Posts Tagged ‘Duquesne Incline’
America’s deadliest wild animal
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, one had a bit of time to wait until a CSX Freight train cleared through, an interval spent organizing his immediacies.
Camera straps, backpack stuff, straightening out my shirt so the buttons descend in a neat fashion rather than being pulled over to one side by the camera strap – all that sort of stuff. I exist in a web of straps.
Once the train passed through, I was free as a bird again. Hooray.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
America’s deadliest wild animals, however, had wandered onto the vehicular road bridge over Chartiers Creek. Traffic had halted as these two rather confused fawns were trying to figure out how to escape the pickle they found themselves in.
I helped by waving my left hand in the direction they should go and yelling something like ‘Bip, bip, bip’ at them. It doesn’t work with Moe the Dog, but I figured I’d give it a shot here.
One can report from a scientific ‘trial and error’ experiment, on two distinct species of animal, that yelling ‘Bip, bip, bip’ and gesturing does not translate well into either the doggish or deermerican languages.
As an aside, I am increasingly convinced that whomever it was that took care of Moe when he was a puppy, way before we adopted him, spoke Spanish around him. He always responds energetically when I tell him ‘tu estas un loco perro’ or say ‘Oye, tu estas un Moe.’
Maybe that’s the answer… my lunatic dog might be bilingual.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I always think to myself that deer look like giant mice. I’m an idiot.
Luckily, these spirits of the forest decided to skedaddle, and ran down the shoreline to Chartiers Creek, which is kind of where they belong.
Deer don’t attack humans, necessarily, and they certainly aren’t predating us. Instead, the 400 Americans who die (on average) every year due to interacting with these deer, the country’s most dangerous wild animals, do so due to car crashes.
Not bears, mountain lions, or even ticks. Deer. Deer kill more Americans than any other critter.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot looking back at McKees Rocks.
Now, I was in the grip of a familiar problem. The section of Carson Street between McKees Rocks and my next destination is a de facto highway, and ‘no bueno’ as far as walking it. There are sidewalks for most of the way, but with heavy traffic moving along it, often at double the speed limit. Last time I was here, I summoned a cab.
This time…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I finally rode a bus in Pittsburgh, lords and ladies.
Nothing extraordinary about it, it was just a ten minute bus ride, but it ‘got me out of dutch’ and deposited the physical firmament at a spot where I wasn’t quite as likely to get squished by a pickup truck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The particular bus stop I debarked the vehicle at was the one found alongside the Duquesne Incline, whereupon a pedestrian ramp over Carson Street was utilized for this chicken to get to the other side of the road. My day was just getting started, after all…
Back tomorrow with more.
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“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.
Reigning it in, a bit
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘Dude, every time you leave the house it doesn’t need to be the Bataan death march…’ that’s what I said to myself in the bathroom mirror on the morning that I set out for this latest scuttle.
One shlepped up a steep hill to the ‘T’ light rail, and headed into Pittsburgh from Dormont, where HQ is found.
The Newtown Pentacle time warp is still very much in effect, and growing more severe. These shots were gathered on the 9th of June, and these words are being written on June 30th. If my scheduling is correct, this will publish during the second week of August.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T dropped me at the Station Square stop.
You get a free transfer to one of the incline/funiculars here, so I decided to take advantage of that service to get high up, on Mount Washington. It had been a while since I walked the ‘PJ McArdle roadway’ path, so that was my plan for the afternoon.
For the last few months, I’ve been intentionally pushing my limits, as far as endurance and overall length of walking and photo sessions. Big part of how I’ve managed to maintain a month of lead time here.
The busted ankle is still a background character in this story, and whereas I’ve reversed a great deal of the atrophy to muscularity caused by the injury, I’m still living with it and getting used to the aftermath.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Up top, and the scuttle gets started.
The goal for this day was just to kick a bunch of dirt, and not to explore new or novel places. It was about obliging a certain walking speed and maintaining a slightly above average heart rate. One walked a bit more urgently than normal – not ‘maximum boogie’ speed – but a couple of paces faster than my ‘usual.’ Close to 3 mph, as opposed to my more normal 2.3 – 2.6 mph.
It’s all downhill from here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One remains fascinated by that ‘Colors House’ on Cola Street, in the South Side Slopes. At least one of those other homes sitting on the cantilevers near it is an expensive AirBNB. Fun.
The camera was waved around for a minute or two.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks along the Monongahela River; with Smithfield Street, Panhandle, Liberty, South Tenth Street, and Birmingham Bridges in view.
In the distance is PITT’s Cathedral of Learning in Oakland, and closer to the POV is the uptown or Bluff neighborhood where Duquesne University is installed. Recent posts have wiggled about in the areas visible in the shot above.
Man… I do get around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, one reached the pedestrian walkway of the the PJ McArdle roadway itself, a diagonally set double lane street which descends from the prominence of Mount Washington’s ‘Grandview Avenue’ down to the mean streets of the South Side Flats below.
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.
Six mile scuttle continues on, and on
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As one may recall from last week’s mishegoss, your humble narrator took a lovely walk in Pittsburgh on a summer day and saw lots of cool things. Many photographs were collected along the way, and now you’re all caught up.
The Duquesne Incline is pictured above, descending from the heights of Mount Washington to its lower station. I refer to this incline as ‘the red one,’ as there’s also a ‘yellow one.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst picking my way along the shoreline, the sound of rock being cut or drilled into began to echo. A cloud of white smokey dust began to billow from beneath the incline’s tracks, and then the incline was being run right through it. Neat!
There weren’t any fire people or cops running around, so I figured that there was no reason to panic. Atmospheric!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I felt obligated to crack out a few shots of this scene, with the one above being my favorite. Glad that I had outfitted the camera with the ‘all in one’ Zoom lens that has a range of 24-240mm. Long reach, that.
This was roughly the half way point on this scuttle, which started on Pittsburgh’s North Side at the terminal stop of the T light rail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Towboat Vulcan appeared, towing a very low in the water barge.
In the background is the Allegheny River, and the Fort Duquesne Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Fort Pitt Bridge would be where I next ‘took up station,’ but I mean beneath it not above. Troll, me. Under bridges, that’s where I can be found. Really, it’s also quite shady down there.
The signals over the rail tracks indicated that something was coming towards me, and there’s a spot I like under the bridge for rail photos, so I walked as fast as I could to it. Post broken ankle, I still can’t run, so I started heading towards that spot as fast as I could manage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A tourist boat, The Gateway Clipper, gave me something to point the camera at while I was waiting for the next train to arrive. It navigated under the Fort Pitt Bridge and away.
Back tomorrow with more from the Paris of Appalachia – 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.
Placeholding funicular
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Due to another band of winter weather, your humble narrator greets you on this President’s Day holiday with an archived shot from a couple of weeks back, when the Three Rivers of Pittsburgh were frozen solid. That’s the Duquesne Incline, one of two funicular railways here in Pittsburgh, which I refer to as ‘the red one.’ The other is the yellow one.
Back tomorrow with something a bit more substantial. I hope.
“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.
An agonizing scuttle
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Y’know what? A broken ankle really hurts, even four months later when you’re officially ‘on the mend.’ After getting off of the ‘T’ Light Rail, which I had ridden into town here in Pittsburgh after attending a ‘PT’ or Physical Therapy appointment nearby The T’s last stop, the ankle was definitively not happy. A weird clicking sensation was occurring on downsteps, and the muscular atrophy in my hips and upper thighs, caused by sitting in a wheelchair for two months, made itself known.
I walked half way out onto the Smithfield Street Bridge, which I had intended to cross from the other side of the river, but every step became an act of will to complete and I had debarked the T a stop earlier than my planned location.
This experience reminded me of the first time I walked to Dutch Kills from Astoria back when I first started getting interested in Newtown Creek after the cardiac incident almost twenty years ago. I was using a cane in those days, and the two and change miles walk to the waterway exhausted my reserves and it took me a couple of hours. It was a long walk, back then.
A couple of years later and this became a half hour to 45 minute walk, from Astoria to my beloved creek. You gotta just suck it up, sometimes, knowing that payoff is coming down the line. Push! Lean into it!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My destination and reward for all this effort were about a half mile (or a little more) away from this spot. Normal circumstances would describe the following path as a 15 minute walk. It took me an hour. Luckily, one of my favorite podcasters – Dan Carlin – had just released a ‘Hardcore History Addendum’ broadcast featuring an interview with journalist Zeinab Badawi discussing the African Kingdom of Kush. (Spotify link). Worth a listen, and it’s a subject seldom discussed.
It was about 5 p.m. when I was walking around, a pretty busy interval in Pittsburgh as everybody is moving around and going from one place to another. Auto traffic is pretty heavy, and what they call ‘rush hour’ occurs. As a former New Yorker… it’s not heavy highway traffic if it’s moving at 35 mph. Hell, it’s not heavy traffic unless you put your car in park on the BQE and lie out on the car’s hood to work on your tan while waiting for things to loosen up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the past, I’m goofy for funiculars, so when I saw the incline moving around on snow covered tracks, I couldn’t resist. The fact that I got to stand still for a couple of minutes didn’t hurt either.
I still had the better part of a mile ahead of me, so I leaned into the walk and got moving. Unfortunately, and this wasn’t intentional, my stride length had diminished seriously at this point. I found myself walking like a penguin, with short steps and swinging my hips around more than my legs. Doesn’t matter, said a humble narrator out loud, got to keep moving. If you stop moving, you die.
You have no idea how horrible it is to have ‘me’ inside of my head. I’m tougher intellectually than I am physically, and I’m often a real dick towards myself.
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 