Posts Tagged ‘North Side’
Kicking dirt, north shore style
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a lovely walk down Troy Hill, where a cemetery was visited and the very steep Troy Hill Road walked upon, your humble narrator soon found himself crossing one of those pedestrian bridges which overfly a vast complex of high speed roads here in Pittsburgh.
The Fort Duquesne, Fort Pitt, Veterans, and West End Bridges are nearby, and the complex of interchanges between I-376/I-279/I-579/Route 28 and the primary and secondary local ‘arterial streets’ dominate this formerly industrial section of Pittsburgh.
As you’d deduce from the shot above, the former Heinz factory is found nearby. It’s been turned into residential lofts in the post industrial period.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These pedestrian ramps hide the presence of a fairly well established homeless encampment, one that can be observed below them. There’s a few holes cut into the fences here and there for egress. The encampment, seems to use a different spot, under and towards the end of the ramp as a latrine. It’s easy to find, if you follow your nose. Heroin is apparently one heck of a drug.
Other than leaving a bag of old clothes here and there for the unhoused, or passing off cans of dog food to a particular fellow that hangs around one of the tunnel exits whose pup I feel bad for, I try not to get involved in the lives of the street people. Trouble.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh offers drivers a series of confusing choices which they need to make at the very last second. The city has odd road usage conventions that indicate needing to use this left lane – or the right one – to proceed. In some spots, you need to shift into the right lane for less than a block – before reaching a mandatory right turn – and then shift back into the original travel lane you were in to continue straight – merging right in the middle of the intersection after the lane you started in has to make a mandatory left turn. Confusing. This works out well once you can anticipate the situation, presuming you’re overly familiar with the place and its mores, but for a newcomer or visitor – it’s chaos. As I call it – Pittsburgh Vernacular – you just have to ‘know.’
Regardless, I was on foot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I passed through the campus of the former Heinz Factory. Spectacular terra cotta and industrial design here. Beautiful spot, in the middle of a not so beautiful spot. There’s a number of things which, as a former New Yorker, it’s hard to reconcile about this city. There are entire neighborhoods which should be ‘popping,’ but aren’t. This is one of them.
Bah! I really aspire to not care about anything anymore.
Google’s AI tells me that ‘A lack of emotion is often defined as apathy, meaning an absence of feeling, interest, or concern, leading to reduced motivation; it can also manifest as emotional numbness, detachment, or flat affect, a reduced expression of emotion, often seen in conditions like depression, PTSD, or neurological disorders, with specific terms like alexithymia describing difficulty identifying/describing feelings.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next on my list for a walk around is actually this section of the North Side. Looks seedy, but Andy Warhol’s family is still in the scrap metal business back there somewhere. Maybe there’s a giant soup can or something. I’ve wandered through here in the past, but not while consciously cataloging what I’m seeing. Most of the time in this zone, I’m walking on the waterfront trail when rolling through and heading somewhere else.
Maybe that’s the problem this section of the North Side has – it’s a liminal space that people pass through but seldom dwell in. I used to be familiar with a waterway in Brooklyn and Queens that had the same problem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I crossed the Allegheny River on the 16th street David McCullough bridge. This brought me to Pittsburgh’s so called ‘golden triangle,’ which is the peninsular section where most of the corporate and governmental powers reside.
The orthopedic incident had seriously retarded my efforts in 2025. That’s more or less over now, and your humble narrator is enthusiastic about being back on the prowl in a free roaming manner.
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.
Atavist candy and the Allegheny River
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On Pittsburgh’s north side, nearby the stadium where the Steelers live and play, a former factory building can be observed. The 1928 vintage structure has obviously been renovated in modernity, with its snazzy windows and sharply pointed brick walls.
It’s called the D.L Clark Building and this structure used to be a candy factory. Over at historicpittsburgh.org, they’ve got old timey shots of the place from ‘back in the day.’
Recent scuttling brought this building onto my radar, and I’m glad of that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s peculiar, to me, that a shroud of relative obscurity greets the curious narrator, as to the specifics of this building and its renovation, which real estate representatives describe as ‘a landmark.’
This shroud, I think, is the shadow result of the sort of SEO marketing efforts that real estate people engage in. Page of search results after page of search results were unified in congratulating me on my interest in renting commercial space in the building. The listings describe cavernous and desirable spaces within. Apparently, one of Pittsburgh’s news outlets is also based herein. The SEO marketing crowds out actual search results.
As far as what Google, in modernity, has become – I think Huey Lewis said it best. Shame that, Google was a great tool once.
Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The excellent historicpittsburgh.org site offers this ‘D. L. Clark Company Papers and Photographs’ page, which discusses the Clark Company and its long history in some detail.
Manufacturers of the iconic Clark Bar, the D. L. Clark Company was. Said ‘Clark Bar’ was a sweet treat that was commonly found floating around in the ruck sacks of American Soldiers during the two world wars.
I was always a Milky Way or Three Musketeers guy, with a strong secondary preference for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Also, Lemonheads, mmmm. Of course, I was a kid in the 1970’s and early 80’s.
Forward, ever forward, and it was time to push on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator is absolutely captivated by the ramps leading to and from the Fort Duquesne Bridge in this section of Pittsburgh. It’s not a great pedestrian space, I should mention, until you’re squarely in the shadows of these things. The entire area hereabouts is all about the needs of the automobile, despite there being a light rail station and lots of bus service nearby. This is roughly the mid point between the two big stadiums – Acrisure/Steelers and PNC Park/Pirates.
There’s a lot of new construction in this zone, and a strip of high volume bar/restaurants, of the sort which the TV show ‘Bar Rescue’ extols as being ‘profit machines’ which enjoy surge business on game days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One reached the shoreline of the Allegheny River, and crossed the waterbody on the Sixth Street/Roberto Clemente bridge. One was hoping for some maritime activity, but that wasn’t happening (yet).
I was as happy as possible, for one such as myself. The filthy black raincoat was flapping about in the wind, and the light was good.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s when this set of stairs leading off of the bridge and down to one of the riverfront trails manifested itself. I’ve walked down these stairs dozens of times, it should be mentioned, but for some reason… the PTSD regarding the bum ankle manifested.
Couldn’t stop myself from ‘death gripping’ the bannister. Managed to force myself down them to the trail below, but it wasn’t pretty and I was literally clinging to the bannisters on that first turn down there. It’s getting better, but is obviously still present, this sensation.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
Merchant Street Bridge
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Allow me to start this post by saying that the locally grown automobile and truck drivers of Pittsburgh just suck at operating their vehicles.
They don’t seem to know what the brake pedal does, drive as if they have their heads wrapped up in gauze, and the Yinzers seem to believe that there’s only one direction their car can go – forward and at top speed. They seem to refuse to fully turn the steering wheel when required. The concept of ‘vehicular following distance’ is foreign. Collision is common.
Road rage is at epidemic levels out here. I ascribe to NYC’s version of driving, which states that taking risks and driving aggressively should be somehow connected to a victory state. If you are doing something not so sane behind the wheel, there has to be a payoff for the effort and risk. Not so with the Yinzers. About thirty people a year die in Pittsburgh because they accidentally drive off of cliffs.
After being thwarted by a lack of rail traffic at a nearby set of Norfolk Southern tracks, your humble narrator decided that he’d been standing still too long and got back to the business of the day, which was scuttling and exercising while waving the camera about.
I soon was shambling towards the Merchant Street Bridge, the filthy black raincoat flapping in the breeze.
A convenient bit of historical signage was noticed along the way, which relates the long story and circumstance of the span, which ended up being focused on for today’s missive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a pretty minor rail bridge, this, but what caught my eye was the enormous steel barrier vouchsafing it from vehicular collision.
Remember, Pittsburgh drivers just blow.
At least a third of them are texting while driving at any given time, many while on the highways and moving at speed. The interiors of their cars are decorated like a teenager’s bedroom. They arrange toys on their dashboards. This isn’t just in cars, either, it’s the heavy trucks too.
One time, I drove past a guy who was eating a Hoagie sandwich with his left arm while holding a beverage container with his right, concurrently he was watching a TV show on his phone – which was balanced on the car’s steering wheel. He was operating the steering wheel with his right elbow. On a bridge, and while heading into a tunnel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, I had to focus in on the gouges and scrapes which that height barrier – painted bright and reflective yellow gold – was sporting. There’s an 11 foot height restriction for the bridge, which is indicated on both sides by similarly reflective highway signs.
Signs would work, were drivers paying attention while driving. They’re not, as you can see.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the other side of the Merchant Street Bridge, looking back at my path. Notice that busted signage…
Just last week, I saw some dude in a pickup enter a highway at 70 mph and then accelerate into heavy highway traffic, shooting out from an on-ramp. He perpetrated a diagonal merge through fairly dense traffic – at speed – to the passing lane on the left, and then executed a 90 mph diagonal path back across the three lanes to get to the next exit. He tried to negotiate a 30 mph off ramp curve at about 70. Dude ended up in the grass but didn’t roll over. Came pretty close, to my eye.
I think this bloke is a likely candidate to join that elite group of thirty who drive off cliffs to their death every year. What’s the point of the risk? It’s one exit. What did you achieve?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even the height restriction sign isn’t safe. Jeez Louise.
I’ve been lucky enough to interact with people who are experts in many of the public facing specialities – sewer, transit, maritime, all that, over the years.
One of them designed and engineered highways and their ramps for New York State. The knowledge imparted to me from this person involved the actual science of high speed roads, as in why the roadway is slanted and where, or the different kinds of pavement you’d want to deploy depending on intended use and speed restrictions. I learned that the posted speed limit is usually set well below but within reach of the upper 15-20 mph operational speed capacity of the roadway itself.
If you’re doing 70 on a 55 mph highway, it’s risky from a physics POV as you’re operating in the upper percentile of the roadway’s design use. You can probably get away with 5-10 over the limit, and not risk rolling your vehicle or shooting over a cliff… but… why take that chance at all?
Slow down, jagoff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Merchant Street Bridge has an off shoot trestle, which is a former rail connection to a factory building, one which has incontrovertibly survived decades of urban renewal projects that have played out in this part of Pittsburgh which have demolished nearly everything else in sight. We’ll explore that tale a bit tomorrow.
Back tomorrow, with some candy.
“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.
Eyes fixed
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Calvary United Methodist Church, that’s what they call it. Opened in 1895, it’s caught my eye every single time I’ve found myself moving through Pittsburgh’s ‘North Side.’ Gothic revival is the architectural style of the building.
Along with the ‘church on Polish Hill,’ this one is at the top of my list to find a way inside of and get photos of the interior. ‘Sacred Spaces’ is the name of that particular project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve mentioned in the past that a bit of social networking is required, when the subject of churches or religious institutions in general is on the menu. Sure, I’ve barged into empty churches and waved the camera around in the past, but as I often say: I’m like a vampire, and need to be invited in to properly do my thing.
None of the priests or prelates like my vampire metaphor, by the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one is a trick shot: a combination of four images combined together into a vertical ‘panorama.’ There’s a bit of unfortunate distortion present, but it was really the only way I could show the entire facade.
It was hot out, by the way. I mean super duper nearly life threateningly hot. Shortly after cracking these out, I decided to head back home to HQ in a rideshare.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was waiting for my ride, a confrontation between a 7 eleven manager and a shoplifter played out. The 7 eleven guy demanded ‘his stuff back’ and the shoplifter guy decided it wasn’t worth going to the mat over a bottle of water and a bag of pretzels.
Me? I picked a shaded spot to wait for my chariot, which ended up being a Tesla sedan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I have got to see what it looks like inside…
Thing is, this was a Sunday. The church people get up to all sorts of stuff in there on Sundays. There’s historic documentation of this area, as it’s actually a historic/landmark district, and I’m plan on getting to know this old timey ‘zone’ better in the coming months.
There’s also a rough side to this neighborhood, mind you, but… Y’know… Brooklyn…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in earlier posts, I’m a few weeks ahead of the schedule here – for once – and this post is being written on the 15th of August.
Back tomorrow with something different, and less obsessive.
“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.
North Siding
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As regular readers will recall, from last week, your humble narrator was out and about for a fairly short walk on an extremely hot afternoon in Pittsburgh. The T light rail had carried me from Dormont to Downtown, and the Roberto Clemente Bridge – having been closed to vehicle traffic due to a baseball game at the PNC Park stadium – was how I was crossing the Allegheny River. I took every opportunity to stand directly on the lane markers in the center of the bridge and shoot photos. Normally, doing this would get you shmushed by a car or truck.
This one looks back towards the Downtown area. Funnily enough, I used to do some of the advertising work for that Renaissance Hotel, on the left hand side of the shot. This was around 25 years ago, at a small ad agency I worked for on 22nd street between fifth and sixth, back in Manhattan.
Retouching and ad construction/publishing, if you’re curious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The closed bridge lane continued for a couple of blocks onto the street ‘grid’ of Pittsburgh’s North Shore, in direct proximity to the stadium. My toes were pointed in the direction of those concrete ramps, which carry a couple of high speed roads and there’s also a rail trestle back there.
This section which I was heading into used to be called ‘Allegheny City,’ until it was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned last week, there was an event meant to be happening which seemed like it would offer lots of silly things to take pictures of, and that’s what guided my steps.
Unfortunately, when I arrived at the prescribed location – Nada. Crossed signals, maybe? I double checked the address, and time/date, but there you are.
So, there I am, a narrator without a destination… what to do…
Keep walking, that’s what.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was walking the perimeter of Allegheny Commons Park, which I’ve often visited in search of interesting rail shots, and the National Aviary’ is found within its confines, as well. I stuck to the streets, specifically ‘North Avenue.’ Lots and lots of interesting historic building stock can be found along this route.
You’re looking at Pittsburgh’s ‘Mexican War Streets historic district’ by the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is a lovely apartment building, built in the pre-air conditioning era, a building which always catches my eye when I’m moving through this zone. I looked around for any information about 316-318 North Avenue, but a fog of real estate offerings seems to be intentionally obscuring its tale.
This is a real and growing problem, by the way. ‘SEO’ or ‘Search Engine Optimization’ manipulation of Google results has greatly reduced the utility of the search giant’s services in recent years. It’s too easy for the ‘shit flies’ to crowd out anything other than their dreams of avarice.
Google used to be a useful tool. Now, it’s just another vehicle for ads.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly enough, I spotted two women walking horses around in the park. A few blocks later, a photo shoot was encountered. There were three very attractive young women wearing western style garb which had been ‘bedazzled’ with sequins and such. There was a very nervous looking photographer, and a couple of stylists, and these horses were heading their way.
Never work with children or animals, ask any actor.
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 