Posts Tagged ‘North Side’
Alcosan visit, too
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start – don’t get all Triskaidekaphobic about today being Friday the 13th, yo. Unlucky for you might mean lucky for someone else. You lose your wallet, somebody else finds it. The Great Material Continuum swirls.
Second: this one picks up and continues from yesterday’s post, wherein your humble narrator was visiting the gigantic Alcosan Wastewater Treatment Plant here in Pittsburgh, during a public ‘Open House’ event.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our guide, that fellow in the blue shirt with the excellent mustache, was moving us around the plant, from building to building and describing the functions of the versions systems. In this shot, we had moved to a high up location in a different building nearby the pump house, and we were in the ‘Surge Tower’ where the raw ‘honey’ enters the plant.
I didn’t get a decent shot of the actual flow, but if you’re curious…
Btw, people in the wastewater treatment trades commonly call refer to the flow as ‘honey,’ or least they do in the sewer plants of NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The final stop of the plant tour included a visit to their clean water return system.
The water in this area was described to us as being ‘as clean as it can humanly get.’
Our guide made it a point of saying that due to the various treatment processes feeding to this final aeration stage, the returning waters are quite a bit purer than those of the Ohio River which they were about to adjoin. Nearby the return was a fishing boat, with lines in the water.
This enormous spill way setup was where we exited the shuttle buses at the western extent of the Alcosan Plant.
It was kind of loud. Sounded like waterfalls and river rapids.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Below us was that final aeration step, right before the release point back into the Ohio. Downstream from here, the Ohio River is the source of drinking water for around 45 million Americans, as a note.
As mentioned, my neighbor Sam – who had driven us here from Dormont – had disappeared into the ether, and I wouldn’t see him again for days. Also as mentioned, ‘that’s Sam for ya.’
The plan for the rest of my morning would involve scuttling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Really do wish that my circumstance on this morning could have involved using a tripod and lens filters.
That shot above would look ‘sweeeet’ as a 20- 30 second exposure.
We were asked to head back to the shuttle bus by our guide at this point. It was somebody else’s turn to experience all this.
Really, this was so much fun for me.
A weird face cramp occurred, wherein the sides of my mouth curled upwards, and my eyebrows relaxed out of their normal scowling position. A hideous imposture of a human smile, I guess, but that’s the best one such as myself can manage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It sort of penetrated through the dull gray monologue of normal life, this experience. One such as myself requires outré external stimulation such as this occasionally. It’d been a while since we went to the coal mine.
Back next week with something different.
“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.
Down the Drain, in Pittsburgh
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ia, Ia… look – there’s one of them now – risen from dark waters to…
Actually, that’s no Lovecraftian ‘Deep One,’ instead it’s the mascot of the ALCOSAN outfit – here in Pittsburgh – and the character’s name is ‘Frankie the Fish.’
It happened, lords and ladies… finally… it happened…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I got to go the sewer plant in Pittsburgh.
GLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Three things:
First off – the Newtown Pentacle time warp continues to fibbulate. These shots were captured on the 19th of September of this year, with the posts being written during the second week of October.
Secondly – the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority – aka ALCOSAN – operates an enormous 59 acre sewerage and wastewater treatment plant, along the Ohio river here in Pittsburgh.
The authority holds an annual ‘Open House’ (since 2004 at least) wherein the general public is invited onto the property to see how the sewerage process works, and how tax monies are being spent. Said agency makes a big show of the Open House event, and there’s a carnival style area for families with kids to explore, with staffed booths describing the plant and its operations and there was also a giant fish tank this time around which they said was ‘new.’ I paid near zero attention to all of that.
Additionally, there were also plant tours to attend.
Third – Plant tours, did you say?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After signing up for the tour, my neighbor Sam (who accompanied and drove me to this event) and I split away from each other.
Sam is a lettered Chemist, and his interests were pulling him towards a tour of the various laboratory rooms within the buildings, wherein the water testing is accomplished. I’ve been to DEP’s labs back in NYC, and it was a remarkably unexciting experience from a photographic POV, so I opted for the plant tour instead.
Sam disappeared. Didn’t see him again for around three days, and that was back at HQ in Dormont. Sam’s like that.
The plant tour goers were shepherded onto small shuttle buses, and our first stop was at Alcosan’s Pump House.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oh, it’s been so long…
There was a period of around ten years of my life when I was in that sewer plant in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint at least once a month. One learned a great deal during that interval, mainly about how local NYC Government actually works. I learned a lot about urban drainage too.
Pictured is a symbolic map showing the status lights for the various pumping stations found around Pittsburgh, which push wastewater towards the Alcosan system found here at the plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The pump house itself is contained within a gigantic cylindrical space, and once you enter the red ceramic bricked top level, you’ll realize that you’re standing on a platform/walkway, one which connects to multiple flights of stairs that are all heading downwards. Lots and lots of ‘big’ equipment is everywhere. Cranes on the ceiling, all that jazz.
I never caught our guide’s name but he had a fabulous mustache. He was obviously a Boss, or at least a Senior level employee at Alcosan. He was offering the ‘millions of gallons per hour’ versus ‘square acreage of drainage area’ talk, and not delving too deeply into the various Court orders and ‘Consent Decrees’ Alcosan has been forced to accept by judges and legislatures over several decades to ‘clean up their act.’
This plant was opened in 1959, long before the Clean Water Act set a higher bar for wastewater treatment than existed previously. Saying that, Pittsburgh historically emptied both residential and industrial sewage directly into the rivers, right on through to the 1950’s when this plant opened.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries Pittsburgh had ridiculously high infection rates for water borne diseases like Typhus and Cholera.
A 2007 agreement with the Federal EPA saw Alcosan agreeing to begin a massive and expensive new project, one designed to lower the amount of combined sewer outfall water escaping into the rivers, via the construction of a diversion tunnel in which the overflows could be stored during wet weather events.
A similar sewage retention tunnel plan is part of the the post Superfund Newtown Creek for the NYC DEP, btw. Nobody who is alive right now will see that project even begin, let alone finish though. Perhaps a newborn will see it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above looks down through the cylindrical structure of the Pump House, where the actual machinery that handles the flow is found.
Since this is where most of Allegheny County ostensibly drains to, it’s theoretically the lowest point in Pittsburgh – which our guide described was eleven stories down from the surface, where we were standing. Neat!
You’re looking at the ‘Undaburgh.’
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.
Branta, awaiting south bound scuttlers
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the second post describing a tranche of shots gathered on a short walk through Pittsburgh’s North Side.
This particular afternoon, at the end of May, happened to occur on the first day that summer level temperature and humidity levels had arrived, and truth be told, the heat was kind of affecting me.
Wasn’t feeling so great for this part of the walk, which passed by the demolition and construction action prestaging a massive real estate development called ‘The Esplanade.’
Urban heat island effect was ‘in full effect.’ Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to cut things short on the North Shore and call it a day by heading back to HQ via the ‘T’ Light Rail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, I still had a fair bit of ground to cover in order to get back to transportation. Luckily, the riverfront trail was available for this leg of the walk. This was all fairly familiar territory for me, from this point on.
In urban spaces, there are ‘corridors,’ as I term them.
You walk into a funnel, then there are no intersections to your route which don’t involve climbing a fence or something, and you just have to stick it out until you walk out on the other side, at a street junction or something, from the ‘corridor.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular ‘corridor’ is styled as being the Ohio Riverfront Greenway or something, and it’s yet another ‘rail trail’ which either city, or county, or state maintains for the populace to exploit for exercise or recreational activities. I often see fishers, joggers, and bicycle enthusiasts on this path.
Unfortunately, for a riverfront trail, the view of the river is often blocked.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sentries await you.
This icehole was tending its chicks, so a wide berth was given. Doesn’t matter with the Canada Goose, how much respect you might show them. The tongue was bared and the hissing began. If Dinosaurs were anything like the Canada Goose, I’m glad they went extinct.
I named this one ‘Jerkwater.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The trail led me to one of the ‘three sisters’ bridges, and that’s where the Allegheny River was crossed. The goal at this point was to get to a T station, and board a lovely air conditioned Light Rail train back to HQ.
There are two ‘T’ stations on the north side, but a baseball game at the Pirate’s stadium was gathering vast clouds of fans unto itself, and gathering the masses in the direction of those stations, and your humble narrator famously hates crowds…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unfortunately, this led to me encountering the second icehole of the day. Again with the tongue and the hissing. Pfft.
Freaking Canadian Vegans! I dubbed this one ‘Lance, the Icehole.’
Back tomorrow with something different.
“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.
Scuttling southwards from northwards
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yet another ‘exercise day’ greeted your humble narrator, and this time around his scuttling took place on Pittsburgh’s North Side.
A large development project has kicked up in this area, an industrial zone, which has also taken over part of the Ohio River’s waterfront trail in this section and interrupted its course with a detour.
It very well might develop into a hullabaloo, this project, only time will tell.
This project, and the vagaries it has visited upon the grid of streets and riverfront trails it caresses against, forced me into following my nose – as it were – to get ‘out.’ Had to make it up as I went along.
Seems that I’ve found the place where people like to store their boats in Pittsburgh, at least.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As a reminder, the Newtown Pentacle time warp is still in full effect.
These shots were captured during the last week of May, and the words you’re reading are being scratched into existence during the last week of June. Maintaining this ‘lead time’ has been a real boon for me, although it causes one to become chronologically detached from when it will publish.
Housekeeping done, back to the wandering.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While scuttling along, one encountered a building that looked like it was ‘AI.’ Apparently, it’s the ‘Bidwell Training Center Drew Mathieson Greenhouse’ wherein students train in the botanical arts.
It seriously didn’t look real, this building.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looks like an AI model’s insertion, doesn’t it?
Nothing is real anymore, I guess. Am I real? I must be, since I fart. Farting is real, and no computer would have thought farting up.
On another personal note, I can report that I’ve finally finished my latest relisten of Mike Duncan’s ‘History of Rome’ podcast. All 75 hours of it, with the sum up ultimate episode consumed at the end of this walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crossroads… a right turn takes me north westerly towards the Ohio River waterfront, whereas going straight heads towards an area which I hadn’t walked through yet…
Yup, the unknown won.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a couple of disastrous ‘in the field’ decisions led me into actual physical danger over the last couple of months, I’ve been forcing myself to consult that little compass I have dangling off my camera bag – a lot.
South, I needed to continue more or less south…
Back tomorrow – 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.
In the air, and everywhere
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you might recall from last week, your humble narrator was scuttling through Pittsburgh’s ‘Chateau’ neighborhood on the city’s North Side.
There’s lots of lovely homes here, many of which are in a sad state of repair. Condemnation signage is common, as are empty building lots.
I just like to follow my nose around this area, and had only a vague directional notion of where I was going. That little compass dangling off my camera bag was consulted a couple of times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A sudden rush of research activities, centered around a former Standard Oil cannery (behind me, and discussed in a prior post), which revealed that this was a populous but fairly poor neighborhood back in the 1950’s – with churches, shops, and homes.
In 1963, Pittsburgh decided to ‘fix’ this area under the guise of urban renewal/slum clearance, which took the form of erecting an enormous series of highway viaducts and access ramps in lieu of that former mixed use setup. The project eradicated what used to be here, and used the rubble of that civilization to landfill into the Ohio River.
If your residential or commercial property was on the ‘wrong’ side of the new highway, it’s now zoned for ‘heavy industrial,’ so get the ‘eff out.
A 2006 survey revealed that only 39 people were living in the Chateau neighborhood, which kicked off a fresh round of urban renewal.
Don’t know anything about what the population numbers are right now, but the ‘powers that be’ have just started another of their ‘this will save Pittsburgh’ developments nearby. This time around, there’s going to be a Ferris wheel.
Always have to remind, they had a Rachel Carson here in Pittsburgh, not a Jane Jacobs.
Robert Moses always talked about wielding a ‘meat cleaver’ for his projects, wherein if something was in the way he just chopped and chopped at it with the metaphorical cleaver until it was gone.
They really seem to have embraced that ‘Powerbroker’ philosophy here in Pennsylvania.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To get an idea of the sort of grandiose buildings lost to these generational cascades of Urban Renewal, look at the surviving blocks of Chateau – where Chateau’s streets merge into the Manchester neighborhood.
Admittedly, this mansion sized home is an outré example, but holy smokes – it looks like Batman grew up there.
Check that out, spooky looking Victorians, yo. Magnificent.
This entire ‘zone’ that I was cutting through was once part of a separate municipality called ‘Allegheny City,’ annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907.
Just like Queens back in NYC, as soon as the annexation/political consolidations we’re finished, the larger city began exporting its dirty industries, chipping away at the lesser entity’s neighborhoods, and began ramming highways and sewer plants through to serve the larger entity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Street Furniture was spotted.
It was a fairly warm day, but breezy and overcast.
Luckily, I had dressed for ‘high summer,’ with shorts and one of my silly Guayabera shirts (they offer four secure pockets, bro), and an even sillier fishing hat that I had purchased at a Costco for $9.
One had the ‘full’ camera kit onboard, and was carrying it all in a knapsack. Didn’t end up using much from the bag, other than the bottle of water I now carry. Basically did a ‘one lens’ sort of walk, with an ‘all in one’ 24-240mm zoom lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a very convenient lens, but it’s huge and kind of heavy, and has limitations on aperture. I refer to it as ‘the brick.’ Reliable, but heavy.
As far as all the crap in my camera bag – if I didn’t have it with me, I’d desperately need it. I carry a bunch of non-camera related stuff in there too – a basic first aid kit, lengths of para chord in case I pop a shoelace, or if there’s a failure in the straps of the camera, or the bag itself.
There’s also a flashlight, a very loud whistle, gum, a series of tools for field repairs on the gear, a scanner radio set to railroading frequencies, and all sorts of discrete or handy items which I’ve gathered over the years that are useful to have with you, when wandering about with a camera. Everything is filtered according to its weight, of course.
When the bag is full of all this junk, and lenses, and the tripod is attached, it clocks in at about a thirty pound load. When you’ve walked literally tens of thousands of miles over the last twenty years, as I have, you just learn that there’s ‘stuff’ you want to have with you – just in case – and the ‘carry’ is justified.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I got to see Allegheny Valley RR’s #6004, again.
This is the same locomotive that was pictured a few posts back, sitting inert in a rail yard, but this time around it was hauling what looked like a series of empty gondola cars – the sort you’d normally observe black minerals within, likely coke or coal – rolling through the rail trench at Allegheny Commons Park.
Hey Now!
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.
