Posts Tagged ‘Pennsylvania’
hereditary castle
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself enjoyed an early December visit to Pittsburgh, and we decided to buy tickets for the Gateway Clipper boat tour. If you find yourself in this area, I highly recommend the experience. Pictured above is the Smithfield Street Bridge, designed by Queensboro Bridge designer Gustav Lindenthal.
Also mentioned, since I had taken the same boat tour back in September, this time around I was shooting for details and playing around with a longer zoom lens than the one I normally use.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Reason being is epitomized by the shot above and the two below. I heard a freight train nearing before I saw it, and because the camera was outfitted with “reach,” I was ready.
The boat we were on was pretty crowded. A Pittsburgh Steelers game was scheduled for the next day (these were captured on Saturday) and lots of people were in town for the game. Bars and restaurants were busy, and money was being spent. Given the way NYC’s stadiums are sort of intentionally “separated” from the City surrounding them (except for MSG and Yankee Stadium, I guess) you really don’t see the “local economic multiplier effect” of hosting an NFL franchise in your town in New York City. I mean, the bars are a bit more populated around the garden, yeah, but I don’t see “multi generational family destination travel” and spending as observed in Pittsburgh. Interesting.
We ate dinner at some restaurant up on Mt. Washington that night, where what had to be four generations of a family, all wearing Steelers swag, were seated. They were all staring at their phones and not talking to each other, but that’s another story.
As a note, the burger there was decent. Not great, decent. Restaurants that label themselves as a “Gastropub” are just fancy pants versions of diners with a beer license – who overuse and overstate the value of bacon – and are nothing special except for being 25% more expensive than they should be, if you ask me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s that freight train I heard coming, running through Downtown Pittsburgh, behind a CSX engine. A humble narrator is trying not to go all “historic granularity” right about now, so I’m not going to deep dive into the specifics of this track on the Mt. Washington side of the Monongahela River. I probably could, mind you, but I’m actively resisting the urge to do so. Anything railroad is inherently complicated, and easy to get wrong, thereby requiring serious research and multiple source fact checking. The train was towing minerals (probably coal, based on what it looked like, but what do I know), containers, and tanker cars.
Frankly, I’m not willing to spend the time on researching the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, or the Monongahela Connecting Railroad… or B&O becoming… or Conrail… no… not doing it… I will… resist… for now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Freight rail traffic, in my limited observation, is pretty frequent here in Pittsburgh. This is the “leave behind” of the heavy industry that was once based here, obviously. This part of Pennsylvania seems to have deeper economic and cultural connections to western Ohio and northern West Virginia, in terms of its supply chain and “sphere of influence,” than with any of the four mega cities in its larger region (NYC, Chicago, Toronto, Philadelphia). Pittsburgh also seems to not be a node of the East Coast megalopolis – the urban zone that extends from Boston to Washington D.C. with NYC and western New Jersey at the center. I might be wrong about this, however. As mentioned – limited observation.
That’s very, very interesting to me. Megalopolis wise, I mean.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Gateway Clipper excursion boat turned onto the Allegheny River, just as sunset began to see the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself descending. One thing about this particular weekend away that was revelatory is the fact that the aforementioned solar orb doesn’t actually tuck itself into a cavern in New Jersey, and instead disappears into the ground somewhere west of Pennsylvania, perhaps in Ohio or Illinois. More research is required, obviously.
Ignorance is a wonderful sensation for me, given the “I can see through time” level of experiential knowledge I have for NYC. It’s wonderful seeing things and places which you haven’t learned everything about. As an example – the Empire State Building is clad in ten million bricks, and uses 8 million feet of electrical wiring to govern its elevators. This is the sort of useless knowledge which I can offer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle had become so chilled from the December air by this point that she had taken up station within the cabin of the Gateway Clipper.
I had switched lenses, from the long reach 70-300mm zoom lens to the 24-105mm one. As has been the case with all of my travels in 2021, I was wearing my “full pack.” That’s two camera bags – a knap sack which my tripod and an umbrella were externally strapped onto, and which internally held batteries and memory cards and all sorts of handy gewgaws and camera lenses. A sling/messenger bag was also worn side holster style, so it hung down on my right hip. It’s a pain in the neck to use the knap sack when rapid lens changes are required, or to grab a len cloth or whatever, so I use the sling bag for stuff I anticipate using a lot during a particular adventure. The sling bag is also where I store the two prime lenses I carry everywhere these days – a 35mm f1.8 and an 85mm f2.
More tomorrow at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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incoherent falsetto
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everybody has a dream. Mine is to maintain zero stock in my underwear or sock drawers, and instead have Amazon deliver fresh underclothes to me everyday. Imagine it – my skivvies get freshly manufactured in east Asia, then flown into NYC on a cargo jet, and delivered by truck to my house for usage every 24 hours. At the end of the day, I’d layer the soiled garments – along with all of the one time use plastics which I consumed sugar water from that day – on an automobile tire, in a bike lane. Then I’d light the whole thing on fire and watch it all burn away in a blue gray cloud… sigh… I can dream, can’t I? I think that I could personally warm the atmosphere by a degree or two within a few years by spewing carbon into the air thusly, hastening the arrival of environmental collapse and the end of life as we know it. That’ll show ya.
Pictured above is the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh, as seen from the waterfront nearby the municipality’s convention center.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first weekend of December saw Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself visiting this fine place. This was my second visit to Pittsburgh in 2021, and the circumstance of these shots being gathered revolved around Our Lady of the Pentacle discovering that a craft fair was being held at the aforementioned convention center. Our Lady likes arts, she enjoys crafts, and loves fairs that combine the two. Suffice to say that I had about an hour and change to kill while she was within.
I did a fairly exhaustive series of posts after my September visit to the Steel City. Granular descriptions of infrastructure and circumstance were offered in multiple postings back in October and November. Truth be told, I never really left the center of Pittsburgh during that excursion or on this one, but there you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh postings from my autumnal visit, listed in chronological order – Great Elms, Gnarled Orchards, Ancient Walls, Lower Meadows, Choked Fissure, Human Clothing, Other Constellations, Certain Circumstances, Terrestrial Gravity, Needed Form, Without Dissolution, Calculations Would, Grave Doubt, Luckily Obtainable, Abnormal Toughness, Prodigious Time, Unexampled Flight, Earthward Dreams, and finally Bacterial Agent.
I should also mention that I have no special knowledge of the place, I just find it fascinating, and think that Pittsburgh is a bit of a gem in the northeastern United States as far as “post industrial usage” goes. They do and have done a lot more, with significantly fewer resources, than NYC does, plans to do, or has done to accept and adapt to the changing climatological conditions of the 21st century.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are multiple possibilities in Pittsburgh for super villains and mad scientists to set up lairs. A notable location on Liberty Avenue is the Keenan Building, with its crown shaped cupola. I’m not the only one to have thought “super villain,” incidentally. Check out this post from the Pittsburgh City Paper for more on the lair.
I had walked Our Lady of the Pentacle around some of the scenic areas which were visited back in September, and we had purchased boat tickets on their version of the Circle Line – called the Gateway Clipper – so we headed over to the docks and got on board for a bit of sightseeing. Really, don’t be afraid to do tourist things when traveling, not everything needs to be “bespoke.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given that I had ridden on this boat tour the last time I was here, when and whereupon I did my usual “catalog” shooting, the focus was on details this time around. A long lens was attached on the camera, and I made it a point of zooming in on things that piqued my interest. I’m not sure what or who is housed in the building pictured above, but that sky lobby/atrium caught my attentions. That’s some Avengers/Justice League kind of action right there. Maybe even Fantastic Four.
Look, if you’ve got villains living in crown shaped cupolas, you’ve got to have somewhere to house the heroes too. This is, I’m told, the 33 story “Tower at PNC Plaza,” a 2014 building that is designed with environmental benefit in mind. Seriously, click that link, there’s some cool technology incorporated into this tower. It’s the sort of thing that would be possible in NYC if our government wasn’t owned outright by big real estate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, I caught a shot of the Pittsburgh “T” light rail exiting the city center, and crossing the Monongahela River over to the Mt. Washington side of town. There was a Steelers game scheduled for the next day, and the City was positively overrun by folks wearing black and gold shirts and hats. In fact, the boat we were on was fairly packed with Steelers fans, whom, despite the fearsome reputation this particular group of sporting enthusiasts have – were really nice.
More 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.
passed close
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator was pretty much exhausted by the time these shots were acquired. All of the Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh posts you’ve seen in the last month, and these Philadelphia ones, were captured in about a 4 day period. A morning session in DC, followed by an 8 hour train ride, 72 hours spent in Pittsburgh, followed by a 7 hour train ride to Philadelphia, and I spent about 5 hours there. Between the three, I walked a little over 100 miles and photographed about 6,000 individual shots which ended up boiling down to about 700 “keepers.”
In Pittsburgh, I had a room where I could stow my gear, but in D.C. and Philly, I had to shlep it all around on my back. The shots in today’s post were the last ones captured on this trip.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Full pack “EDC” or Every Day Carry on a week long trip sucks. I had three bags hanging off of me. The one on my left hip – a camera sling bag which I’ve retired from active photo duty but which matches the current one – was stuffed with clothing, toiletries, and various comfort items like a comb and a few snacks – gum, candy, etc. as well as the various charging cables and wall adapters needed for my electronics.
The one on my right hip was full of the sort of camera gear you need to keep handy and ready to go – a bright “go to” prime lens, an air blower, lens cloths – that sort of stuff. I’ve also got a construction worker’s yellow safety vest in there. The two were hung on opposite shoulders, forming an X over my sternum.
Then there was the big bag on my back, which kept the X in place, a Jansport knapsack with my Canon zoom lenses within and housed in removable foam partitions, and also within it was a Mac laptop. On the exterior of the backpack was an attached Sirui Carbon Fiber tripod with a ball head, with an umbrella affixed on the other side. There’s lots of small items I like to carry – a flashlight, a roll of gaff tape, ten feet of paracord, one of those silver emergency blankets, a “bit kit” of screw heads that my Leatherman can mount, the homemade foam lens collars I’ve mentioned a few times, a backup camera support device called a Platypod, extra camera batteries. At the bottom of the bag is one of those ultra absorbent “shamwow” orange cloths they sell at Costco for washing cars, and a couple of clear plastic garbage bags. As a note, the flashlight and everything else made of metal in my bag has a layer of gaff tape on it. Gaff tape doesn’t leave residue behind when you stick it to things, and whereas it’s no duct tape, if you have to make a quick repair while in the field it’s better to have the stuff and not need it than the other way around. It also helps with “grip.” The layers of gaff on my flashlight easily release and are deployable as needed.
On top of all this, I was wearing my special “Scott E Vest” sweatshirt with its 22 secure pockets, pretty much all of which had at least one item secreted away in them. Additionally, I was wearing a pair of military surplus shorts, with a bunch of secure pockets where I was carrying a Leatherman utility tool, wallet, cash, keys, hankies, hand sanitizer, and all sorts of other bits and bobs. The shoes, as always, were Merell Moab style hiking boots.
There was also, obviously, the L bracket encased Canon R6 camera dangling off of me on a Black Rapid R strap, which itself has a zippered pocket for memory cards. I also had my iPhone with me, of course, which was used to organize my train tickets, rideshare needs, and allowed me to use google maps rather than a printed book. I did have a small Moleskine reporters notebook with me as a backup, and a single uniball retractile pen.
All told, it was about 20-30 pounds of stuff in aggregate. Nearly a third of my carry was due to the laptop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everything I carry with me day to day – My “EDC” or “every day carry” has stood the test of time and weather and is the best accommodation between weight and performance that I can afford. The plastic recycling bags have saved me and the camera from getting soaked during sudden rain bursts, the shamwow insulates the lens against vibration a bit and ensures I can dry wipe the equipment down in a hurry. The Mylar safety blanket, plastic bags, and construction worker vest weigh virtually nothing, and the former is occasionally deployed as a sun reflector whereas the latter is often donned while wandering around Newtown Creek in the dead of night. If you’re looking for a pocket tool rather than a weapon, the Leatherman Skeletool is a good solution. Pliers, screwdriver with interchangeable bits, and a blade. It’s also a bottle opener.
Also, forgot to mention the zip lock bag full of Covid masks. I use ziploc bags to organize things when traveling, writing down what was in the individual bag on the bag itself when I packed it, with a sharpie permanent marker. Inventory list on the container means you don’t forget or misplace something when in a hurry, and the clear plastic allows you to visually inventory.
Minus the third bag with the clothes, and the laptop, this is more or less the “EDC” that I take with me when leaving HQ for a regular photo adventure in NYC. During the winter, the shorts become black army pants from the same manufacturer, and the filthy black raincoat is added into the mix.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A standout at 30th Street Station here in Philadelphia is the “Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial” statue. 28 feet tall, and designed by sculptor Walter Hancock, it’s a memorial to the 1,307 workers of the Pennsylvania Railroad who died during the Second World War providing for the common defense. Check out this Wikipedia link for more on the thing.
To be honest, at this stage of the journey, I was giving zero shits about anything and just wanted to get home to see Our Lady of the Pentacle again and tell her about my adventures in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The train was delayed from its scheduled departure, but only by a few minutes. My feet hurt, and so did my back. I was impatient, and paced around the station to burn off my expectant energy. I was in a “shvitz,” as my grandmother would have said.
Finally, the boarding call was made, and the track announced. I proceeded down to the platforms.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Amtrak’s chariot arrived, and I boarded a rather full train bound for NYC’s Penn Station at 7:58 p.m.
About 9:30 p.m., I returned to NYC and soon found myself on 8th Avenue, which was covered in a wind swept whirlwind of litter and garbage and there was graffiti on the sidewalk. One man was on his hands and knees screaming into a subway grate, another was standing on the corner of 32nd street openly masturbating. Another fellow, one legged and in a wheelchair labeled with a local hospital’s branding, had pulled his coat over his head to ease lighting up a crack pipe. By 34th street, I had passed through a bum fight between two women and got to see one of their boobies flapping about after her opponent tore off her t shirt. The air smelled of urine and car exhaust, and the dirty water of hot dog carts. Sirens, car horns, fart cars.
On 36th street, I turned a corner and narrowly avoided a group of charlatans working the “check out my hip hop cd grift” and managed to overstep a pile of vomit while passing them by. After negotiating through massive piles of restaurant garbage being colonized by rats that narrowed the sidewalk down to about 18 inches of space, I managed to find a spot to wait, and summoned a Lyft to whisk me home to Astoria.
Back in the 80’s, the saying was “what this city needs is a good plague.” Well – We’ve had one and it didn’t do any good, I’m afraid. When the greatest City in the history of mankind fails to compare favorably with… Philadelphia…
“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.
every hand
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
562,000 square feet. Built between 1927 and 1933, which is when it opened. Designed by the successor to Chicago’s D.H. Burnham & Company, who provided architectural services for both Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh’s Union Stations. Currently the property of Amtrak, 2955 Market Street in West Philadelphia is officially referred to as “William H. Gray III 30th Street Station” or colloquially as “30th Street Station.”
It is bloody magnificent, and speaks to the power and majesty of one of the great American corporate powers which has passed into history and out of our cultural consciousness – the Pennsylvania Railroad.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The largest corporation in the United States for more than a hundred years, PRR was founded in 1846. It grew, by 1882, to a size that saw its annual budget superseded only by that of the Federal Government. By 1926 – it had acquired, merged with, or owned 800 other rail companies. PRR operated nationally, and owned or operated nearly 12,000 miles of track in the northeastern United States, and was headquartered in Philadelphia. PRR was the primary carrier and transportation for John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Manufactured goods like refined oil from eastern port cities went west and south, cotton and timber went north, and agricultural products and raw petroleum went east to feed and employ the immigrant masses working in the coastal factories. All of this activity was train based.
Despite its capital intensive business, the PRR paid out the longest dividend payment in American business history to its stockholders from its founding in 1846 until its first reported losses in 1946. By WW2, it had annihilated all but one of its major rivals – the NY Central Railroad. The two rail giants were decimated by the arrival of the Interstate Highway system and containerization, which kicked off an era of deindustrialization in the North Eastern United States. In the end, they merged operations, becoming the Penn Central Railroad.
Bankruptcy was declared in 1968 for the combined Penn Central, ultimately resulting in President Richard Nixon nationalizing their assets as Conrail (freight) and Amtrak (passenger) in 1971. Their inner city and suburban commuter rail assets – Long Island Rail Road, for instance – were assigned to newly minted State level counterparts of Amtrak like MTA in New York State, or as in Philadelphia’s case, SEPTA.
Again – I’m not a rail historian. If you want to know more, I’d suggest taking a class, doing some googling, or reading up on the subject. It’s a fascinating subject, really.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the modern day Philadelphia skyline, as seen from the entry to 30th Street station.
It’s hard to conceive of the sort of monopoly power that PRR enjoyed in the American economy without referring to modern day technology companies like Apple or Google. Additionally, the National Security aspect of their business cannot be understated. Military conscripts were shipped to military bases for basic training via the rail, and trained soldiers were then delivered to the Atlantic port cities for overseas deployment by the PRR and others. Weapons and supply items could be manufactured in safe inland factories nearby sources of mineral supply, and then also be sent to the ports using rail.
Standard Oil is mentioned above, but the tonnages of coal, timber, mineral ore, agricultural products, and factory produced manufactured goods transported by this corporate goliath literally allowed the United States of America to evolve into a global superpower by connecting its most distant natural resources to each other with a high speed iron road. Rail doesn’t seem quick in an era when private space flight is possible, but until the 1930’s – the fastest speed most people ever travelled other than by rail was governed by a horse.
The corporation is actually still extant, but they’re in the property and casualty insurance business these days, and are now called “American Premier Underwriters.” Who knew?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As I’ve said a few times in these posts about Philadelphia – as a New Yorker, I’m duty bound to shit talk Phillie – but in the particular case of 30th street Station, they’ve got us beat. Yeah, we’ve got Grand Central, but our Pennsylvania Railroad station – Old Penn Station – was demolished in 1963 to make way for the harbinger of the dystopian shithole version of NYC we all know in the modern day – modern day Penn Station.
Pictured above is the entrance to 30th Street Station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
30th street Station received refurbishment and modernization upgrades in 1991. It’s one of the busiest intermodal train stations in the country, and Pennsylvania’s SEPTA system uses it as a regional hub for its commuter rail operations. There’s a separate subway station nearby called the “30th Street Subway station” and there’s streetcar/trolley service associated with that facility as well. Down below the ornate frontage, there are two levels of track, with the upper one hosting 3 east/west oriented platforms, and a lower level which offers 6 north/south ones.
No surprise here, but there’s cops and drug/bomb sniffer doggies roaming all over the joint. I’d advise you to not travel with your dynamite or heroin collection through 30th Street Station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A nuanced bit of trivia is offered here, which speaks to the actuality of the rail world. It’s a station – which indicates that it’s not a final stop with a turnaround track – in which case it would be a terminal. NY Central Railroad’s Grand Central Terminal in New York is a terminal for modern day MTA Metro North commuter rail, but the new MTA LIRR East Side Access stop deep below it will be a station. Get it? Station means stop, terminal means end. The 7 line subway has terminals at Hudson Yards and Flushing, everything in between, including the platforms at Grand Central Terminal is a stop.
It’s all so complicated.
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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.
menacing dreams
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite its appearance, the Market Street Bridge crossing West Philadelphia’s Schuykill River is actually fairly modern, having been built in 1932. It’s the fifth bridge in this location, with the first one having opened to traffic in 1805. It was a wooden span, called “The Permanent Bridge” but it wasn’t, and it burned down in 1850. The second one, similarly impermanent, also immolated in 1875. Another wooden crossing then stood here for 13 years, between 1875 and 1888, and the town fathers of Philadelphia seem to have gotten the message when a wrought iron span was built. The iron one then made way for this stone variant in the early 20th century.
Kind of like the Three Little Pigs and the big bad Wolf, this bridge story, huh? Wood, iron, & stone instead of straw, wood, brick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Grrr. When Old Penn Station was demolished in NYC, the still extant Pennsylvania Railroad donated four of the Eagle statues which used to adorn it to the City of Philadelphia in 1963. Seriously, you cannot escape NYC, no matter where you are. It is the conveyor belt of American history, and ultimately everything everywhere is somehow connected, or sympathetic to, or exists in consequence of the archipelago City.
It seems that there was a pre revolutionary ferry which operated either at the site of this bridge, or pretty close to it, which was established in 1673. The warring sides in the American Revolution independently built floating pontoon bridges to move troops and equipment across the Schuykill River here, predating the aforementioned and so called “Permanent Bridge.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 1990 vintage Walnut Street Bridge which was the vantage point from which I shot the photos in yesterday’s post. My understanding is that the masonry that the modern steel is affixed to is original to an earlier span of the same name.
At the time of the American Revolution, if you were taking bets on what would end becoming the largest and most important City on the Atlantic Coast, most takers would have put their money on Boston or Philadelphia. Charleston would have also gotten some action, but only as an outlier. NYC wasn’t all that important in the late 18th century, other than as a safe harbor which led to Long Island Sound, Albany, and New England, before the Erie Canal was built in the 19th century. It was that bit of infrastructure spending which gave NYS the moniker “Empire State.” From the minute it opened, Boston and Philadelphia began to decline economically, but they largely didn’t realize it until just after World War 1. By WW2, it was obvious.
Saying that – and again, as a New Yorker I’m duty bound to shit talk Philadelphia – Philadelphia is actually quite an interesting place beyond the whole Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin era. The City of Philadelphia is also the County of Philadelphia (since 1854). It’s second best in terms of population, with just over 1.6 million people living in the city and its greater metropolitan area has 6.2 million residents. It was founded in 1682, and one of the interesting things about Philadelphia in the modern day is that it’s a “minority majority” city demographically. Census data reports about 37% of its population as being non Hispanic White people, with a 42% majority Non Hispanic Black population. Everybody from everywhere else in the world seems to have at least one cousin in Philadelphia, so all the tribes of man – from East Asians to Native Americans, and every flavor of the Spanish speaking peoples, turn up in the census mix here.
As a note – I hate ethno supremacy and race talk, and specifically avoid using terms like “non Hispanic white” in my daily round, but when you’re passing along what the census says it doesn’t make sense to say it in your own voice. Over simplification of the complexity of American racism annoys me, and skirts the heart of the problem, which is the diminution of an individual into a “them.” If you’ve ever met an actual white supremacist, you’d have learned that they don’t think the French or Irish or Russians are “white.” Same for the Greeks and Italians. Certainly not Jews or the Portuguese. We are all assholes to each other all the time, and while we split hairs over ancestry and the ethnic propensities of one cultural group or another towards sin or virtue, the political bosses laugh and distribute your tax money to their sponsors while you’re busy calling somebody else a racist. There’s a whole lot of prejudiced people, but actual “racists” are a lot rarer. You can teach away prejudice, but racism is like a religion and it’s a lot harder to root out.
Lumping individuals into large ethnic groups and classifying them according to the accident of their birth is – in fact – racist, nativist, and leads to nationalism. Talk to people as individuals, instead of “meme-ing” them. This identity politics thing is going to lead to the end of this country.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“William H. Gray III 30th Street Station,” or just 30th Street Station, is found along the Schuykill River, which the Schuykill Expressway runs alongside of, and the Market Street Bridge frames the left side of the shot. I’m actually shooting from the Market Street Bridge in this one, and that uninspiring truss bridge at the right of the shot is – I think – the 1959 vintage John F. Kennedy Boulevard Bridge.
30th Street Station is an intermodal train station which opened in 1933. Amtrak, SEPTA, and N.J. Transit operate trains from here. There’s a parking garage as well, and several local and interstate bus routes treat the area around the station as a hub. In addition to public transit, private companies like Bolt and Megabus also operate nearby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
30th Street Station hosts several Amtrak offices “up stairs,” and its thought to be one of the busiest transit hubs in the entire country. Connected to it, but due to time constraints not photographed, are Amtrak’s Penn Coach Yard and Race Street repair and maintenance facilities which are kind of an regional analogue to the Sunnyside Yards, found in NYC’s Borough of Queens, which I often discuss. Next time I’m here in America’s “less than” city, I’ll try and explore a bit further afield.
It seems that a local corporation foots the bill for decorative bridge lighting on the Schuykill River, and I’d have loved to stick around until it got dark… but I had a train to catch.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the next couple of posts, we’ll be taking a look at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, and what I observed while waiting for the Amtrak people to announce which track my NYC bound train was going to leave from.
More tomorrow – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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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.
The Newtown Pentacle 