Posts Tagged ‘Heinz Factory’
Peaceful egress
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The next encounter on my ‘totally stupid fun’ scuttle involved crossing over the highways on the Charles J. Lieberth Pedestrian Walkway.
Named for PBS’s first ‘Mr. Science,’ the bridge spans over Route 28 and its various ramps which lead to other highways and high volume bridges. The pedestrian bridge allows egress over the concrete canyons of the high speed roads.
These highways were cut directly out of Pittsburgh’s central residential districts, dividing and isolating communities. Reading about this city, I have seen Robert Moses’ name pop up here and there as an advisor to both Pittsburgh and PA. planners, and whether or not he or his acolytes had anything to do with this setup is unknown to me, but their influence on the road network here is pretty clear.
‘Urban core is bad, build highways through it to get the population out to the suburbs in cars.’
Me? I’m a big proponent of decking over these traffic chasms and creating parkland above them. It’s expensive, but so’s having tens of thousands of cars shoot through your neighborhood every day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I floated the idea of decking over the Grand Central Parkway back in Astoria with a few of the powers that be. ‘The Tall Guy’ wasn’t terribly interested, although the ‘other guy’ currently running for Mayor was. The tale I was telling them was one where light weight decking, designed to carry a linear park rather than buildings, along Astoria Blvd. between 31st and 46th streets, was involved. I made the case about Real Estate valuation skyrocketing anywhere within six blocks of a park, cleaner air and its relationship to childhood asthma, and both noise containment and the urban heat island effect.
Decking over the trenches which highways ride through cities in is going to be ‘a thing’ eventually in this country. Not making more land, so… this sort of idea is one of the things that Government is actually good at… it would employ the unions… generate a lot of ‘made in the USA’ business for steel and concrete…
Bah.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From up on the pedestrian bridge, looking northwards towards the ‘Deutschtown’ section of Pittsburgh’s North Shore.
Don’t know this area well at all, but there’s a lot of historic housing stock and commercial buildings to observe. I’m more familiar with the northern part of this neighborhood closer to Allegheny General Hospital. Exteriors of that institution are shown on the HBO/Max series ‘The Pitt’ as being the setting of the show (pictured here).
They don’t have enough people wearing Steelers jerseys and shorts during the winter for that show to be believably set in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before leaving the pedestrian bridge and regaining normal streets, this highway interchange caught my eye. One of the tricks to driving in Pittsburgh is familiarity with which lane you need to be in for where you’re going. Drivers here are merciless, and enforce their rules with a maximum of mendacity. If you miss your turn, it’s incumbent to double back – there are no second chances on roads in the Steel City.
Me? I was heading for the Heinz Factory Lofts. That’s what they call the Heinz Factory now that it’s been converted to residential.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve shown you photos of the Heinz campus before, but nothing systematic or beyond the surface. Hoping to worm my way in there sometime and get busy with the camera.
Just passing through, at any rate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My next challenge was going to crossing the Allegheny River, and getting to the 16th street bridge. Luckily, that’s the street I was standing one when this photo was taken.
Back next week with more – 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.
Onions make you cry
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned earlier in the week, a humble narrator is in the midst of an intractable argument with the guy in the mirror. It’s not fun behind the eyes or between the ears at the moment, but that’s me – I’m like the Kiwi – a fuzzy little fruit with a lot of personality, which doesn’t taste anything like you think it would if you take a bite.
That’s the Heinz factory pictured above, which has been converted over from production of the 57 varieties to housing. I love the aesthetics of the campus, and we actually considered it as a place to land when moving out here. Ultimately, it was too ‘urban,’ and one of the things we wanted, when moving from NYC, was to not share walls with random madmen anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 16th street bridge, which I walked back and forth over a few times on my constitutional short walk – on it and a section of the adjoining Great Allegheny Passage trail (about 8,000 steps, according to my phone) – offers some pretty nice views of the center of Pittsburgh. That’s ‘Downtown’ or ‘D’ahn-tahn’ as the local idiom would call it.
Translating from NYC Brooklynese to Pittsburgh Yinzer – Youse is Yinz. Being nosey is ‘being nebby’ and so on. The Yinz slang thing is commonly embraced here, and there’s a range of products available which embrace the linguistic stylings thereof. It’s odd. Rubber bands are called ‘gum bands’ in Pittsburgh, and they also put french fries in salads.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While scuttling back to the Mobile Oppression Platform, parked in one of the Great Allegheny Passage parking lots on the north side, I spotted a Norfolk Southern train set transiting over the Fort Wayne Rail Bridge in the distance. Luckily, I had a zoom lens on the camera and was able to get a long telephoto shot of it.
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.
Pickle faced
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is in a bit of a mood at the moment. Nothing special is going on, just in the midst waging war with that most intractable and stubborn of all the enemies I’ve ever encountered – myself. Bah.
Forgive any dark outlook or prognostication this week, I’m in a mood.
The good news is that no matter what torrential and self referential hellscape might manifest twixt the ears, life always needs tending to. It was time once again to give the Mobile Oppression Platform a drink of the fuel it craves, and I got lucky when the tracks across the street from the gas station I frequent were suddenly occupied by a passing freight train operated by the Wheeling & Lake Erie outfit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The M.O.P., which is how I refer to my Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, gets an absolutely science fiction level of gas mileage – just as promised by the manufacturer. Topping off the tank gives me an unbelievable 560 miles of range. According to the analytics in the dashboard, which I’ve confirmed by real world reckoning, I’m getting about 39 mpg. This is working out for me, as the car is a necessity in these parts.
I’ve also finally figured out how to get Google Maps to offer me driving route options which use local rather than highway streets to get where I want or need to go.
In the case of the need for a constitutional ‘short walk’ here in Pittsburgh recently, that route involved me driving through the central business district and then over to the waterfront trail found on the north side of the Allegheny River, nearby the former Heinz Factory, from HQ in the South Hills community of Dormont.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heinz has been converted over to housing, and there’s several attractive but quite expensive (by Pittsburgh standards) domiciles available for lease. I think they also do Condos in there, but who knows. The last thing I want to do in my dotage is live in the center of a city again. HQ is about 6 or 7 miles south of the Heinz Factory Lofts, and it’s a 2 story house, in a suburb with my very own driveway. I’ve got deer regularly walking around in the yard, and there’s a family of ground hogs living under the yard. We’ve got Chipmunks too, and every kind of bird you can think of is regularly spotted – including eagles. Just the other night, something huge skulked through the yard, but all I saw was its shadow. Might have been a Squonk.
As mentioned, a section of the ‘Great Allegheny Passage’ trail runs through this section of Pittsburgh, which also offers up a safe parking spot for that great gas mileage car of mine, so I ended up wandering around for bit and burning up a bit of shoe leather while wandering in this section.
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 