Posts Tagged ‘Penn Avenue’
Wide angling, at scuttle’s end
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of a walk that started up in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield, one encountered a series of park benches along Penn Avenue. I took the opportunity of a usable surface to swap out the lens I was using all day – a 24-240mm zoom – for a prime lens of 16mm. A prime lens has a fixed focal length, if you’re not a camera geek.
24mm is plenty wide, mind you, but you don’t get that ‘beyond the scope of human vision’ sort of thing. Theoretically, a single human eye sees things in the way that a 35mm lens does, so 16mm is essentially double that POV – and it’s a bit wider than human binocular vision is. I dig it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s important to carefully pick what you focus on with a lens this wide angle, as perspective distortion and ‘bowing’ are part and parcel of this sort of equipment.
The wide angle was chosen as part of the day’s ‘carry’ for specifically this section of the walk. Downtown Pittsburgh is quite urban, with tall buildings and fairly narrow streets, for an American city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There wasn’t any sort of plan at work here, except finishing the walking of this length of Penn Avenue, if for no other reason than just to be able to say that I did so. This section of Downtown has been designated as ‘The Cultural District’ by the powers that be. The Yinzers call it ‘Dahntahn.’ I was planning on riding the T light Rail back to HQ.
My plan for getting home ended up getting ‘fablungered.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Downtown gets a lot of shade from these same ‘powers that be’ regarding a noisome population of street people who congregate in the area.
These ‘powers’ include a large number of commercial landlords who blame their business problems on a) the homeless, b) drugs, c) work from home, d) Covid, e) Millennials, f) socialism.
The problem isn’t that they’re charging usurious amounts of money to their lessees, nor that there are surrounding counties which have been luring corporations out of the center of Pittsburgh with promises of tax breaks and land deals for decades.
Reap. Sow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan for getting back home went up in smoke after I spent about 30 minutes waiting for a T light rail to show up at the Gateway Station. Bah.
I rode the escalator back up to street level and decided to get home the expensive way – in a rideshare.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit, I scuttled over to a convenient location, one where a car can pull over easily. PPG Plaza was my choice, and I amused myself while waiting by shooting almost directly straight up at the mirror box building.
Back next week with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Cool cars: old fire truck edition
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apparently, there’s a museum dedicated to baseball player Roberto Clemente in an old firehouse on Penn Avenue, and they park an old fire truck outside of it – which must be a lure to bring in passing lookie loos. Here’s their link, btw.
Caught my attention, I’ll tell’s ya. Love me a cool car.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I grew up idolizing comic book artists and film directors, so the cult surrounding athletes is one I’m not a part of.
Want to talk Jack Kirby? I’m down. Want to discuss an athlete? I get quiet and listen but don’t participate in the conversation as I don’t have anything to offer on the subject. Did Roberto Clemente create the Fantastic Four, or the Avengers? Pfft.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a complete curmudgeon, I’ll go to a baseball or hockey game if you like. Won’t watch one on TV, although I will listen to a baseball game on the radio (the natural broadcast medium for baseball is AM radio) occasionally.
Couldn’t care less about football or basketball, me.
Saying that, sports means the world to a lot of people. Clemente is remembered by Pittsburgh in several conspicuous places. There’s a bridge named for him, as well as a street. A statue of the man greets entrants to PNC Park, where the Pirates compete.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Couldn’t help but pop out a few shots of the thing. My allocation of time for the walk was running down and I needed to keep moving.
Twirling, always twirling towards freedom, that’s me.
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.
Penn Avenue and the Doughboy
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, Pittsburgh has started showing me ‘cool cars’ on my walks, although in this case it was a fire engine red scooter. Must have been hard to find a color matching helmet. Also, speaking as an ex-New Yorker – you just leave your helmet outside on the bike?
Really, people leave their cars and homes unlocked out here. Sometimes, you’ll encounter a car in a lot, with a running engine and the driver’s side door either ajar or wide open, just sitting there ready for stealing. I’m from Brooklyn – and often – my challenge in Pittsburgh is not doing any of the Brooklyn things – even if it’s just to ‘teach you a lesson.’
This is Pittsburgh’s ‘Sixth Ward,’ incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This ‘sixth ward scuttle’ of mine was steadily moving down Pittsburgh’s Penn Avenue, and I was specifically in the Lawrenceville section at this stage. One of the landmarks along the route is a memorial to the 3,100 soldiers from the sixth ward who were lost during WW1.
They call this ‘Doughboy Park.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This statuary is found at 34th street and Penn Avenue. It’s used as a landmark by the locals, I’m told. A ‘meet me at…’ sort of thing.
I enjoyed a quick sit down, and then rose back up to complete the day’s constitutional. Now that I can reliably walk again, I just can’t get enough of the activity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking to the north, there’s that industrial zone in which we took a walk back in April, with this shot offering a nearly opposite view from the perspectives offered above. Notice that rail trestle against the tree line, that’s right about where I was walking in this post.
It’s time for an ankle talk – It seems that I’ve overcome the pronounced limping which saw me walking around like the Batman villain Penguin for a while. Striding is back. Things still get weird when steps are on the menu, and my biggest ‘ankle hangover’ problem at the moment involves small and discrete movements of the foot during locomotion. For instance: stepping on a raised sidewalk seam and having my foot rotate forward, or back, can often turn into a bit of an ordeal. Heavily sloped surfaces moving upwards and away from me remains an issue as well.
It’s been a year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s part of the 33rd street rail bridge which that school bus is passing under. This is one of those transitional zones, what I used to describe as the ‘angle between neighborhoods’ back in NYC. On the other side of the bridge, it’s the start of the ‘Strip District.’
I was going all the way downtown, so this was basically the middle point of the walk, about 2 and change miles in. These days, I shoot for five or six miles at a pop. Hopefully, by the time it gets well and truly cold I’ll be averaging seven to eight miles rather than five to six. Given where things were for me at the start of 2025, I’m just glad to be able to do whatever the hell I want to do, whenever the hell I want to do it again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 31st street Bridge, and here’s another view of it from Rialto Street, and another one from a walk over the thing.
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.
Kicking dirt in Bloomfield
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This latest of scuttles began in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield section, which is aka Little Italy.
One had summoned a rideshare to transport my carcass from Dormont to this spot, in pursuance of executing a medium length constitutional walk. All summer long, I’ve been picking spots along several of the major ‘avenues’ found on Pittsburgh’s ‘Golden Triangle’ and then following where my toes were pointing towards the titular center of things downtown, where that triangle forms it’s acute point.
This scuttle started here, and then proceeded downtown.
It was a lovely August day in Pittsburgh, with temperatures in the low 80’s and a tolerable level of humidity. I stuck to the shady side of the street whenever possible, however. Travel was light, with a single zoom lens on the camera, and a couple of primes in my camera bag.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the gateway to Bloomfield pictured above, but I was heading in the opposite direction and away from it. Bloomfield is fairly urban in character, with street level shops and small multi unit rental buildings sharing the streets with private homes, medical facilities, and the occasional large apartment building. Its street setup is what I’d describe as ‘Philadelphia style’ with fairly narrow sidewalks flowing past row houses.
This isn’t a dissertation on Bloomfield, by the way, rather it’s a set of surface level observations. I’ve occasionally found myself out here for a doctor’s appointment or something similar, but I don’t know anyone who lives here nor have I spent anytime in the neighborhood socializing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One proceeded to take a series of random turns at the corners, heading in the general direction of a street called ‘Penn Avenue.’ That would become my singular path all the way to the downtown area, but sometimes there’s virtue in getting a little bit lost.
Those narrow sidewalks don’t have room for street trees, which was kind of surprising. Notice that the ‘one way’ sign at top left of the shot above is attached to the building rather than being set upon a pole.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a few blocks of right/left right/left, my accursed footsteps were striking pavement on the aforementioned Penn Avenue. A firehouse had its door open, so… that’s the Pittsburgh Fire Dept.’s Engine 6 pictured above.
Now, I should mention that this walk was part of a larger plan which I cooked up while sitting in that wheelchair last year, one designed to increase my knowledge of the streets and learn what’s what and where it is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lawrenceville. That’s the neighborhood I had just wandered into from Bloomfield. Now… remember when I walked through Lawrenceville earlier in the summer, and then scuttled along one of its ‘way’ streets just a few weeks later… and then there was ‘Bigelow Boulevard’ and then also ‘Polish Hill’?
Bloomfield is a plateau on top of a hill. Lawrenceville is found on the sloping bottom of the hill of that plateau. Polish Hill and Bigelow Boulevard ride along the top of the hill, and in this series of posts – we are moving along the middle of that hill.
Dear lord, it’s all starting to make sense…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the way.
Explore, photograph, research. Go back for more, learn more based on observation. Research, observe, photograph, go deeper, learn more…
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 