Posts Tagged ‘photowalk’
Low to high
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, one was executing a constitutional walk around Pittsburgh recently, stretching my legs and maintaining a steady level of activity which kept my heart beating in an elevated but therapeutic manner. After riding the streetcar ‘T’ line to the center of Pittsburgh, and then crossing a bridge over the mouth of the Ohio at the joining of the city’s three rivers, one proceeded along the south shore of the Monongahela River.
Luckily, a Norfolk Southern train was rolling past on an elevated set of tracks found along a secondary arterial roadway called Saw Mill Run Blvd. This Saw Mill Run section is a fairly scary pathway, pedestrian wise, but I was heading for one of the inclines so…
Having paid my fare on the T, I got a free transfer to the incline/funiculars. That’s how I got from low to high (1,000 feet up) without having to climb a mountain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After being deposited atop Mount Washington, which the funicular is set into, my path led me to the P.J. McArdle Roadway which carries vehicular traffic from down on the waterfront flats all the way up to the ridge line of the landform. The views are fairly spectacular up here, and I quite enjoy them. There’s also a shared pedestrian and bike path which leads back down to the flatlands below.
One has been using an app on the phone to measure things of late, and apparently I walk at 2.6 mph. The phone also advises on the length of my stride (26.4 inches), approximates the number of steps taken in any given outing, and describes asymmetries in how I’m moving my feet about. No big revelation is encountered there, especially after the various issues and injuries experienced in my left foot in recent years,
I’m about 3% off in terms of that limb’s efficiency according to the phone. It seems that about a third of the time I’m out scuttling, I have both feet contacting the ground at the same time, which must mean that the phone wants me to hop like a bunny or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fencing along this pathway is terrifyingly fragile, riddled with rust and the weathered corruption of old age. In several places it’s non existent and you’re looking at 1,000 foot drop along what has to be a 60 or 70 degree angle through woods. Brr.
This particular stretch of the cantilevered roadway sports concrete separation between the ped/bike lane and vehicular traffic but this is only for certain sections. There’s a long stretch of this P.J. McArdle roadway where all there is between you and the traffic that’s zipping past you at 40-50mph is just a regular three inch curb. Brrr.
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.
A gray day
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was exercise day again, so the now familiar ritual of walking to and riding the T streetcar, from HQ to the metropolitan center of Pittsburgh, was enacted. I’ve been using my headphones again on these walks, after a quite long interval of not doing so, and one was listening to an audiobook.
This time around one was listening to a ‘various hands’ reading of the text of Nietzsche’s ‘Beyond Good and Evil,’ with different narrators reading the various chapters, a file I had long ago downloaded from the LibriVox outfit. It’s a series of awful readings actually, of a book written by an awful man and the audiobook uses a not so great translation as its source. The audiobook has a series of what sounds like 19 year old American college students do the readings. Seriously, if you want to produce something like this, find somebody who sounds like Werner Herzog or Brother Theodore to do the narration. It’s Nietzsche, after all.
Thus spake Waxathustra, while watching as a village fool, walking on a tightrope of aspirant desire, took that first step in order to delight the sheep below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I switched over to a different audiobook, and proceeded to scuttle towards Pittsburgh’s West End Bridge, spanning the Ohio River. The T had dropped me on the North Shore of the Allegheny River, nearby the sports ball stadium utilized by the Pittsburgh Steelers to thrill the community, and at the streetcar service’s terminal stop not too far from the aforementioned West End Bridge.
The new audiobook I had keyed in was Nellie Bly’s ‘Ten Days in a Mad-House.’ The text triggered a vast set of reminiscences for me, about Roosevelt Island and the Queensboro Bridge. This narration was read by a woman who sounded quite young, and quite apropo for the voice of Nellie, who was the inspiration for Lois Lane.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After crossing the Ohio River, one encountered the outfall canal of its tributary ‘Chartiers Creek,’ a waterway which was mentioned in a post about a recent visit to the community of Carnegie for a short walk, not so long ago. This day’s endeavor, however, was one of my ‘long walks’ and there were a few things which I planned on getting a look at along the way, which included the outfall pictured above.
Ten Days in a Mad-House, if you’re not familiar, revolves around a 19th century Reporter Nellie Bly getting herself committed to New York’s Welfare Island (today’s Roosevelt Island) asylum, as part of an undercover assignment for the New York World newspaper. If you want to check out the free audiobook – here you go.
Later in her career, Bly would ‘go around the world in 72 days,’ write a novel, and then married a 73 year old millionaire when she was 31. After her husband’s death in 1904, Bly became an industrialist running his steel can and container manufacturing business. Nellie Bly was a pen name, she was actually named Elizabeth Cochran.
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.
St. Joseph’s RC church, Oil City
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When people get rich, suddenly, they generally want to say ‘thank god.’ When people stay rich for a generation or two, they start building churches. In the case of Oil City, there’s a real cracker of a Catholic Church enjoyed by the local parish, dubbed the St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church.
Since I was in town, a visit to this particular ‘sacred space’ was on my to-do list. My companion for the day and I strode up to the place, and found the front doors locked, but the side entrance was open and we stepped inside for a somewhat breath taking visit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
St. Joseph was built on a hill found on the north side of Oil City, in a fairly well kept residential neighborhood. I’m told that no matter where you are in Oil City, the spires are visible and provide a landmark which the locals use to navigate the streets with. There were earlier versions of the church on this site, with decidedly lesser structures. The current building was opened in 1894, with the congregation officially having been established in the Oil City/Titusville area all the way back in 1862.
A detailed historical account of St. Joseph Parish is available for inspection at this site. It’s somewhat difficult to read, due to some curious choices regarding typography, but it’s a sound narrative and very well researched.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We entered the building, and found the cavernous chapel completely empty of congregants. One affixed a wide angle lens, the one I was blathering on about last week, to the camera and got busy. I’m told that the church has been quite recently renovated and refinished, in 2020, by a Wisconsin based outfit that specializes in this sort of thing.
I’m told that the architectural style of the building is ‘gothic and late gothic revival,’ but I’m not at all schooled in such matters and cannot speak intelligently about the subject.
Check out this page from archipedia for the details on its style.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This church is ultimately overseen by the Bishop of Erie, Pennsylvania – the ‘Most Rev. Lawrence T. Persico.’ The Bishop, in 2020, combined the nearby St. Stephen Parish with St. Joseph Parish at the request of the local pastor, one Rev. John Miller. It’s all St. Joseph Parish now.
This sort of combination and restructuring is a region wide phenomena which the Roman Catholic hierarchy is undertaking, due to the decline in local populations here in the so called ‘rust belt,’ and it’s a process I mentioned in a post about St. Bernard’s RC church back in the South Hills of Pittsburgh (which has a different Bishop, and Diocese).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What I can say, categorically, is that the interior space in St. Joseph is striking and glorious. Great lighting design, gorgeous stained glass, and kept neat as a pin. As long time readers will tell you, a humble narrator has had a long fascination with photographing ‘sacred spaces,’ and in particular ones belonging to the Roman Catholics.
I seldom use a tripod in these sorts of places, as it seems disrespectful. This time, however, my companion and I were the only ones in the chapel, so I did. My little ‘platypod’ mounting plate was deployed and the camera affixed to it. It allowed me to use flat surfaces in the church itself for the camera to rest upon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We still had that long drive ahead of us, described a couple of days back in this travelogue, some two and change hours back to Pittsburgh with a quick stop mid journey to drop my traveling companion off.
One thereby bid adieu to Oil City, having also decided to return in the spring for another go at satisfying my shot list and getting the rest of the points of interest I had encoded into a Google Map, which we didn’t get to. The oldest continually producing oil well in the United States is nearby, for instance… and I’m interested in riding on the Oil City & Titusville Railroad as well.
Back next week with something different, 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.
Titusville, Pa.
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the home of a journalist named Ida Tarbell. Tarbell is remembered for writing biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon, amongst others. She is especially honored for her nineteen ‘muckraker’ style articles on the Standard Oil Company, which were originally serialized in McClure’s Magazine.
Her work on those articles resulted in the ultimate breakup of Standard Oil and the creation of Federal level regulatory agencies. The reports were combined into a book – The History of the Standard Oil Company. The text is available as a free audiobook, in two parts, and found at LibriVox.
It’s quite a book, I would add.
One first became aware of Ida Tarbell when researching the Tidewater Building back in NYC, found alongside the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge in the Blissville section of Queens, on Newtown Creek.
Her home in Titusville PA., pictured above, is thereby recognized as a ‘historic place,’ and there’s a bit of signage out side signifying the author’s work and the house she dwelt in. Lovely structure, if you ask me. I got the distinct impression that it’s still in use as a home, rather than housing a historic society or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The next stop was to check out a Motel whose conceit revolves around the fact that all of the rentable domiciles are former railroad Caboose Cars. This is part of the Oil City & Titusville historic railroad outfit’s operation.
The rail outfit runs what you might call a ‘Heritage line,’ not unlike the one in Western Maryland Scenic RR, down in Maryland’s City of Cumberland, that I showed y’all a few weeks ago. The OC&T peeps seem to operate along similar lines – historic rolling stock and short run tourist trips.
They also have a bunch of interesting rail cars on their site.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This RR outfit sprung into existence after the Oil Rush started up just after the Civil War, and operated well into the 20th century. That’s a 1947 locomotive pictured above, one which you can find out all the nitty gritty about at the OC&T site.
I plan on returning, in the Springtime, when they are running the trains again for tourist duty. There’s an open air car which seems quite promising for itinerant photographers.
This is a fairly long drive for me, from Pittsburgh, roughly 2 and change hours from HQ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On display, the OC&T RR had several interesting offerings to check out, but this snow plow train car immediately caught my eye. What an interesting series of parabolic curves, huh?
It was time to get moving, though. As you’ll recall, this day trip began with a visit to what turned out to be a fog choked view of Pennsylvania’s Oil City. My companion and I decided to reverse my original schedule and try Titusville instead, with a return to Oil City (about 20 miles to the south) planned for the afternoon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was about 11:30 a.m. by this point, and as described in prior posts – I had left HQ at about 4:30 a.m. so I was running on fumes at this point. We decided it was a good idea to grab a meal, and also use the opportunity to oblige other biological functions. The local McDonald’s, thereby, was visited and patronized.
The fast food outpost is located along the shoreline of Oil Creek, mentioned yesterday, but grabbing a few shots of this unusually stolid bridge was also on the menu. It’s the 1939 vintage South Franklin Street Bridge, if you’re curious, which carries local Route 8. It’s historic!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot was gathered from onboard the South Franklin Street span, depicting Oil Creek lazily flowing through Titusville. After quaffing cheeseburgers, fries, and drinking a coke, we climbed back into the Mobile Oppression Platform and motored in a southernly direction along Route 8, and back to Oil City.
More on all that 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.
To the world’s ruin
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator had been planning a Pennsylvania day trip for a while, one which would see him piloting the Mobile Oppression Platform (the MOP) on a two hour long, mostly north western journey, from Pittsburgh to Pennsylvania’s Venango County.
As is my habit for ‘away games,’ a fair amount of research back at HQ was undertaken. A Google Map was created with a series of way points and destination markers to follow and order the day. I always build an itinerary which would be fairly impossible to accomplish in one go, but there you are. Weather forecasts for the destination had been observed for the preceding week. A final embarkation date was arrived at in the last 48 hours before the trip, as to which of two or three candidate dates might be atmospherically propitious for the effort. Every day is D-Day for me – gotta get it right or you’re wasting your time, and there’s no greater sin than wasting time.
One left HQ, in Pittsburgh’s Borough of Dormont, at 4:30 in the morning and it was just 31 degrees Fahrenheit outside when I did. A companion was going to be coming along on this one, whom I’d pick up not too far from the half way point on my journey, at about 5:45 a.m.
The plan was to arrive just as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was rising in the vault of the sky. I was counting on fog rising off of the Allegheny River, in its hinterlands, but not quite as much fog as the peas soup we encountered upon arrival.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The night before this trip saw me emptying the camera bag out, and cleaning up all the equipment. Dust was blown off the lenses, an inventory of the bag’s contents accomplished, and everything was packed back up for travel. I would be bringing the full kit.
Clothing for the day was also laid out the night before, so as to not disturb Our Lady of the Pentacle or ‘razz up’ Moe the Dog at 4 in the morning. Also, a sandwich was constructed, the water bottle filled, and travel plan reviewed. I had even put the sandwich and the water bottle in the car so I didn’t forget them. It was colder without than inside my refrigerator, so…
As a note: I’m an absolute moron and klutz in the mornings, prior to having inhaled a few cups of coffee. Anything that I’ve left for myself to do in the early hours – other than ‘blow ballast’ in the lavatory, shower, and dress – has a 50/50 chance of successful completion. Long experience has taught me to handle all the fine details of preparation on the night before an adventure lest something gets left behind.
Leaving little to chance, and advance planning, is my way. It’s also why I’m seldom late for appointments.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a somewhat harrowing drive. One thing about the so called ‘red counties’ surrounding Pittsburgh that I just don’t understand revolves around street lighting. If you’re a Conservative, please explain this one to me in the comments section. Does street lighting, along major highways, somehow impugn your freedom? Do you just not want to pay for it? I really don’t get this one from a public safety POV, but as a prophylactic measure I activated the ‘brights’ on the Mobile Oppression Platform’s (MOP’s) head lamps and drove north cautiously.
One has recently became aware of a statistic affecting this part of the nation, which states that a Pennsylvania driver has a 1 in 59 chance of wrecking their car by hitting a deer, sometime during their driving career.
You know what would help shrink that deer statistic? Proper, and endemic, street lighting… but I digress…
One made it to the halfway point, where I was meant to pick up my traveling companion, in Pennsylvania’s City of Butler. After we tucked his gear into the back of the MOP, the northernly pathway was resumed. We arrived here, at the first destination on my Google Map just as the sky began to lighten up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That anticipated fog was omnipresent, but was a great deal thicker and more opaque than I had counted on. A temperature inversion had occurred, which saw the atmospheric milieu shift from temperatures in the the high 70’s just a day before, then absolutely collapse into overnight temperatures in the high 20’s and low 30’s. It was definitively freezing out, but the Allegheny River’s water hadn’t received the memo and it was still about 50-60 degrees (that’s Fahrenheit for you euros and canucks). Thick slabs of fog and mist thereby occluded the first destination I had pegged for the day’s effort.
I like to start these photo expeditions at a point of elevation, it should be mentioned. The location we were in was an overlook park set against a steep hill. The river was flowing about 800 or so feet below us, but you could not discern the small city below us for love or money.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is something else I plan for, unexpected circumstance. We took a few photos of the fog, as you’ve probably noticed by now. There were two central locations we were meant to visit on this day, with the first one being where we were – the community of Oil City, Pennsylvania. The second was about twenty miles north of here – up in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Given the atmospheric conditions here in Oil City, we decided to reverse the order of the various waypoints on my map and return here later in the day. We hopped into the MOP and drove a short distance up to Titusville to see ‘it.’
All those years on NYC’s Newtown Creek, where the oil pipelines and rail shipments of crude petroleum ‘product’ were heading to for distillation in the 19th century, had made the names of these two communities quite familiar to me from historical research about the oil business. This is where the petroleum destined for refinement and distillation in Brooklyn and Queens, along the fabulous Newtown Creek, originally came from.
We found our way to ‘it.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By ‘it,’ I mean the Drake Well. The site of the very first modern, and commercial, oil well, on the planet. Dug in 1859. U.S.A.! More on that one tomorrow in what very well might be the longest post I’ve offered in years.
What you’re looking at is the spot where the end of the world started.
“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 