrived here in Pittsburgh when it wasn’t; a) raining, b) snowing, c) under 20 degrees fahrenheit. One packed up the camera bag, donned that filthy black raincoat which I refer to as my ‘Street Cassock,’ and set forth to scuttle up the hill to The T light rail station.
I have a real preference for leaving the car at home unless I absolutely have no other choice to do so. This is odd for the region I now live in, which very much ‘car country.’ Personally, I don’t want to be bothered with parking and then getting back to the thing when I’ve got a mass transit option. The car cuts into the often serendipitous decisions which occur when I’m walking about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the solution that they came up with here in Downtown Pittsburgh to solve the ‘Homeless people pissing on the streets’ problem. Imagine that, not having to chance a ticket to do what comes naturally, and a large municipality which acknowledges human biology.
NYC’s response to a lack of such accommodation for the downtrodden has always been to send in the “Reverend in Blue” to write them a fine for pissing in public. I tell people about this here in Pittsburgh, NYC’s total lack of public bathrooms, a problem that only got worse after COVID.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Going back to the reasoning behind why I left the car at home, a random decision to walk over the Fort Pitt Bridge occurred to me and I was soon navigating my way over the Monongahela River, on the span’s bike and pedestrian path.
This was a medium long walk, incidentally, and over the course of the afternoon I probably scuttled out about 6-7 miles. It was also one of those walks where I was just making up my path and I didn’t have any sort of predefined destination or route. Just walking here, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been hitting this ‘inner circle’ of Pittsburgh where the 3 Rivers meet for a couple of months now – for fairly prosaic reasons – it’s easy for me to get to, and it’s where the waterfront trails are the most developed. Additionally: tugboats and trains and bridges…
As soon as the weather becomes reliable (as in not freezing or snowing) in the early Spring, I’m planning on visiting a couple of other places in Pittsburgh’s ‘neighborhood,’ notably Cleveland. I’m going to overnight that one, as it’s a bit of a drive at about two and a half hours.
I’ll be passing through East Palestine – where that train blew up last year – on that one, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Fort Pitt Bridge connects to the Fort Pitt Tunnel, and is punched through Mount Washington. It spans the very end of the Monongahela River, and is close to the Ohio River. That bridge in the distance is the West End Bridge, and it stretches over the Ohio, just for reference on the geography.
I didn’t catch the name of that Tug with those minerals barges, despite it being the protagonist of the photo (meaning that it was what the lens was focused on).
The path on the bridge for pedestrians like myself doesn’t go into the tunnel, instead it turns west and takes you – ultimately – towards the West End Bridge pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s kind of getting personal now, not getting the composition above with a train on those tracks. Beyond personal, it’s annoying already. I’m going to get it, have no doubt. I think I’m going to have to set up the camera and just sit there waiting for something to happen. Photography is often a lot like fishing, you prepare your gear and go to where you need to, but if they ain’t biting…
Bah! One continued along his way, walking the pedestrian path’s ramp back down to ground level on the south side of the Monongahela River.
Having ridden the T into town from HQ, a free transfer to one of the inclines was in the offing, and since I was heading in that direction anyway…
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.
Ten mile scuttle, part five
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A lifetime habit of mine was to use a combination viewing of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings to orient myself whenever I was climbing out of a Subway in Manhattan, to help me navigate and let me know where I was and what direction I needed to go. Here in Pittsburgh, a similar thing is accomplished using the U.S. Steel Tower.
Don’t let the non profit health outfit’s ‘UPMC’ logo fool you, that’s the U.S. Steel Tower pictured above. UPMC is United Pittsburgh Medical Center, a non profit dealie that seems to own a lot of land in Pittsburgh and its extended metroplex.
The steel guys are still in the building, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Feds have a bunch of agencies housed in the corridor pictured above, here in Pittsburgh. The ‘Feebs’ are here, as are Fed level courts and the ‘big post office’ and the passport people, and I’m sure DEA is lurking around somewhere nearby too. A few blocks away is Pittsburgh’s City Hall and a local level court complex. This street is called ‘Liberty Avenue.’ You see a lot of uniforms and badges walking around eating hot dogs in this section.
I was heading roughly southwards at this point, on a long walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
UPMC is one of the ‘800 pound gorillas’ in Pittsburgh, a non profit corporation which owns a lot of the region’s hospitals and clinics and nursing homes, and employs a LOT of people. There’s controversy at the moment between the politicians and this non profit, since the behemoth medical entity doesn’t pay any property taxes… and since politicians like to spend tax money on new things they’ve recently dreamed up… the two ‘estates’ are at odds with each other.
Nobody seems overly concerned about spending money on fixing potholes, here in Pittsburgh, I’d mention.
I’ve always wondered why our society doesn’t try to get things right, improving insufficient or badly designed existant systems, before installing new and expensive ones.
Personally, I’ve been working on a recipe for meatloaf that I’m pretty close to perfecting (recipe version 7), but have resisted the urge to start roasting chickens, before I get the meatloaf formula just right. That’s how I roll, call me crazy.
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.
Ten mile scuttle, part four
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As a humble narrator was in the process of debarking the 31st street bridge over the Allegheny River, one couldn’t help but admire the terraced setup of a section called Polish Hill. That’s the Immaculate Heart of Mary RC Church, which is in an area that I’d paid a brief visit to last year. Even after a year, I still find Pittsburgh’s verticality remarkable.
My next set of moves involved hanging a right at the foot of the bridge and to start walking downtown. Rush Hour, as it is humorously referred to here, was just starting up. Seriously, what the locals refer to as ‘heavy traffic’ just makes this ex New Yorker giggle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As stated in earlier posts from this walk, the plan was to walk back along the Allegheny River on this side of the water, and then cross the Monongahela River to access the T Light Rail, and get back to HQ. I punked out on that as it was starting to snow/rain again. At this stage, it was just starting up, and little piles of water were slowly appearing on my eyeglasses. Nothing major yet, I still had a good hour to go before it really started up, but wet and cold aren’t amongst my favorite combos.
More on all that later in the week, for now I was walking past the Amtrak Station and trying to imagine what it must have looked like back in the ‘good old days.’ I’ve taken Amtrak to and from Pittsburgh, and I believe that my description of the modern station as looking and feeling like a Soviet Orthodontist’s office is still apt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This isn’t exactly the nicest street for a pedestrian in Pittsburgh, I’d offer. The left side of the shot offers the ruined former entrance of the train station which is fenced off and gross. The right side of the shot is the City’s morgue and medical examiner’s offices. The liminal space of the highway ramps above are where most of the occupants are. Awful and barren street scape, this, with sidewalks that just end leaving pedestrians stranded and walking on a busy road. Uggh.
They do a lot of things right here in Pittsburgh, this ain’t one of them.
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.
Existential scuttling
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Those old Christmas season cartoons – the stop motion animation ones from Rankin Bass – they had one heck of a sound track, if you ask me. The Heat/Cold Miser song, in particular, as well as the one from Santa’s origin story which bucked up the Winter Warlock’s mood by suggesting that if you ‘put one foot in front of the other, soon you’ll be walking out the door,’ are tunes that always seem to always actively dwell in my mind.
So does The Who’s ‘Don’t get fooled again’ but that ditty exists in a different mental folder.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in prior posts, the particular scuttle during which these shots were gathered wasn’t aimed at any one spot. I was straight up wandering, with intent revolving around getting from one T streetcar station on the north side of the Allegheny River to another one on the south side of the Monongahela River, via the peninsular ‘Downtown’ section of the Pittsburgh. Exploring, essentially.
I will admit to becoming somewhat intrigued by the flatiron shaped brick building pictured above, with its ornate lintels and terracotta decoration. I’m going to have to look into that one at some point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh’s Smithfield Street Bridge, over the Monongahela River, is fascinating to this NYC transplant. Well… beyond being how I got from one side of the river to the other, where the T station is.
The piers and masonry of the bridge were designed by none other than John Roebling (Brooklyn Bridge), and the steel upper section of the bridge was created by Gustav Lindenthal (Queensboro Bridge).
…put one foot in front of the other…
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.
On we sweep
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, older office and commercial buildings in Pittsburgh which were built before Willis Carrier invented what modernity calls ‘air conditioning’ (at a lithograph company at Newtown Creek back in Brooklyn, I would mention) sport an abundance of windows. Pittsburgh has a famously humid climate, sited as it is at the delta formed by the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers (whose combined waters then become the Ohio River), and back in the old days your only comfort during the ‘hot’ could be found in cross ventilation.
This section of Downtown seems to be where the courts and governmental offices are found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The funny thing about this particular tourist bus ride is that over the last 8 or 9 months, I’ve walked many of the individual legs of this route while exploring. Instinct is as important to me as the camera, and I’ll often say to myself “that’s important” when encountering a thing or a place and crack out a shot without really knowing what I’m looking at. Later on, I’ll find out that a building was owned by a supervillain like Henry Clay Frick, as in the shot above.
The tour bus continued on…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The double decker bus got onto one of the highways found on the south side of Pittsburgh’s ‘golden triangle,’ and we were soon passing by the Birmingham Bridge which spans the Monongahela River. Another pathway I’ve scuttled down is found directly below this spot, the Eliza Furnace Trail, which has become one of my favorites for a longish 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 