Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’
abnormal toughness
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last week of posts from my 72 hours in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starts today. As mentioned in the past, one travelled around the Northeastern United States a bit in September, using an Amtrak rail pass to move about. After riding Pittsburgh’s funicular railways – or Inclines, as they refer to them here – one made his way down to the south side of the Monongahela River and resumed scuttling along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail pathway. Pittsburgh’s volatile weather kept on churning the sky, so it was overcast and in the high 60’s during this part of my day.
Pictured above is the Fort Pitt Bridge. Even for a city of 446 bridges, this 1959 vintage double decked bowstring arch bridge is a fairly major crossing. Fort Pitt Bridge is (entrance to exit ramp) 1,207 feet long, and the main span over the river is 750 feet. It clears the water by 47 feet, replaced an earlier span called the Point Bridge, and is operated by the PennDOT. Fort Pitt Bridge connects downtown Pittsburgh’s “Golden Triangle” with several local, State, and Interstate high speed roads via the Fort Pitt Tunnel, which is dug through Mt. Washington. It’s apparently the first computer designed bridge, and this structure continues the practice here in Pittsburgh of a bridge having multiple names. It’s also known as the “Parkway West #1 Bridge” apparently.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The boat tour I had a ticket for didn’t leave for a couple of hours, and I was hoping to find someone somewhere to sell me a cold beer. Unfortunately, due to Covid and the economic fallout thereof, this was a somewhat quixotic quest for a humble narrator. I found myself, thereby, at “Station Square.”
Station Square is a 52 acre property housed in the former environs and properties of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad company. There’s a sports stadium (Highmark Stadium), a Hard Rock Cafe, a marina, a hotel, a mass transit “T” station, and a bunch of other chain store hospitality businesses which would be quite familiar to anyone who’s wandered off a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for me, due to Covid, almost everything was closed. Fortunately for me, the practice they seem to employ here in Pittsburgh of creating elevated and public overlook platforms continued. I noticed this bit of kit when walking towards one of those overlooks.
That’s a Bessemer Converter pictured above, which sat alongside another piece of industrial equipment left behind from the Steel City era. The old office building of P&LERR is also still standing, and I’ll show you that when the “from the water” shots start tomorrow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From that public overlook platform, which I guess was the equivalent of about three stories up, a great view of the 1883 vintage Smithfield Street Bridge was there for the taking. This is a verrrrrrry important bridge, from the “history of civil engineering in these United States” POV. Next time I’m in Pittsburgh, I plan on getting all granular about this particular span and photographing every single rivet. That’s how important it is. I’ll talk about the why’s and wherefore to back up my interest in subsequent posts from the water when I was able to get the camera closer to it. Suffice to say, for now, that the second oldest steel bridge in the United States is still standing in Pittsburgh. The oldest steel bridge in the USA is the 1874 Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Louis, before you ask.
I literally found out about this bridge and its significance while I was physically in Pittsburgh, by the way. I had a prepared shot list and itinerary for the trip, but had also built lots of “serendipity” time into the camera’s schedule. One of the mistakes you can make on a journey like this is to have decided in advance what you’re going to discover or encounter. It’s good to have some sort of structure for your travels, but you also don’t want to limit where the camera wants to be pointed. I had no idea this outlook viewing platform even existed until I was standing in front of it, let alone that it would be publicly accessible, for example.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If I had stuck to a proscribed list, thereby, I never would have gotten the shot above of a CSX freight train roaring along what – I believe – were once the tracks of the B&O railroad which are still quite active here on the south side of the Monongahela River. CSX is a freight railroad operator that is fairly continental in size, ranging along the east coast of the United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The company was formed in 1980, and is one of the private capital entities which has grown up in the ashes of the post Conrail/Amtrak era which saw the bankruptcy and collapse of the PennCentral mega corporation which forced Richard Nixon to nationalize the rails as a strategic national asset. Again – I’m not a railfan, or a rail historian. I’m an interested lookie loo, and I highly suggest you read up on this interesting topic, or talk to an actual expert about it. I mainly like taking pictures of trains.
Later in the day, I also witnessed Norfolk & Southern led freight trains broiling through here. The haul in all cases seemed to be a combination of mineral (coal, coke, etc.), tanker, and cargo box cars.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, it was almost time to board the boat for my appointed 60 minute tour. A pedestrian tunnel allows one to travel under the rail tracks from Station Square, and I soon found myself on a dock set into the Monongahela River. While I was cooling my heels waiting for the excursion to begin, a masonry structure caught my eye. There’s two bridge towers, bereft of their crossing span, which can be observed on either side of the river. I was told that the span used to operate as a railroad bridge. The rail bridge fed into the Golden Triangle river delta section of downtown, and after the deindustrialization era began it had no purpose so it was torn down. The masonry towers that supported it were left in place and they’re supposedly “for sale” but there are serious limitations on what you can do with them so nobody wants to purchase the things.
The deckhands for the boat tour began to check our tickets and it was time to board the boat. I was alone, of course, but there were probably thirty or so other people on the boat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gateway Clipper is the analogue of NYC’s Circle Line here in Pittsburgh. They’re been operating in the Steel City since 1958, and employ a small fleet of excursion vessels. The founder of Gateway Clipper was John E. Connelly, who went on to become quite wealthy in the Riverboat Casino business on the Mississippi River, and was also the founder of NYC’s World Yacht which operates out of Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers complex on the Hudson River. He was also, I’m informed, instrumental in developing Chelsea Piers as a tourist and leisure destination.
Gateway Clipper does ferry service for Steelers and Pirates games, but their main interest is in the tourist and “function” business. As I was opining to my NY Harbor pals when I got back to New York, they have a novel solution for high capacity excursion vessels in their fleet – a tug push boat which is permanently affixed to a flat top barge that has a thousand seat catering hall built on top of it. That’s the Empress and the Empress 2 for all of you vesseltracker peeps.
Tomorrow – the long foreshadowed boat tour of Pittsburgh, and revelations about the Smithfield Street Bridge.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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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.
luckily obtainable
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Day two of my 72 hours long visit to Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh involved lots and lots of walking up and down hills during the morning. After riding both the Monongahela and Duquesne Inclines to indulge my obsession with funicular railways, one took advantage of the overlook platform at the latter and set the camera up on the tripod with a filter to allow me to do a few longish exposures. Now, I realize that the shot above has been captured hundreds of thousands of times – it’s a point of view that is somewhat cliche in fact. Saying that, I hadn’t taken it, so I did. Don’t be ashamed of being a tourist when you’re doing tourist things, I always say, so get that selfie with the Statue of Liberty behind you on the Staten Island Ferry when you’re visiting my home town.
As you may have guessed by now, the Amtrak based traveling in the month of September which you’ve been reading about for a while now has been absolute nepenthe for me. Psychologically speaking, I’ve been keeping it together throughout the lockdowns and isolation of the Covid pandemic, but it’s been the same struggle for me as it’s been for everyone. I kept myself busy with night shooting and long walks around Newtown Creek, but the desire for novelty and “something else” has been nagging at me for a while now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The inability to travel in particular, is something which started a few years before Covid occurred. My beloved and dearly departed dog Zuzu’s declining years were tremulous. Kenneling her wasn’t an option if I left town, as her health wasn’t great and she was laser focused on me as her alpha, so I hung in there and barely left Queens. For all the joy and happiness she brought us from the time she was a tiny puppy, I owed her the debt of providing her with a stable and very predictable life during her dotage. Dogs are creatures of habit, and having Daddy disappear for two weeks would have derailed her. She passed away in the summer of 2020, which was a brutal experience for me, since her regular Veterinary care was impacted by Covid. We actually had to pay a traveling Vet to come to the house and euthanize her due to the amount of pain she was in, and during that last week she just laid on her side whimpering from a spinal problem’s pain. From that ugly day in the summer of 2020 till the day Our Lady of the Pentacle and I boarded the train to Vermont’s Burlington, the first thing I’d see in the morning each and every day was the spot where she died. Talk about picking at a scab, huh? It probably sounds dumb, talking about a dog like this, but Zuzu wasn’t an ordinary dog for me. She was very, very good at her dog job, and a good friend.
The good news is that for a few weeks in September of 2021, I was able to see and experience novel and fascinating things which allowed me to wake up and not see that spot first thing in the morning. As finances allow, I’m in the early stages of planning several other Amtrak based excursions for the winter and early spring. Providence beckons, as does Holyoke, and another visit to Pittsburgh seems to be on my list.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m planning on closing out my trip to Pittsburgh’s postings either next week or shortly thereafter, after showing you what I saw on that boat trip which I’ve mentioned a few times that occurred shortly after these shots were collected. That’s when I’ll tell you why that blue bridge in the foreground – pictured above – is so special, and it’s direct connections to LIC.
I’ve been shooting a LOT since I’ve been back, riding the ferries and going places outside of the normal round. I’m now triple vaccinated, as a note. Tours of Newtown Creek have occurred for private groups – students and so on – and I recently led two public facing walking tours of Greenpoint for Open House NY Weekend.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I have to admit it was glorious to feel freedom again. I don’t mean the horseshit “freedom” that the rednecks proffer which is actually a form of indentured servitude to other people’s ideas and personal fortunes, rather I mean the ability to just do whatever the hell you want to and on your own schedule. A humble narrator is 54 years old, but I’m still in surprisingly good condition despite the life I’ve lived. The heart condition, as I was recently told by my staff of doctors, is well managed and not at all life threatening at the moment but I do need to drop some of the pandemic era weight that I’ve packed on. A bit of arthritis has been plaguing me for a couple of years now, but I’m 54, so…
Saying that, I can still easily do dawn to dusk photowalk days. That’s what I proved to myself, in Pittsburgh, in particular. I didn’t have to worry about somebody else’s leaky bladder, bad knees, spinal issues, psychological problems, or general inability to move their bodies around the world on this 72 hour mission. I also didn’t feel compelled to explain anything to anyone, which was simply awesome. When you know a little something about everything, as I do, you end up having to answer questions others offer all day long.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having finished up the shots from the Duquesne Incline, one rode the funicular down to the south side flatlands of the Monongahela River, at the foot of Mt. Washington. A pedestrian bridge carried me down and across a high volume roadway, and I made my way to the Three Rivers Heritage Trail on this side of the City of Pittsburgh.
Observationally speaking, this side of the City isn’t quite as “post industrial” as the Allegheny/North Side is. Active freight rail tracks were humming with activity, and that’s the sort of thing which just draws me right in…
After a quick phone call to home, letting Our Lady of the Pentacle know that I hadn’t been carried off by a Mongol horde or something and that I was safe and sound, I scuttled off in the direction of my eventual boat tour. The dock was about a mile and a half from where I was standing, and I wondered how I’d fill the three or so hours until my scheduled ticket would be redeemed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As if I’d have to worry, huh? This CSX locomotive was hauling a coal train along the shores of Pittsburgh, and that’s the Fort Pitt bridge in the background. Seriously, this is one of the most visually interesting cities in the Northeastern United States.
More next week 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.
grave doubt
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First things first – being from Brooklyn, I say things the way they’re spelled. “Hor d’oeuvres” is pronounced “whores da ova vreez” and “buffet” rhymes with bucket. I don’t say “terlet” or “erl” or “boid” but my parents did. The Duquesne Incline and the word “Duquesne,” thereby and in my mind, should be pronounced as “Doo Kezz Knee” but it’s actually pronounced “Doo Kayne.” It seems the Pittsburgh people are a bit sensitive about this topic, as I learned. Can’t take me anywhere.
Monongahela River is pronounced Brooklyn style, as a note – “Mo Non Ga Heela.” Saying all that, welcome to the Duquesne Incline, on Pittsburgh’s Mt. Washington along the Monongahela River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As was the case with the Allegheny Incline described in earlier posts, the Duquesne Incline is a funicular railway operated by the Allegheny County Port Authority. There’s a large patio/overlook at the facility which offers iconic views of Pittsburgh and the conjunction of its three rivers. I’ll show you the iconic views tomorrow, but for today I’m still in nerd mode and geeking out about the funicular.
For those of you who might have missed the earlier post – a funicular railway runs on an angled track up and down a hill, and it’s cars are connected via haul ropes or cables. One car goes up, the other comes down. This is a pretty early form of “people mover” and there aren’t that many examples of this technology left in the modern day world. Pittsburgh used to have 17 of these, including ones whose entire occupation revolved around moving freight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s 1877 vintage, the Duquesne Incline. Designed by an engineer dubbed Samuel Diescher, this funicular was originally powered by steam, but is now electrically driven. It’s 800 feet long and 400 feet in height, and is set against the hill at a thirty degree angle. It uses the Eastern European style broad track gauge of 5 ft, which is an outlier in the United States. The Duquesne Incline actually went out of business in 1962, but local residents raised the money to resuscitate and renew the thing, and in 1963 it reopened. It has since been refurbished and returned to its historic state, and along with the Monongahela Incline a mile away, serves up transit to one million riders a year. A big part of that ridership, of course, are tourists like me. The modern day incarnation is overseen by the Allegheny County Port Authority, as mentioned above.
Both inclines are on the National Register of Historic Places, and are on the American Society of Mechanical Engineer’s Landmark list.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one is from the lower station, and just like the Monongahela Incline, a round trip ticket cost me $3.50. The ticket agent actually left her booth to keep an eye on me while I was shooting this. She informed me that she couldn’t leave me alone in this area while the mechanisms were operating due to liability concerns, but that I could take all the pictures I wanted to. She seemed happy to be able to take a fresh air break, frankly.
I really have to compliment the Port Authority people for their friendliness and a willingness to answer questions. Another marked contrast with my daily experience in NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the late 1970’s, the cars were refurbished and returned to a somewhat original appearance. Check out that tin roof detail. The cars were built in 1877 by a Philadelphia outfit called J.G. Brill and Co. who were manufacturers of street cars, motor buses, and railroad cars. They went out of business in 1954, and their intellectual property was acquired by General Electric’s transportation division in that year.
Gosh almighty, does a humble narrator enjoy his self a funicular or what? Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After riding up and down, one got busy with the camera again. Tomorrow – some of those iconic Pittsburgh views from the Duquesne Incline’s overlook. As a point of interesting trivia, I encountered this 1877 illustration, drawn from a point of view here on Mt. Washington. Marked counterpoint with the modern Steel City, huh?
More tomorrow, from your traveling 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.
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.
calculations would
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s about a mile’s walk, all uphill, along Pittsburgh’s Grandview Avenue, from the Monongahela Incline to the Duquesne Incline. Along the way, I was shooting, and the shutter was a-clicking.
The up hill walk gave me time to reflect on everything I was experiencing. It also reminded me that I grew up nearby “Flatlands Avenue” and not too far from a place called “Flatbush.” “Flat” is a recurring theme in NYC, after all. We all live on a flood plain, whereas Greater Pittsburgh is definitively “not flat.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in earlier posts, Mt. Washington used to be called “Coal Hill” and by early 19th century standards the mineral deposits found here were considered to be one of the most valuable resources in Western Pennsylvania. Coal Hill was rechristened as Mt. Washington in 1876. From my limited observations, it seemed like a pretty nice choice as far as places to live.
Once again, the topology of Pittsburgh boggles the mind, especially for someone who grew up in a place defined by terms like “sea level” and the omnipresent usage of the descriptor “flat.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vehicular roads leading to and from Mt. Washington use sharp turned switchbacks to allow cars and trucks egress to the area. The ridge directly overlooking the downtown area had several multi unit homes arranged along it, but there were also plenty of places for visiting lookie-loo’s like me to check the scene out from.
For a sense of the elevation, the UPMC building at the left of the shot is the tallest building in the city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s a look at one of the neighborhoods up on Mt. Washington, where that weird topology is manifestly visible. I have a friend who’s got a brother that lives in the Pittsburgh area, and said brother is a photographer. The Brother – who is dubbed Tim Fabian – provided photos for a book by author Bob Regan on “The Steps of Pittsburgh.” It seems that all of these neighborhoods – up and down the hills – are vertically connected by 712 public stairways. Again – fascinating.
The housing stock of Pittsburgh, if I might comment, is disturbingly heterogenous. You see all sorts of floor plans and massing shapes here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned the other day, day two in the Steel City bore the threat of possible rain, but I didn’t find myself inconvenienced by precipitation. The volatile weather of Pittsburgh was on display, however, as just a couple of miles away it was raining – as you can discern in the shot above. Weird, huh?
It really was quite a walk between the two inclines. If you find yourself here and on foot, I’d suggest reversing the order I chose – Duquesne Incline first and Monongahela Incline second. If you hit the higher one first, it’s all downhill from there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My “good photo luck” game was strong on Day 2 in Pittsburgh, and I spotted a push boat towing an equipment barge under the Fort Pitt Bridge. Wasn’t the last lucky capture of the day for me, not by a long shot.
Tomorrow – the Duquesne Incline!
“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.
without dissolution
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the middle 19th century, enormous numbers of German speaking people began to migrate to Pittsburgh to take advantage of the limitless employment opportunities in the burgeoning iron and steel industries. One of them was a Prussian engineer named John Endres, who actually lived in Cincinnati. Endres designed and oversaw the construction of the 1870 vintage Monongahela Incline. This funicular railway is the oldest continuously operating funicular in the United States.
There used to be 17 incline or funicular railways in Pittsburgh, several of which were used exclusively for freight rather than passenger service. The inclines allowed workers to move into the steep hills and valleys surrounding the so called “Golden Triangle” river delta.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Operated in modernity by the Port Authority of Allegheny County (whose Monongahela Incline staff were incredibly nice, helpful, and friendly, btw), this attractive structure is the station house at the top of Mt. Washington on Grandview Avenue. The overlook which I shot yesterday’s post from is just alongside it on the uphill side. You walk in the building (masked up since it’s considered mass transit), and are free to observe several framed historic photos and newspaper clippings. There’s a gift shop, and a ticketing machine. A round trip ticket cost me $3.50.
Before boarding, I changed lenses, and attached the foam collar I’ve mentioned a few times to the thing. The foam collar allows me to place the lens against windows without annoying reflections manifesting in the photos, as well as forming a flexible prophylactic that keeps the lens from interacting mechanically with the window glass – in terms of transmitted vibration.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking out of the window of the Monongahela Incline at the lower station house, which I’m told was rebuilt in 1904. The way that these haul rope cable railways work is that as one car is descending, the other one ascends. How amazingly simple, and how super complicated, this system is, huh?
I had a single fellow passenger in the car with me and we briefly chatted about her City on our journey down to the lower station. She was retired, and extolled the virtues of Pittsburgh to me from that point of view. It seems that the City is currently tied with Miami for the number of retirees living in the area, due to its fairly low cost of living. The City encourages mass transit use by this population by making transit free to people over 65.
Entirely different from back home in NYC where “go fuck yourself asshole, ride a bike” or “you’re a racist” is the answer to most things transit related, and where our familiar MTA public transit agency is a dumpster fire of a political patronage mill whose managerial payroll is populated by the not too smart nephews and nieces of god awful upstate politicians, ones who haven’t yet been sent to jail for financial corruption or sex crimes. Heh, look at that, I actually suggested that the political class in New York can be convicted for the crimes they commit in office. Hah.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The incline car carried us to the lower station house, where my new acquaintance expected to meet a bus – which would travel in its own dedicated lane – that would in turn take her to a supermarket. She planned on making the return trip, with bags of groceries, using the bus and incline. Imagine being able to use a predictable form of mass transit, with buses that run on schedules that are more or less accurate.
I’m just so sick of all the dystopian shithole crap in NYC these days, you have to forgive me. I just cannot reconcile the amount of tax money that our politicians allocate to transit with the level of services delivered. There are no consequences for bad behavior either. Get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, or stroking the cookie jar suggestively, you just get railed by the headline writers and then disappear for a few months and run for another office. Single party rule sucks, it breeds corruption, and it’s result is… well, just look around your neighborhood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the lower station of the Monongahela Incline, nearby a fairly tragic series of land use decisions called “Station Square.” This area too will be explored in some detail in later posts from my 72 hours in Pittsburgh. As a note, several of the locals complained about heavy traffic to me as being a detriment to life in this city. Maybe I’m jaded by NYC’s omnipresent traffic jams, clustered around the river crossings, but “by me” everywhere I looked – even at rush hour – it was smooth sailing.
After getting a few shots down here at the foot of Mt. Washington, I used my round trip ticket and headed back up to the top.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gosh, do I love me a good funicular.
There’s one funicular in Chile’s City of Valparaiso that I aspire to ride on someday, but that’s going to take a lot more than an Amtrak ticket and 72 hours to accomplish. I’m also going to have to develop a functional ability to speak Spanish to chat with the locals for that one.
More tomorrow – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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“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 