Posts Tagged ‘North Side’
Stretching my legs in Pittsburgh
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above was captured from the top floor of a hospital parking garage, here in Pittsburgh. A humble narrator had just dropped Our Lady of the Pentacle off for her medical procedure, early in the morning on a cloud struck day. I’d be returning here about six hours later to gather her up and bring her back home, then spent a good week or so trying to shield her from the necessities of life, and the affections of Moe the Dog. The second of two such intervals, responsibility at home precluded one from doing much else. Exigency, it affects us all.
Sleeping was my main goal during this interval, and my personal exercise schedule suffered, which resulted in a creeping bodily stiffness and a sound not unlike crushing handfuls of popcorn emerging from the knees, while walking up and down stairs. After receiving the ‘all clear’ from her medical professionals, Our Lady insisted that I get the hell out of the house and go ‘do my thing.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One rode the T light rail from HQ to the end of the line on Pittsburgh’s North Side, an elevated station across the street from the site of pilgrimage and worship for the Yinzers – a sports ball stadium wherein dwell the Pittsburgh Steelers. That is Acrisure, formerly Heinz, Stadium. The Pittsburgh people call it Heinz, not Acrisure.
My plan for the afternoon was to ease into the walk, but to also include as many flights of stairs into the equation as possible. Ligaments, tendons, and joints – they all formed up into an internal rhythm section. My headphones were plugged into the appropriate orifices, and I was listening to a playlist of Black Sabbath albums.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The path I had chosen for the day was informed by the several hospital trips we had made in the prior three weeks by car, and the bridge we drive over in this pursuit. Ultimately, I’d be riding the T back home at the end of the walk, which I’d pick up at the first stop it makes in the central zone of Pittsburgh, at the Station Square stop. It was lovely out, with Pittsburgh displaying an uncharacteristically clear sky, not macerated with dynamic banks of cloud.
It was ‘shorts and a sweatshirt’ weather, which is my favorite sort of atmosphere. For one reason or another I was drawn into using my zoom lens at its widest setting – 24mm – for much of the first half of the walk.
Come with? More tomorrow at your Newtown Pentacle.
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Allegheny, north shore
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After having woken up prior to sunrise and popping off a few shots from the West End Overlook, a humble narrator was hoping to visit the Mr. Rogers monument along the Allegheny River on Pittsburgh’s north side. Unfortunately, a crew of laborers were performing some sort of maintenance there and the thing was roped off. I had already fed the parking meter, so the Mobile Oppression Platform was happily ensconced and thereby I set off along the river trail.
That’s the Fort Duquesne Bridge, Pittsburgh’s famous ‘bridge to nowhere’ pictured above, with the office buildings of downtown Pittsburgh behind it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There seems to be a whole ‘scene’ here, revolving around pleasure boats navigating down the rivers and tying off along the waterfront. I’m sure there’s some form of governance, fees, all that. Saying that, boats can tie up to cleats and bollards and people overnight on them. That’s pretty cool, if you ask me.
It’s nice to live in a place where such things are ‘normal,’ and treated in a business like fashion. NYC identifies things people like to do, and then taxes the activity into oblivion and or criminalizes it. Can’t leave your house or attend a gathering without the ‘Reverend in Blue’ administering every single human interaction there, or having some bureaucratic entity doing its best to monetize you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This odd thing caught my eye. Theory #1 is that somebody found these keys and automobile ‘FOB’ on the sidewalk and stuck them into the tree to help out whomever lost it. Theory #2 is that some drunk tried to start up or unlock a tree. This spot was equidistant between the Steelers and the Pirates sports ball stadiums, and there’s a LOT of bars found between them, so I thereby lean towards Theory #2.
Back tomorrow with something different, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Scuttling on the North Side of Pittsburgh
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the northern bank of the Allegheny River, here in Pittsburgh, there’s an area called the ‘North Side.’ There’s lots of individual neighborhoods found within the region, but this section of the greater metro area used to be an independent municipality called “Allegheny City” which Pittsburgh annexed at the start of the 20th century. Further up the river is where the Heinz Factory was, and the ‘zone’ I was in for this post was the one that touches the ‘Mexican War Streets.’ The spot which I was specifically in has the National Aviary as its landmark, with said institution sitting in the middle of the very nice Allegheny Commons Park.
I’ve mentioned the many, many diagnostic medical tests which a humble narrator has endured in recent months. Our Lady of the Pentacle has also been getting probed and pinched and irradiated, and on a recent morning while she was enjoying just such a procedure, I needed somewhere to take Moe the Dog. We ended up in this park, which is somewhat nearby the hospital, while waiting for Our Lady to be done. I made a mental note to come back on foot without Moe, and that’s why I was there on this particular day. Scouting!
You’re all caught up now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been looking for a spot to observe these rail tracks, cut into a trench through the park, for a while. While Moe was chasing down a squirrel, the little dog led me right here. There’s a swell ‘autumn’ shot to be gathered here, with the black Norfolk Southern locomotives moving through the trench. The trees planted along the fence are Gingkos, I’m told, whose leaves turn a bright golden yellow during fall. You’ve got your black train and your gold leaves – which are not just Steelers colors but in fact are the heraldic colors of Pittsburgh.
On this particular afternoon, a humble narrator wasn’t trying to get all ‘artsy fartsy,’ instead I was walking quickly and observing the state of the neighborhood ‘milieu.’ North Side has an insalubrious ‘reputation’ according to the ‘born n bred’ Pittsburghers, but to my eyes… Heck. East New York and Far Rockaway are my delimiters for danger, so my perception of things is a bit different than that of the locals, I think, due to the experience of having lived in “Home Sweet Hell” my whole life.
Walk around Industrial Maspeth at night during a pandemic, I’d offer, if you want actual scary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The purpose of this adventure was to get some exercise and fix a geospatial awareness of those rail tracks in the old noggin, and to also work out how to get to this area using the T light rail rather than driving here. This section of Pittsburgh reminds me of several spots in Brooklyn and Queens, especially their scarcity of street parking.
One leaned into it and started heading southwards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This may look pretty desolate, but the land under these expressway ramps is a parking lot about two blocks away from the sports ball stadium which the Pirates baseball team plays in. On game days, this lot would be brimming with tail gate BBQ’s and hundreds if not thousands of people and their vehicles.
The rest of my day’s plan involved the other side of Pittsburgh, and I’d need to cross two rivers on foot to get there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m told that the modernist building in the shot above is the HQ of the ALCOA aluminum outfit. That river is the Allegheny, with downtown Pittsburgh looming up behind and to the south of it.
It was a warm but lovely day in Pittsburgh, with a decent breeze and temperatures in the middle 80’s. It was fairly humid, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are three fairly identical bridges found here, called the ‘Three Sisters.’ The one pictured above is the Rachel Carson Bridge, named for the author of the seminal environmentalist book “Silent Spring.”
Back next week with more from the Paris of Appalachia.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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An examination is inherently a recrimination
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another Doctor’s appointment found me parking the Mobile Oppression Platform on the roof of the hospital’s lot, where some pretty keen views of Pittsburgh were on offer. The Yinzers, which is what the Pittsburgh people call themselves, seem duty bound to park in the first available spot they see, and nearby an entrance or exit. Me? I go where it’s less crowded, and where you might be able to see something.
Thereby I always seem to park on the roof deck of these multi story parking facilities. Additionally, the odds of having my car damaged by somebody who isn’t paying attention, while they’re negotiating the narrow confines of the garage, is lessened in these less populated areas. I don’t mind walking a few hundred feet or taking a flight of stairs, in fact I prefer it.
The shot above is looking more or less south.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking more or less eastwards, over the historic housing stock at the edge of an area called ‘The Mexican War Streets,’ part of the larger ‘North Side,’ and towards the Heinz Lofts/Factory buildings. I’m told this section can get a little dicey at times, but I don’t have any personal experience to damn or bless that bit of transmitted knowledge. There’s a few places which I’m intrigued by that the locals have told me are fairly dangerous. I, on the other hand, grew up in 1980’s NYC, so… my perceptions of ‘dicey’ use a different rubric for ‘stranger danger’ than the one most have.
I was visiting a diagnostic lab at the hospital this time around, and getting ultrasounded. My new Doctor is pretty thorough, and the various concerns he has for me have manifested as a series of somewhat esoteric probings and banal violations of personal dignity, but I’m committed to the ‘program’ he’s got me on so there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After having wiped the lubricant goo from the ultrasound off and then getting dressed again, I negotiated the maze of hallways within the hospital and then found myself back at the car.
What to do, what to do? Get a shot of the Heinz campus, obviously.
This zone of Pittsburgh is quite interesting, by the way.
“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.
Under the on and off
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I know, I’m obsessed. To be fair, though, I’ve been showing you all pictures of highway and expressway ramps for better than a decade now. LIE, BQE, Grand Central etc., all back in NYC. I’ve got new ones to puzzle over now.
Once I walked past the interchange pictured above, on a more or less eastward path, the entire streetscape suddenly altered. As mentioned yesterday, these highway on and off ramps are serving many masters. Interstates, local roads, even the approaches leading to bridges and tunnels – all were set into long arcing shapes suspended above the ground. There had to be a spot where the overflying concrete and steel occluded the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself and supernal darkness could be found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a few blocks of ‘forever shadows,’ which are used as parking lots, but this might be a great place to grow mushrooms too. There’s private parking spaces associated with this business or that hotel, but it seemed that most of the space down here was of the ‘park all day’ type. Of course, the Steelers stadium was behind me and the Pirates stadium lay ahead, so yeah – you’d need a serious inventory of lot parking in a sports town like Pittsburgh.
Truth be told, I was kind of expecting to see homeless encampments down here, or at least some sort of messy condition reminiscent of what I saw under the BQE in North Brooklyn back at the start of 2022. Nope. Barely even any graffiti.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scuttling along towards my eventual crossing of the Allegheny River, which would bring me onto the so called ‘Golden Triangle,’ which forms the city of Pittsburgh’s corporate and political center. From there, my planned route would carry me to a crossing of the Monongahela River to the south. There’s a local street moving at ground level between the ramps, one which I’ve driven down a few times and can’t really recommend.
That’s another post, for another day, however. Back next week with more from Pittsburgh 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 