Posts Tagged ‘Ohio River’
West End Bridge, over the Ohio River
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a steel tied arch bridge near the center of Pittsburgh, one which spans the very mouth of the Ohio River (formed up by the convergence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers), and it’s called the West End Bridge. West End Bridge’s construction was declared as accomplished in 1932, and the thing was built by Pittsburgh’s own American Bridge Company (steel and span) and the Foundation Company (foundation and masonry piers). West End Bridge was originally just under 2,000 feet long.
After a sprucing up and redesign in the 1990’s, which saw the addition of pedestrian and bike lanes, as well as the removal of several vehicle approach ramps on its northern side, the West End Bridge was and is 1,310 feet long.
There’s 66 feet of clearance over the water, it’s 58 feet wide in totality, and the bridge carries 4 lanes of traffic through a 40 foot space. West End Bridge is a challenging and unforgiving span to drive over, I would mention, given how narrow the travel lanes are. There’s scrapes and automotive paint residue all over the lane facing concrete superstructure of the thing, as it’s really easy to screw up and misjudge where your car is in relation to the structure when driving over it.
Additionally, like many of Pittsburgh’s bridges, you need to be in the correct lane when entering the crossing in order to access the local streets or highway interchanges on the exit side, something which you’re just supposed to know intuitively. Pittsburgh is all about ‘vernacular.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
West End Bridge connects the ‘South Hills’ communities to Pittsburgh’s quite urban North Side areas in the annexed ‘Allegheny City’ area, bypassing the congested triangular downtown area.
When exiting the bridge on the south side, you can continue southeast onto an arterial road called Saw Mill Run Blvd., which leads out into the suburban sprawl of the South Hills, or make turns either east or west to access the local streets along the Monongahela and Ohio rivers.
On the northern side of West End Bridge, one lane leads into Pittsburgh’s North Side areas, specifically the ‘Chateau’ neighborhood, and the Mexican War Streets zone. There’s also an interchange on the north side which offers access to local and state highways which ultimately connect to the interstate roads that snake along the Ohio River, or head easterly towards a different set of suburbs after moving through the City. It’s all quite complicated.
Pictured is the pedestrian path, which was actually offered quite an interesting walk. I was the sole occupant on this pathway, which sort of describes my entire existence when you get down to it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My interest in the thing had become piqued during the many back and forth trips to the Allegheny General Hospital, on the North Side, for Our Lady of the Pentacle’s medical procedures. It provides an interesting point of view for several ‘hard to reach’ – on foot – parts of Pittsburgh. There are other ‘primary’ crossings which receive far more traffic that accomplish the same function – the Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne bridges – but there you are.
For an ‘eye in the sky’ overview of what West End Bridge looks like, and its relationship to the larger city it serves, check out any of the posts offered here from the West End Overlook Park.
Back tomorrow with more.
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“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.
From West End Overlook
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has mentioned, and offered views from, Pittsburgh’s West End Overlook Park in the past. This spot is about a 15 minute long and quite easily executed drive from HQ in the nearby Borough of Dormont, and the overlook provides commanding views of the city center. You’re actually executing about a half mile of change in altitude while driving through three and change miles horizontally – it’s a thousand feet down to the level of the river from Dormont, and then around a thousand feet up through the neighborhoods of West End and Elliot. Proximity means I find myself heading up there periodically to wave the camera about.
This time around, it was that interval of the day during which the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself disappears behind Ohio.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the juncture, right in front of the fountain at Point State Park, of the three rivers – where the Monongahela and Allegheny combine to form the Ohio River. I’m told Lewis and Clark left for their famous adventure on the Jeffersonian mission to examine the western territories gained via the Louisiana Purchase from somewhere nearby. I’m also led to believe that the stand of tall buildings on the right hand side of the ‘point’ used to be a rather busy rail yard.
Moe the Dog was along for this excursion, and so was Our Lady of the Pentacle, whom he was hauling about at her end of his leash. This spot is absolutely infested with Spotted Lantern Flies, I would mention, and as Moe considers the pests to be flying popcorn… let’s just say Moe did his part to combat the infestation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’ve probably discerned, I was playing about with various methods of capturing the scenery. I shot a few panoramas as well, such as this one. A humble narrator really likes this spot for several reasons.
There’s ample parking, and a Port A Potty is found in the parking lot at the entrance to the place. There’s lot of strollers, pot smokers, and dog walkers who frequent the spot and on more than one occasion, I’ve seen and chatted with other members of the tripod and lens crowd as well as Drone pilots, and even a broadcast television videographer up here. It reminds me of the scene long enjoyed along the East River along Long Island City’s piers during Manhattanhenge.
If I’m coming here though, it’s always at the bookends of the day – very early or nearly late. I haven’t done the ‘dead of night’ here. Yet.
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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.
Smokey Pittsburgh, part 1
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Killing two birds with one stone, that’s what we were up to at the West End Overlook Park here in Pittsburgh. A tendril of the wildfire smoke that painted the East Coast in orange had settled in over the 3 Rivers area. Getting shots of that situation was one of the stones.
This one is looking down the Ohio River and over the West End Bridge at the downtown section of the City which is the titular center of all things hereabouts, or at least it is in the mental construct I’ve been building for myself about the place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These were gathered in the early evening, probably around 7 or 8 pm or so. The sun sets a bit later here than it does back on the East Coast, and I was hoping for some color to appear in the smokey sky during the sunset but no dice.
Instead, I decided to zoom in on shapes and circumstances which I found interesting. Freight trains and coal barges for the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Those are the highway on-ramps leading onto the West End Bridge pictured above, offering ‘massing shapes’ which I am endlessly fascinated by. I’ve walked around down there a few times.
The Overlook at West End is found at a fairly high elevation, and there’s a small park associated with it. The spot is pretty popular, especially so with the expensive cameras and tripods crowd. Normal people who don’t feel the need to record everything they see and publish a blog about it seem to use the place for picnics and quaffing wine. I learned that by staring into the litter baskets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given the circumstance, which I’d describe as ‘murk,’ I kept on waving the camera around while zooming in and out on the scene.
Several of the ‘lifers’ here in Pittsburgh have told me that this is what the City used to look like everyday and all the time, due to all the steel mills that operated along the rivers. Mark Twain is reported to have described Pittsburgh as looking like “hell with the lid off” during that era.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Couldn’t resist the composition offered when this Towboat appeared, towing barges of minerals. I presume it’s either Coke or Coal on those barges, but since I’m not sure – minerals.
So, that’s the first stone I had to kill, the photos one. What was the second?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moe the Dog, still quite the puppy, had never seen this place. Moe also hadn’t had a chance to menace West End Overlook Park’s populations of squirrels and birds either. Our Lady of the Pentacle and I have been trying to get him out as much as possible, bringing him to all sorts of places. Parks, woodlands, all that. Moe is still a bit aggressive when other dogs appear, but we’re working on that one and he’s improving. You have to teach a puppy polity, and proper manners. He’s already a good boy, but he’s becoming a better behaved one.
Back tomorrow with the day that the smoke settled in on Pittsburgh.
“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.
Pittsburgh 3 ways
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wamma lamma ding dong, I almost cannot wait to show all of you the posts scheduled for next week here at Newtown Pentacle, which detail one of the cooler experiences I’ve had so far, here in Pittsburgh. For this Friday post, however, it’s just three shots of the pretty city of Pittsburgh with its always dynamic atmosphere boiling in the sky.
Weather is very different here than it was back in NYC, which I’ve found myself starting to refer to as ‘back home’ or ‘the old neighborhood.’ I suppose that was inevitable.
It’s a volatile atmosphere that you’ll encounter here in Pittsburgh, due to the river valleys and the foot hills of the Appalachia Range’s interactions with the sky vault. A couple of weeks ago it was 89 degrees at 4 in the afternoon and then 54 degrees at midnight. You can leave the house in a driving rainstorm and by the time you get where you’re going, it’s blue sky and sunny – all in the space of 20 minutes. The sky’s gyrations aren’t muted by the presence of an ocean, here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We’ve been pretty lucky so far, weather wise. We moved out here during the high winter. Pittsburgh’s winters have a ferocious reputation, but as it turns out the 22/23 winter season here was the warmest and least snowy winter that this City has experienced in decades. That’s called a soft landing, lords and ladies. I fear we won’t get that sort of lucky again, given that this is an El Niño year.
Those dynamic skies, though. Lately, I find myself exposing the shots with the sky in mind. I’m of the belief that Pittsburgh’s iconic ‘Empire State Building’ or ‘Golden Gate Bridge’ is the sky itself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next week is going to be fairly hardcore, with six image posts returning for an interval. I got to go somewhere that I found visually exciting, and under circumstance where I could ‘do my thing’ without any real interruption for multiple hours. Set up the tripod, compose shots, the whole shebang. Thereby…
…back next week, with what I saw when I got to visit Carrie Furnace.
“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.
All wet on the Ohio River, part 2
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more shots from a boat tour of the Ohio River here in Pittsburgh, offered by the Doors Open Pittsburgh organization, which were captured during a driving rain storm. As is always the case with such things, pretty much the minute that the boat we were on returned to dock, the clouds parted and it became sunny and lovely, but while we were onboard it was absolutely pissing down. Difficult photography weather, as the rain was accompanied by a precipitating mist.
That’s Brunot’s Island pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A strait of water separates Brunot from its neighbor – Neville Island – which is a lot larger and is ‘mixed use’ with heavy industrial activity at one end with a residential community found on the other. I drove over to Neville Island a while back to take a lookie loo at what’s there. It’s on my list for ‘interesting places’ which I intend on learning more about and waving the camera at in the future.
To my eye, that’s a former concrete plant, pictured above, nestled in amongst the trees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, the rain began to let up a bit as we were returning to the dock, but I dig the shot above for some reason. It’s got a moodiness to it that reminds me of adolescence. Wish I could tell you we did something exciting after debarking the boat, but friends from NYC were meant to be visiting us during the following week, so Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself did some food shopping and then went back to HQ to straighten up the joint and get it ‘guest ready.’
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 