Posts Tagged ‘Hot Metal Bridge’
Hot Metal Night
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Hot Metal Bridge pictured above, and the pathway I was walking here in Pittsburgh was described in this post from February of last year. The burning thermonuclear eye of God itself had slid away from the vault of the sky, and since there really isn’t an extended period of ‘dusk’ in these parts – it gets dark fast. Snap your fingers and ‘boom’ it’s suddenly night time.
I’ve been hankering to do some ‘night work’ again, at any rate, which is something that’s not been on my menu for a while.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t have any of the equipment normally used for such pursuits along with me on this walk (tripod etc.), rather I was packing a kit of prime lenses so the captures had to be handheld.
No problem there. The prime lenses I had with me are all ‘bright’ with the capability of large apertures. The ‘darkest’ lens I had with me was f2.8 wide open, and the rest ranged from f2 to f1.8 with a couple of them also offering image stabilizer technology. My camera has a built in sensor stabilizer, so coupled with a stabilized lens, that gives me around 6-8 stops worth of wiggle room.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After having walked the Three Rivers Heritage trail from downtown Pittsburgh, alongside the north shore of the Monongahela River, my crossing back to the south side of the waterway was accomplished via the Hot Metal Bridge – a former rail bridge which once connected two sides of a steel mill and has been converted over to automobile/bike/pedestrian usage in modernity.
It got darker with every step I took, which sounds like a metaphor for my entire life, but there we are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the right side of the shot above is a high technology focused office park where several corporate entities are based. Carnegie Mellon has a building in there too. All sorts of robotics research, work on self driving cars, and other fairly terrifying advancements are being created and tested therein. The land used to be the property of that former steel mill which the Hot Metal Bridge was a part of.
To my eyes, Pittsburgh has done a lot better with its ‘post industrial landscape’ than NYC has. If this was Brooklyn, those buildings with their hundreds of high paying technology jobs would be empty condo buildings full of ‘pied a terre’ apartments that rich suburbanites use as crash pads when they’re in the City, and rent out as AirBNB’s when they’re not.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Birmingham Bridge at center of the shot above, a span which I recently walked over and offered a post about a few weeks ago, with Downtown Pittsburgh rising up behind it.
Luckily, I’d be taking a ride share home this particular evening, as I was heading towards a pub with a pretty excellent bar menu for a dinner date with Our Lady of the Pentacle. This was pretty exciting stuff for us, as we’ve become ‘dirty rotten stay at homes’ since moving out here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The lifestyle we’re experiencing here in Pittsburgh is domestically focused, and it’s rare that we even get takeout or go to a restaurant for a meal, or go to a bar when we want to have a drink. Generally, it’s meals at home and stocking up at a supermarket about once a week. The isolation is splendid, but every now and then – usually about once every week, or week and a half, we force ourselves out for some diversion.
This is, of course, a real departure from life in NYC with its tiny kitchens that lack automatic dishwashers or food preparation space, and a multitude of take out options.
Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Abandoned Bridge
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Union Railroad Rankin Hot Metal Bridge #35, aka the Carrie Furnace Hot Metal Bridge, was built in 1900 and has been out of service for some 40 years. Of late, it has been designated as part of the Carrie Furnace based ‘Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.’ There’s talk of Allegheny County rehabilitating this span over the Monongahela River for usage by vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists. It connects the Pittsburgh exurbs of Whitaker/West Homestead on the southern bank of the river with the northern connection going to the community of Rankin.
While walking along the Great Allegheny Passage, one might notice a rather prominent fence hole – as a humble narrator did – which leads up to the span. As a note, the bridge is in a deleterious condition, and is quite hazardous. If you’re not versed in ‘urbex,’ or know how to gauge whether or not the next the step you take in a ruined industrial space is either the right one, or the one which sends you to either a hospital or an undertaker… I’d avoid this place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To amplify the caution, there’s several spots where the deck of the thing has deteriorated and the metal decking is nothing more than layers of rust. There’s also quite a number of trip hazards and a few instances where you’re looking through some rusted out hole at the Monongahela River, which is flowing by some fifty feet below you. You never want to have to call 911 for help, even if you could, as that would be an extremely embarrassing situation.
This span was used as a rail bridge, some 483 feet long, and is supported by three stout masonry piers. It was built to connect the Carrie Furnace and Edgar Thomson works on the northern shore to the rail network found on the south side of the river, and it also served as a connection to other nearby U.S. Steel plants in Homestead and Clairton, as well as offering ingress to the incoming rail shipments of coal and coke which fueled the various operations.
There’s lot of sharp edges, drops, and ways to get hurt up here. Also, technically speaking – I was trespassing – but there ain’t exactly a bunch of cops waiting for you up here. Still – it’s a nice spot for photos, and as I kind of know what to look out for, and am also notoriously cautious…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying all that, I was still engaged in my long walk from Duquesne to Homestead along the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) trail. I still had a couple of miles to go before meeting up with a friend at a local brewery for a couple of pints of beer and a session of grousing about the state of the world on that particular week.
The GAP trail reenters the street grid shortly after rounding around the Homestead Pump House historic site, and so did I. One scuttled forward. Ever scuttling, that’s me, God’s lonely man with a camera.
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Wound up
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crossing the Monongahela River, one headed back in the direction of the T Light Rail which had provided a humble narrator with transport from the suburban HQ in Dormont over to the titular center of Pittsburgh.
I was on the Hot Metal Bridge during this particular interval.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Said span is pictured above, and the one in the distance in the first shot is called the Birmingham Bridge. For more, click here.
Rather than sticking to the waterfront as is my habit, this time around I decided to walk down one of the ‘main drags’ in the neighborhood immediately found nearby. This commercial ‘high street’ is called East Carson St., and there’s an abundance of eating and drinking establishments found along it. Apparently this area is irresistible to the younger cohort of Pittsburgh, the sort which enjoys a tipple on a Saturday night, and the corridor often makes the news with tales of mischief and drunken mayhem. For you New Yorkers – think Avenue A between St. Mark’s and Houston.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I grabbed an actually exceptional slice of Pizza on East Carson Street, which I happened across on my way back to the T. I quaffed the thing, and then continued on back to the station.
Back next week with more from Pittsburgh.
“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.
Hot Metal, 3 Rivers Heritage Trail
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The path which the Monongahela River enjoys is somewhat serpentine in nature, prior to the waterway’s juncture with the Allegheny River, where they mutually become the Ohio River nearby Downtown Pittsburgh. Last week, I drove the Mobile Oppression Platform (the Toyota) over to a neighborhood called the Southside Flats and parked in a lot associated with a park and the Three Rivers Heritage Trail. The MOP was left directly beneath the Birmingham Bridge, pictured above.
It’s a young bridge for this section of the world, having been opened for business in 1977. It’s another bowstring arch bridge, not unlike the Fort Penn bridge discussed last week. The fact that it’s not painted yellow indicates that it’s a state – rather than a city – bridge. My plan for the afternoon was pretty simple – I’d walk eastwards along the trail, cross the river and then walk westwards, whereupon I’d circle back to the MOP. It was overcast in Pittsburgh, with roiling clouds bolting around up in the vault, and the temperatures were comfortable and in the mid 50’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is another one of the sections of Pittsburgh where there used to be a steel mill, I’m told. The trail itself follows active freight rail tracks on the south side of the river. In tomorrow’s post, the north side of the scene will be explored, but for the first half of my walk it was all about the south side and getting to where my crossing would be found.
There’s gigantic infrastructural elements available for inspection and appreciation along the way – storm sewers, enormous concrete and iron retaining walls that keep the slopes of sedimentary soil deposits from sliding into the river. One section had steel plates holding up a wall of soils, with the steel plates bolted into place with giant lug nuts that were the size of dinner plates.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 1887 vintage Hot Metal Bridge. During the Second World War, 15% of American steel production would travel over it on the rails. In 2000 AD, it was converted over to vehicle and pedestrian/bike usage. Its “official” name is the “Monongahela Connecting Railroad Bridge and Hot Metal Bridge.” On the path approaching it, there’s historic signage which describes the steel industry and the railroads which served it.
There’s post industrial development everywhere you look in this zone, and a few large corporate anchors are located nearby, including the clothing company American Eagle Outfitters.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the Hot Metal Bridge’s pedestrian path, which is completely separated from the vehicular lanes, and heading north – that’s where this shot was gathered. I didn’t have any particular goal for the afternoon other than kicking my feet about and getting some exercise, but I was able to piece together a mental map of where I was scuttling based around prior explorations – which I’ve described here – of the Monongahela Valley. Locally, it’s referred to as the Mon Valley by the politicians, but when they say that it’s usually in reference to the still quite industrial areas to the east like Clairton and Braddock.
There were just a few other people on the bridge. A bike rider or three, joggers, one or two other pedestrians. No dogs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one looks back towards the south side of the river across the Hot Metal Bridge. My original plan was to circle back to the south side and the MOP using the Birmingham Bridge… but more on that tomorrow.
The north side has quite a different circumstance than the south does, with high speed roads like I-579 riding on elevated structures and an industrial and commercial zone. When you get to the north side, the Three Rivers Heritage trail is renamed as the Eliza trail to commemorate the J&L Steel mill which was located here. This bridge is also part of the Great Allegheny Passage trail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the north side, I turned westwards. The neighborhoods around this intersectional area are Oakland and the Hill District. The terrain here is difficult due to its verticality, and I can tell you that it’s a real challenge to climb these hills on foot. Luckily, the path I was walking on was graded for rail, meaning one foot of elevation for every hundred feet horizontally.
Tomorrow, I find myself walking through the sort of place which most would logically go looking for my corpse, if I’d gone missing.
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