Posts Tagged ‘North Park’
We all float down here
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is led to believe, by a bit of ‘scratch the surface’ research, that the Marshall Lake spillway dates back to December of 1933. A partnership between Allegheny County and the New Deal era’s Federal Civil Works Administration built this particularity satisfying bit of infrastructure along an ancestral waterway called Old Pine Creek, which used to terminate in a morass of swampy marsh. Raising the water level caused that marshy wasteland to drown, which in turn and over time formed the 75 acre Marshall Lake found in Pittsburgh’s North Park.
A humble narrator is always fascinated by the sort of technology which doesn’t need to be plugged in or fueled or even actively looked after. I advocated for this sort of thing on and around Newtown Creek back in NYC, but everybody in Government favored technological and electricity hungry solutions to the Creek’s ‘flow’ problem. I like using gravity, as it’s free, and all of the technology and effort you need for the thing to operate is front loaded into the construction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I circled the spillway, getting photos of it from different angles. The first shot looks directly down into it, whereas this one depicts the levels of the surrounding lake. Neat.
Several people asked me what I was doing, to which I replied “infrastructure nerd,” and they gave me a sympathetic smile. To be fair, I was the only person there with a tripod and fancy camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After dropping down from the lake, the water forms up into a waterway called Pine Creek, which flows all the way down to the Allegheny River, in the Etna section of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area. Pictured above is the head of Pine Creek, which is directly connected to the spillway.
One continued his circling and scuttling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in prior posts, I had set myself up to do landscape style shots on this particular morning. The camera was set to record the scene in a manner which allowed for visualization of the flowing water with a slight motion blur. The one above was captured at ISO 100/f8 for 25 seconds, with a ten stop ND filter affixed to the lens.
The neat thing about this spillway is the highly aerated and biologically rich water which it releases into Pine Creek. Clever, clever.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one was f4 for 8 seconds at ISO 100, but I recorded multiple images, with the focal point moving around the frame. One combined them using the ‘focus stacking’ technique.
I had been actively shooting for several hours by this point, and was sorely in need of both coffee and breakfast.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, I had thought ahead and had a thermos of coffee from HQ back in the Mobile Oppression Platform, which was parked nearby. I dropped off my heavy bag at the car, grabbed the coffee, and then sat down on a rock nearby a boat launch on Marshall Lake’s eastern shore. Even though I was taking a break, there was no reason for the camera to be lollygagging, so I kept on hitting the shutter button.
Back next week 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.
Mirror mirror, on the floor
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When Pittsburgh’s North Park was created, a waterway called Old Pine Creek fed into a marsh hereabouts. The Great Depression era engineers got busy, and created the largest manmade lake in the State of Pennsylvania with the help of hundreds of Work Projects Administration laborers. 75 acres in size, with trails around it, Marshall Lake (aka North Park Lake) is annually stocked with game fish, and there’s at least a couple of Bald Eagles which form the top of the littoral food chain here. The licensed citizenry can fish here, as it’s considered public land.
These shots are from about 6:30 in the morning, and there were already hundreds of people jogging on the trails, and I also spotted two fishermen casting their lines.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a warm morning, with little to no wind, so the lake itself was pretty much a perfect mirror. I set up the tripod and got a few shots of the rather bucolic scene. There’s a lot of interesting stuff to see here at North Park, which is some 3,300 acres in size. There was a giant Pterodactyl sized Heron flying around, but I didn’t get a shot worth mentioning of it.
The camera was set up for landscape style shots. Lately, I’ve been considering bringing along a second camera body geared up for ‘catch as catch can’ shots, for use when the main camera body is purposed towards and busy with these sort of photos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The lake is shaped somewhat like a boomerang. The water flows out to a spillway on the eastern shore, which maintains its level. That’s where I was heading next, because ‘infrastructure.’
The spillway feeds into a waterway called Pine Creek, which is ultimately a tributary of the Allegheny River, joining its parent at the Borough of Etna section of the Pittsburgh Metro several miles distant.
Back tomorrow with a very cool chunk of infrastructure!
“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.
Trees and… y’know… Da Effin Woods
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These photos aren’t actually from ‘the effin woods.’ To me, this is woods, as I’m from Brooklyn and spent a not insignificant portion of my adult life wandering around the concrete devastations of Newtown Creek. This location is instead within the borders of North Park here in Pittsburgh, so by definition – thereby – not ‘woods.’
Actual wilderness, with critters and hunters and an opportunity for your body to never be found, that’s about 50 miles from here. Sasquatch sightings are apparently a big thing thereabouts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, one found himself drawn to this side of the Pittsburgh Metro by news of there being a ‘Fountain of Youth’ on the property. As is my habit, I did a bit of ‘research’ on Google maps to find a few other interesting things to point the camera at while in the neighborhood. I try to maximize my efforts.
Currently, I’m planning a day trip for the end of this week to the Panhandle of Western Maryland which sits along the border to West Virginia. That’s an 86 mile/2 hour drive, as opposed to the 30 minute journey to North Park, so the researching I’m doing for that one is a bit more in depth regarding my itinerary.
One has also bookmarked a few sites along the southeastern route from Pittsburgh I’ll be traveling along, including stopping off at a place called Dunbar’s Knob, where a 60 foot tall crucifix is on public display. Said monument is dubbed ‘The Great Cross of Christ.’ Should make for an interesting set of photos, I reckon, if the skies are right.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just like the trip to North Park, I plan on being in the car no later than about 5:30 a.m., in order to take advantage of the utility of angled daylight, and won’t be returning to HQ until well after dark. The town I’m heading for is in Maryland, and is a historically important one, with several points of interest. You’ll be seeing that series of posts in a few weeks. Additionally, I’ve got a series of wooded spots which I plan on visiting as soon as the leaves start turning color. I’ve heard the term ‘the burning hills of Pennsylvania’ is used during the autumn hereabouts, due to all the yellow and orange.
More from North Park 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.
Da Fowntan a Ute’s
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Checks me out yo, I’m’s like a reg’lar Ponce De Leon wit dis… Bruh!
So, I received the good news that the Fountain of Youth is actually found right here in Pittsburgh, rather than in Florida where the legends embraced by the Imperial Spaniards indicated it as being. Seriously, how could I not wake up at 5:30 in the morning and drive there, after having just heard about it’s existence?
After piloting the Mobile Oppression platform onto the appropriate land mass just north of Pittsburgh proper, and parking the car in an informally designated area along the side of a road, I walked down a muddy slope and then across a smelly stream, and then up a muddier slope. There were many, many angry bugs forming buzzing clouds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The past is always predicate, so… Pittsburgh has nine municipal parks which together occupy a land mass of some 12,000 acres. North Park accounts for some 3,075 acres of that total, and it’s the largest of the nine. North Park dates back to 1927 when the County Commissioners of Allegheny County, in an effort led by a fellow named E.V. Babcock, voted to create a North and a South Park. They hired an landscape architect named Paul B. Riis to design North Park. The place opened to the public in 1931. ‘New Deal’ Works Projects Administration workers completed several additions to the place throughout the 1930’s, including the ‘Fountain of Youth’ spring house pictured in today’s post.
Click the following link for a cogent governmental description of the park’s history, here for a people’s history of North Park at the fantastic uncoveringpa.com, and for a fantastic historical write up by a high school student(!) check out “The Uproar.”
It wasn’t quite daytime yet when I arrived, and the scene was shadowed by the tree canopy anyway. One deployed the tripod and got busy… ruins to shoot, ruins.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I added the usage of my little but super bright Nitecore flashlight into the recipe for these shots for some fill light, but what you’re looking at above is a mere portal. Within the pictured facade is an interior room, once whose wall sports a metal framed aperture built into it. Beyond this rectangular framing is the famous, and often mentioned, fountain of youth itself.
Gingerly, one approached the edifice, in the awestruck manner of Moses moving toward the bush that burnt. Here I am, said I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Within… well, first I should mention that when I stepped inside the chamber and turned on the flashlight, the walls were positively crawling with enormous insects. I’m talking “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” sized creepy crawly bugs. Big black eyes, and large enough that you could hear their feet scratching along the wet rock while they retreated to their hidey holes… and finally… one gazed with palpitant enthusiasm at the aperture leading to the fountain itself.
Apparently, Allegheny County advises against sampling the waters of the Fountain of Youth as they are somewhat contaminated with sewage, and chemical fertilizers which leach into the ground water from a nearby golf course.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s it, right there, the fountain/spring. Kind of underwhelming, I must say, but as mentioned above – it’s a ruin. Regardless, I can tell you that my gray hair had suddenly returned to the luscious dark brown coloration of my youth, and that my tonsils seemed to have autonomously regrown themselves. That process reversed itself on the drive home, and I’ve since returned to looking like a shocking caricature of that younger fellow. It must have been the fountain’s vapors which triggered the temporary condition, no doubt due to the miasmic fumes one would expect in such a place. Feeling satisfied with what I had gathered, I headed back to the car.
Luckily, a humble narrator had done no small amount of planning before leaving HQ, and another interesting site in North Park awaited.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In accordance with the title and first line of this post, I will resume the attempt to phonetically translate my native Brooklyn Brogue into written English for the sum up to my tale:
Sose, I’s drove overs ta ‘effin Nord Pahk in Piddsboig causin I hoid that dey gots one a dem Fowntan a Ute’s type tings ovah dere. I seens a buncha bugs and shit, and somebody coulda – y’know – easily fell on his ass and cracked his melon opens cause dere’s no sets a stairs or sidewahk or nuttin, and youse gots to walk in the effin doit and a crosses a friggin streams which gets your kicks all effin wets.
Back’s tommorahs wit more of this kinda bull – at guess what – your effin Newtown Pentacle, like an icehole.
“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 