Posts Tagged ‘Municipal Stairs’
Twelve hundred steps program
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Famously, the City of Pittsburgh offers hundreds of flights of municipal steps for the usage of the citizenry, which aid pedestrians in navigating the challenging terrain of the place. Recent endeavor saw a humble narrator hire a taxi in order to get to the top of one of the more extreme examples of this sort of infrastructure (not the ones pictured above) and then proceed downward along the rises and runs. In my admittedly limited experience, these stairs are generally compound structures composed of concrete and steel that are set into the steep hillsides.
As a note: rises are the vertical dimension of steps, whereas the runs are the flat parts which you step on.
The neighborhood which I started this scuttle in is called ‘Allentown,’ an area that I’ve visited in the past. Allentown is set into a larger residential ‘zone’ called the ‘South Side Slopes’ which cascade about a thousand feet down along the eastern side of Mount Washington, here in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My path carried me past several abandoned homes, which must have been pretty ‘choice’ when they were originally built. The views from this area are pretty spectacular, but it must be a pretty athletic experience living on the edge of a steep slope like this. Imagine carrying your groceries in from the car – there’s a workout, I tell’s ya.
Where I was heading was a set of municipal steps that proceed down the slopes to the South Side Flats while transversing the equivalent horizontal space of no more than a half mile. A passel of municipal density huddles against the southern bank of the Monongahela River down there on flat land along the river – hence ‘Flats.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There used to be ‘T’ street car service here, specifically the Brown Line, but budget cuts associated with the first decade of the 21st century ended all that. The tracks and overhead catenary wires are maintained, however. When there’s work on the T happening further to the south, or in the transit tunnel under Mount Washington which T service normally routes through, the streetcars gets rerouted through this area. Essentially, Arlington Avenue is a back-up.
There’s signs along Arlington Avenue warning truckers to switch gears along this road, warning of a 9-10 degree road grade that these heavy vehicle operators will have to contend with. There’s also the ubiquitous ‘Watch Children’ signs, which generally fill me with an existential dread.
What are these Yinzer kids getting up to, that warrants the installation of signage admonishing passerby to watch them?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is what you see from up top, looking down on the aforementioned density of the South Side Flats. The bridge is the Birmingham Bridge, which had been mentioned here several times.
The ‘Flats’ area is where I’ve spent more than few hours walking around at this point. There’s trails on both sides of the river, which I’ve also pointed the camera at. Way off in the distance, the Cathedral of Learning can be seen jutting up out of the Oakland area, where the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University rule the roost.
One had examined the desired path using Google maps before committing to the walk, and I was looking out for a certain intersection leading to my desired municipal stairway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There it was, and thusly there I went. The path led down, and northwards, which I intuitively find contraindicative. Another one of my NYC born presumptions is that south is both ‘down’ and flat in geologic character, whereas north is up where the terrain gradiates quickly from hilly to mountainous forests, and then to ones which no one has ever visited to the north and left of Albany.
I know… I know.
I’m also of the opinion that rivers flow south rather than north. It’s odd the way that the brain works. Mine, at least, received early training that indicated certain realities – upstate NY started in Mount Vernon or Yonkers, and it was ‘up there.’
Long Island, as in both Nassau and Suffolk, are ‘the country.’ Also; the Atlantic ocean is always on your right hand side whereas the Pacific is on the left, and somehow NYC sets the standard for ‘correct’ weather in the United States (after Los Angeles) – despite the fact that NYC’s atmospheric temperatures annually fluctuate more than a hundred degrees one way or the other and it’s vulnerable to every sort of atmospheric disturbance there is.
Additionally, Chicago is too cold and Florida too hot. Mustard ONLY goes on a hot dog, and whereas I do make an allowance for Sour Kraut, I think that’s a mistake as it ruins the bun with sogginess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking down steps is pretty low impact and shouldn’t be much of a chore… to continue mentioning things which I believe, without any actual evidence or personal knowledge thereof.
At the end of this scuttle, my legs were absolutely blasted out. The soles of my feet hurt. So did the fronts of my calfs. Globes of inflammation were forming around the knees, and I think I developed a hip problem.
All told, this set of stairs (which are apparently dubbed ‘German Square’) travelled downwards about 1,000 vertical feet before reaching the South Sides Flats area. Holy Moley.
Back tomorrow with more.
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Steps, steps, vertigo, steps
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On a recent evening’s ‘short walk,’ here in Pittsburgh, I was trying to incorporate all sorts of verticality into my scuttle. Up a set of municipal stairs, and then down another on the other side of the hill. Particular attention is being paid to the joints in the legs, or as I call them – my roadway interface – at the moment.
I regard most of the body as being a meat carriage for carrying around the sensory stalk and central processing unit found dangling off and above my neck, it should be mentioned. The entire apparatus below just supports the brain and handles interaction with the local vicinity. Consciousness, as in what I’d describe as ‘me,’ is found about two and a half inches behind the eyes and betwixt the ears.
More often than not, this roadway interface of mine is more trouble than it’s worth, but there you are. I’d likely be quite happy as a brain in a jar, attached to a networked computer, but that existential horror would definitely prey upon me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This crazy set of steps actually caused me to experience a bit of vertigo while moving downwards, along the rises and runs of the stairs. Vertigo is another one of those bits of vestigial programming we’ve inherited out of ancestral experience, as the proto humans who didn’t have a healthy fear of heights didn’t live long enough to reproduce and pass that trait along to the future. It’s good to be a bit paranoid, as well.
What actually got me ‘razzed up’ was that these otherwise quite sturdy steel steps had gratings, on the ‘run’ or flat section of the steps,’ and you could see right through them to the sidewalk and street below. I get a tingling sensation in my fingertips and the palms of my hand when confronted with great heights. How about y’all?
One grasped those bannisters pretty tightly, I tell’s ya.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is actually from a walk that I took a few nights later, which gives a bit better POV on the steps. The second shot was captured while standing right at the angled ‘join’ at center left. Brrr.
Regardless of lurking fears and ancestral phobias, one gingerly maneuvered the old meat carriage back down to the street level via the steps without overt incident. I walked away, proud as a pony, with a couple of OK photos and a story to tell, so ‘win.’
Back tomorrow.
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A Dormont ‘thigh buster’ scuttle
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The scene above is found about a block and a half from HQ, in the Dormont Borough which directly borders the City of Pittsburgh. Actually, the shot above is in Pittsburgh proper, as the city’s border line is found somewhere’s mid block. I’ve mentioned that HQ is nearby a gorge in the past, that bridge spans part of that landform.
Also mentioned in the past are the presence of hundreds of sets of municipal steps here in Pittsburgh, installed to help the citizenry navigate the area’s challenging terrain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This bridge is ‘officially’ a set of stairs, or at least it leads to a set of them, which climbs up the other side of the gorge. I’ve walked Moe the Dog back here in the past, and for this particular day’s ’constitutional,’ I decided that I wanted to do some leg work.
According to the phone, when I had gotten to the top of this and its accompanying structure, I had walked something like 11-12 stories worth of stairs in the equivalence of two city blocks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These stairs are set against a wooded hill, where those deer which keep on wandering into my back yard spend their time. Pittsburgh used to have predators, notably Panthers and Wolves, but they’re long gone and the deer population is thereby unfettered by predation. Their main danger to them these days revolves around getting hit by a car.
Good cardio, these stairs.
I forced myself to move up them at a rapid clip while enjoying the feeling of absolute tearing agony in my thighs. I’ll admit to having to take a short break to catch my breath and allow my heart’s ‘beats per minute’ to settle down midway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The top of the stairs exits you onto a tertiary arterial road, one which follows a parabolic curve around the hill. This is a scary spot, as there’s not any sort of sidewalk, and you’ve only got about a hundred feet of view in either direction. A car moving at 35 mph would bring annihilation so you have to choose your crossing moment quickly.
There’s a red light found at the bottom of this hill, where this street interacts with a busy secondary arterial road.. When a burst of passing cars has passed, that’s when you sprint across the double laned street.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the other side of the road is yet another set of stairs which carry you from the aforementioned secondary to a tertiary arterial road, and the top of a ridge. The street sign across the street is blue and white, meaning it’s in the ‘City of Pittsburgh.’ It’s also labeled as being a ‘way’ which indicates that it’s officially an alley. That’s the way they roll here.
Along the path above, somebody has placed plastic religious sculptures, depicting what I’m seeing as the Catholic Saint Francis. What do you think? This Francis or what? Help a guy out, youse ‘Catlicks,’ in the comments section? Whaddya say?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My goal was to get to the top of these stairs without dying, huffing and puffing, and then continue on a relatively flat path for a mile or two. I’d broken a sweat on all of these rises and runs, which was one accomplishment I was hoping for. I’d also gotten my heart rate elevated for an extended period, and positively blasted my thighs out with all these steep steps. It felt pretty good, I’ll admit.
In case you’re wondering, on this walk I was listening to music rather than an audiobook. Early Butthole Surfers, if you’re really curious.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Stairmaster
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
HQ is located in a suburb of Pittsburgh called “The Borough of Dormont,” which is – I’m told – a square mile in size. One of Dormont’s conceits when it was chartered is that there would be no ‘mean streets’ here, as every single roadway is instead labeled as an Avenue. It’s silly, but there you are. HQ is found at the bottom of a steep hill, where three of those avenues all dead end at a forested gorge. I’m still investigating my local vicinity, incidentally. The shot above is from about a block from HQ.
Recently, while walking Moe the Dog down one of those dead end streets, I stumbled upon a badly maintained, and heavily grown over, set of municipal steps. Pittsburgh has hundreds of examples of this sort of infrastructure snaking about in the hills and valleys, by products of the era before automobiles. It occurred to me that these steps would be handy, in terms of bleeding out some of Moe’s excessive puppy energies, but as is my habit – I’d need to check them out first before bringing him along – just in case. ‘Next time I’m walking to the T light rail’ said I, and now you’re all caught up.
This is the setup for this post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Novelty, on this particular day, was experienced by a humble narrator, which revolved around a trick recently learned about how Amazon.com works which ended up with me using some new gear.
Amazon recently had one of their ‘Prime Day’ promotions, which offer deep discounts on otherwise ‘never on sale’ items, like Canon lenses. The Prime Day thing revolves around the fact that sale prices pop up and then disappear, which is how Amazon gets you to spend time on their site shopping for other crap you don’t want, while you are forced into reloading specific product pages over and over. The trick I learned is to set up a wish list, populated with these specific items which you want to keep an eye on the pricing of. The wish list updates itself when something on the product page changes , and you can instantly see if an item on the list gets discounted.
That’s how I ended up with two new prime lenses I’ve been wanting, which I got for roughly 35% off of the normal price, with free shipping.
This particular walk was going to be an all day sort of thing, during which I’d be waving the new lenses around and seeing what they could do. That’s the flight of municipal steps nearby HQ, by the way, which was the start of the endeavor occurred.
That’s the circumstance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The municipal steps are in worse condition than they look, and they look pretty bad. The concrete planks you walk on are jiggly, the iron rails and foundation are rusted and often disconnected from the superstructure. In some spots, there’s no railing at all. The steps are set into a hillside at a comfortable angle, and scuttling up them from one street corner to the next transverses about six to seven stories of vertical space. They’re not treacherous, but seem fairly disused and forgotten, which is something endearing to me. I’ve since returned here with Moe, who enjoys bunny hopping up them.
The first new lens isn’t terribly exciting news – it’s a ‘nifty fifty’ F1.8 50mm lens, with the Canon RF mount. I’ve got the EF mount version (which is the non mirrorless camera version), and have for years, but you need to use an adapter for it on my Canon R6 camera – which is a pain.
The other new lens, which today’s post was shot with, is an F2.8 16mm wide angle dealie. Neither one is ‘perfect,’ I would mention. They aren’t ‘L’ series, which is Canon’s professional grade – a super expensive family of lenses, or ‘glass.’ Some of these L lenses are the same price as a good used car, and are built for pro sports or wedding photographers.
That’s the conflict.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 16mm definitely has a bit of a fish eye distortion thing going on, with chromatic aberrations and vignetting quite visible at the corners of the frame. Aperture wise, it’s built as an F2.8, but like many ‘bright lenses,’ narrowing it to F4 is a wise move. Every lens has a ‘sweet spot’ setting. The point of shooting a lot with any new lens is to experimentally twist the settings about until you find a rational compromise between them while discovering its particular quirks. I didn’t see much improvement in the 16mm’s performance with apertures narrower than F4, so I’m calling that as the sweet spot. Aperture equates to ‘depth of field,’ fall off, and overall sharpness.
The 16mm is pretty good on color, as well. Different refractory coatings on the various lens families will often create hue or color shifts that you have to watch out. My Sigma lenses, for instance, perform better on the ‘hot’ color spectrums of yellow and red than on blues. The Canon ones tend to create over saturated blues, but simply rock and roll when the subject is pale human skin (dark skin, on the other hand…).
That’s the exposition.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This set of municipal stairs in Dormont ends after a single block, during which you’ve moved upwards something in the neighborhood of 70-80 feet. Maybe more, perhaps less, I don’t measure (at the end of this long walk, the Health app on my phone reported that I had walked 21 flights of stairs, and just under 12 miles, in toto for that day). My reckoning, and what it felt like, was not unlike walking to the sixth or seventh floor of a building.
The burn really set in after I surmounted the stairs and was then scuttling up a hill on the sidewalk instead, which had to be set against the hill at a 15-20 degree angle. Whoof – but, good cardio – it really got the ticker pumping, I tell’s ya, but I did have to stop a couple of times to catch my breath. The stairs got a thumbs up from me, on the other hand. Our Lady of the Pentacle approved them, subsequently, for Moe’s usage.
Moe finds them exquisite, as he can haul me up them at great rates of speed.
Right in the center of the shot, where those two houses are, is where the stairs return you to the street Avenue. The change in altitude between the stairs, and the spot where this shot was cracked out, is something like four car lengths long (16mm wide angle, so it looks longer than it was due to ‘fisheye’) and about twenty feet in altitude. Pittsburgh is crazy.
The new lenses are what I used for several of the shots that will be popping up here over the next couple of days, by the way. The virtue of these new ‘pieces of glass’ is that they are incredibly light and easy to carry. Any three of these prime lenses still weigh far less than any of my zoom lenses. The pro “L Series” 28-105mm F4 zoom which is my ‘go-to’, in comparison, weighs something like three and half pounds.
Long time readers will recall that during the pandemic I was often going out for night walks with just two prime lenses – a 24mm and a 50mm mounted on my old Canon 7D street camera, and subsequently a 35mm and an 85mm on my newer Canon R6 mirrorless unit. The kit of primes I’m carrying around now are 16mm f2.8, 35mm f1.8, 50mm f1.8, and an 85mm f2 – one lens on the camera, three in the bag.
A minimal kit that’s easy to carry, and versatile for day and night shooting. I’ve got one of two other things in the camera bag – wire release, rocket blower, lens cloth, a spare battery – that’s it.
My ‘full kit’ fills a 32 liter backpack, and weighs about 15-20 pounds when the tripod is attached to the bag. I’ve got the entire arsenal in there. It depends on what I intend doing during the day, which bag I carry.
That’s the resolution.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the top of the hill, whose roadways dead end nearby HQ at its bottom, here in the Pittsburgh suburb of Dormont, one encounters the T light rail tracks, and stations, which ride on the top of a ridge road that is called Broadway Avenue. Service on the light rail is fairly frequent, and I wasn’t there ten minutes before a Pittsburgh bound train set came along. We are about 5 miles away from the center of the city here in Dormont. It’s about a 25- 30 minute ride to the end of the line on Pittsburgh’s North Side, which is across the street from where the Steelers’ sports ball stadium is found.
Tomorrow, continuance of testing for these new lenses continues. All of today’s shots were captured with the new 16mm. The thing has real potential, night time shooting wise. Looking forward to seeing what I can make it do.
Back tomorrow with more – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
That’s the promise.
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Stairway to… heaven?
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apparently, Pennsylvania’s highway planners reached out to Robert Moses for advice on transit planning ‘back in the day,’ and his unmistakable trademark of running high speed roads along urban waterways is very much in effect here in Pittsburgh. This is from the Golden Triangle side of the Monongahela River, and it’s one of the busier high speed roads you’ll encounter here in the Paris of Appalachia. It ‘carries,’ and ‘connects,’ and ‘leads to.’
There’s pay parking lots below the highway ramps and along the Monongahela River’s banks, which I’m told are colloquially known as the ‘bathtub’ given their propensity for flooding during the spring thaw. A hiking and bike trail forms the actual ‘water’s edge.’
Of course, that’s what I was walking on and what I was heading towards was the bathtub.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were a couple of sections of this flood prone underworld which host collections of tents, occupied by the unhoused and indigent. This population of unfortunates is causing the local landlord class to gnash their teeth, and are being blamed for all sorts of problems in the Downtown area.
The Landlords blame declining real estate valuations in Pittsburgh, affecting their nearby office and commercial properties they own on the tent people, rather than acknowledging that the post Covid trend towards remote work is the causal factor. Additionally, taxes are quite a bit lower in other counties, and businesses can also find a decidedly lower rent for more spacious in office parks found in outlying areas a half hour in any direction.
Instead, punch down and blame the homeless.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I found a set of those famous municipal steps that are found all over Pittsburgh to carry me back up to the street level. Unfortunately, these would ultimately put me on the shoulder of an on ramp to one of those highways in the first shot, which was pretty terrifying. A lapse in traffic allowed me to scuttle quickly across the ramp and onto a nearby sidewalk. Brr.
Back next week, lords and ladies.
“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 