Posts Tagged ‘Hot Metal Bridge’
Eliza Trailing, part 1
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator had begun his daily scuttling, along a pathway offered by the Eliza Furnace Rail Trail – set into the former ‘right of way’ of the B&O Railroad – which travels along the northern shore of the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh.
My goal for the day essentially boiled down to getting some exercise, with the hope that something interesting might appear in front of the camera as I was scuttling along. Headphones were in, and I was listening to a playlist of the Diana Ross era of the Supremes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The river facing properties used to house an iron furnace, and a steel mill, both operated by an outfit called ‘Jones and Laughlin’ or simply ‘J&L’ which shuttered back in 1968.
Pittsburgh is still trying to figure out what to do with all the post industrial land in this ‘zone.’ I see announcements of salvation being offered by some out of state real estate developer or investment group in the newspaper periodically, but nobody seems to be turning many shovels of dirt over on the property.
One’s toes were pointing in a northwesterly direction, towards the apogee of the central peninsula of the city. The ultimate goal was to get back to the T Light Rail for a ride back to HQ, but that would be hours away.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Part of the mill’s former campus has been redeveloped, as a note.
There’s a sort of ‘tech incubator’ operation found alongside the Hot Metal Bridge, one which brings in tech company investment and expertise to fund whatever cutting edge stuff that the students at PITT and CMU are dreaming up.
The ‘J & L’ outfit were located on both shores of the river here, and the original built purpose of this bridge was for railroad units that carried molten metals, in ingots, back and forth.
The Hot Metal Bridge, as it’s called in modernity, has been converted over to vehicular and pedestrian/bike usage. Also, the colloquial name of ‘Hot Metal Bridge’ is commonly applied to a LOT of bridges around these parts, but it’s ‘officially’ the name of this one – now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh and its neighbors use a numbering system for their addresses which translates to describing the ‘blocks’ that streets are a part of. If you were calling 911 to report a traffic accident or something, and didn’t know the specific address, you’d say ‘I’m on the 0000 block of Hot Metal Street’ to the operator. It’s the same system that Los Angeles and other cities use, and you’re likely familiar with its language due to having watched the TV show Dragnet. NYC, behind the scenes, uses this sort of language, but it isn’t ‘colloquial’ used by the citizenry back home as it is here. In NYC, it’s “X avenue” between “Y” and “Z” streets that you’d report a location to a 911 operator via.
Neat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The trail itself has very few official ‘on and off’ opportunities.
You’re kind of ‘locked in’ for long stretches. Every so often, you’ll encounter a ‘desire path’ which indicates places where folks are ‘voting with their feet’ for an entrance or exit.
For those unfamiliar with the terminology, a ‘desire path’ is created by citizenry who seek out the shortest possible route between two points. You’ll notice dirt paths through planted grassy areas which break off from the sidewalk or something. A city planner wanted you to walk ‘that’ way and follow the pavement, but you and a whole lot of other people are going ‘this’ way instead. Over the course of time, and after tens of thousands of footfalls, that ‘desire path’ becomes a compacted and obvious ‘way.’
Desire Paths are one of the things I look for when wandering about. Sometimes they lead to well populated Homeless encampments, other times they lead to wonders. You don’t know till you’ve looked.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The headphones were still solidly in my ears for this walk but I abandoned the musical playlist in favor of spoken word.
I switched to an old favorite on my Lovecraft Audio Books playlist – the 1989 Garrick Hagon performance of ‘The Call of Cthulhu.’ Google this one for a non YouTube version, as it’s seems to be available through streamers like Spotify, and the mp3 file is also available for download from a variety of sources. Good stuff.
Back next week with more – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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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.
A Day in Pittsburgh: Eagles, Bridges, and Lectures
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator was on his way to attend another lecture when these shots were gathered. This time around, the talk would focus in on and discuss a family of Bald Eagles which had been nesting at U.S. Steel’s Irvine Mill, which is in the broader Pittsburgh ‘metro.’
It was a fiendishly hot day, but I took the opportunity to kick my feet around a bit, before the lecture started.
I’ve been attending lots of presentations, lectures, and talks recently. There’s a plethora of such opportunity here in Pittsburgh, mostly either free or ‘nearly’ free. Free and educational? I’m in!
My short walk to the event carried me over the Monongahela River, via the ‘Hot Metal Bridge.’
Also, for this latest batch of posts, I’ve used WordPress’ AI to generate the titles. Normally, it’s just ‘whatever’ up there, figured I’d give this a try.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A former rail bridge that connected the two sides of a steel operation called ‘J and L Steel,’ this span has been converted over to modern use. Above there’s a pedestrian/bike only path, and below is a roadway carrying a not insignificant amount of vehicle traffic.
The lecture I was heading towards would be presented at a hotel which is part of a ‘tech incubator’ area, created on part of the old steel mill’s campus, which is populated by grad students from the big universities and corporatists from every technology company that you could name hoping to catch the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology.
I was early, as is always the case.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the distance, the Birmingham Bridge, and a Towboat navigating down the Monongahela River in a southeasterly direction. Your humble narrator was playing around with a new addition to the camera bag on this scuttle, a circular polarizer filter.
The filter ‘straightens out’ light, reduces refraction, and introduces some control over reflectivity. Gives me another opportunity to overly complicate things, as well, so win.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Using my old math, pieced together back on NY Harbor, each one of those seven barges carries the equivalent cargo of around thirty heavy trucks. If you need to move a whole lot of something heavy, best way to do so in terms of ‘spending fuel’ is by water transportation.
I do miss the smell of salt water, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ‘Winnie C’ is the Towboat pictured above, and I know little to nothing about the boat other than that I see it fairly often. Presumptively, that black mineral in the barges is coal, but unless you know for sure…
The lecture itself that I would be attending was presented by a former Manager for the Irvine plant, a fellow for whom the care of these eagles nesting on the USS property became a personal project. We were told about the various governmental agencies, Federal and State, which oversaw the nest and helped the company and its employees care for the critters. I should mention, it’s not uncommon to see eagles hereabouts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of the lecture, he handed out little squishy foam bald eagle toys. I gave mine to Our Lady of the Pentacle when I returned to HQ. She enjoyed it far more than I thought she would.
Back tomorrow with something different – 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.
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.
“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.
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.
“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.
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.
