Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’
An Epiphany
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… you know how I always mention the ‘vampire rule’ which I religiously follow? The one about needing an invitation to do my thing? Well, under the prevailing interpretation of Vampire law in these United States, an open door is a literal invitation. Imagine the cacodaemonic joy that arose within a humble narrator’s breast upon noticing that the entryway door to the lovely church, pictured above, was propped open. It was everything I could do not to transmogrify into a cloud of bats and chaotically fly in there.
That’s the 1902 vintage Church of the Epiphany Catholic Church, designed by architect Edward Stotz, with interiors by John T. Comes. It’s a landmark! Really, I took a picture of the sign. I’ve seen several contradictory descriptions for the section of Pittsburgh I was walking through – Uptown, The Bluff, or The Hill District. Still quite new to this region, I don’t know where one neighborhood starts and another one ends. Perhaps I was at a locus point twixt the three.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One scuttled through the door, and then into the main chapel area. I didn’t linger, as the vampire way calls for one to get in for a quick snack, and then depart in surreptitious fashion. The lights within the building were not on, or perhaps they had dimmed because of my presence… who can say? The Church of the Epiphany’s website offers a detailed history of Epiphany Parish and the structure itself, naming the muralists and stained glass crafts people – check it out here. Really, really nice sacred space this.
As mentioned in the past, despite my Judaic upbringing and heritage, I’ve got a real appreciation for Roman Catholic architecture and iconography. Part of this is due to the fact that my Dad worked for the Archdiocese of New York, at the New York Foundling Hospital in Manhattan for over thirty years, and thereby I spent a bunch of time as a kid in proximity to the Sisters of Mercy and the Jesuits. As an adult, whenever I’ve had a chance to point my lens at a Catholic Church or cemetery I’ve taken it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in one of the corners, there was a display which was likely Easter related, but my initial reaction to it was “somebody must be a Star Wars fan.” “Look it that – they got Statues of three Jedi, but they’ve got the color wrong on the Baby Yoda one.” Right after thinking that, the filthy black raincoat was suddenly filled by a man shaped pyramid of rats. All of my constituent parts then scuttled back onto the street where a reassembly into the normal simulacra would be accomplished. Two particularly large rodents carried the camera, if you’re curious.
Note: I, of course, realize that those aren’t statues of Jedi Knights nor is the little one Baby Yoda. It should also go without saying that my experience of leaving the church building didn’t exactly play out like this, but it’s not far from what happened.
Back tomorrow.
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Odds and Ends
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few odds and ends photos which didn’t make it into the other posts this week are on offer today. The one above was captured at Fineview Overlook Park on the north side of Pittsburgh. This sort of image isn’t terribly exciting, but in terms of story telling you need ones like this. It’s an ‘establishing shot,’ used to create a sense of overall space. Whenever I’m at a point of elevation like the Fineview Overlook, I’ll crack out a dozen or so of these. The camera is up on the tripod and I’ll rotate the head 5 or 10 degrees in between shots. You never know when you’re going to need a photo with Allegheny General Hospital in the foreground and Downtown Pittsburgh in the background, after all.
Occasionally I’ll string a bunch of these sort of shots together into a panorama image, which I always struggle with as far as presentation. Oddly shaped, panorama images don’t always get along with ‘screens’ presentation terribly well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In yesterday’s post, I was bitching about the pedestrian experience up on the surface streets above I-579 or ‘Crosstown Boulevard.’ This shot, and the one below, are part of a series which I’ve gotten on that road itself while stuck in some traffic jam which finds the Mobile Oppression Platform (the Toyota) at a complete stop and I stick the camera up through the moon roof. I don’t know why they call it a moon rather than sun roof, but that’s what they call it. If you look at the third shot in yesterday’s post, the one with highway traffic shooting out from under an overpass, this is the opposite point of view as it’s the same overpass.
For an infrastructure geek like me, Pittsburgh is the promised land. What’s truly amazing to me are that Panhandlers are regularly spotted here with ‘help me’ signage, walking along on the roadway’s very narrow shoulder. Traffic law here says 40 mph is the speed limit, but as I’ve mentioned a few times – the Pittsburghers drive FAST. 40 mph is treated as a starting point locally, and I’ve had people shoot past me at 80 in this stretch.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Massing shapes, that’s how I refer to structures like that ramp above. 579 interchanges with a far larger, faster, and busier route called I-576 nearby this spot. Getting the flow of traffic over hill and dale is no small feat in the sort of terrain offered by Pittsburgh with its river valleys and steep hills and bluffs. Ramps like that one are observed flying about in all directions.
There is signage posted at certain onramps forbidding entry to the road by non motorized vehicles. This confused me originally, because I couldn’t picture anyone on a bike or on foot wanting to be on the shoulder of a roadway with a 65 mph speed limit. I asked a guy at a bar one night about this, to which he simply replied “The Amish.”
Western Pennsylvania is fascinating. Come back next week for more, and please remember to like, subscribe, and share.
“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.
Frogger
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A decidedly nice Spring afternoon drew me out for a walk in another section of Pittsburgh which I hadn’t been to yet on foot. This route found me leaving the car at home and taking the T Light Rail into town. I’ve mentioned my fascination with the arcs and massing shapes formed by the interstate highways which snake through Pittsburgh before, and wanted to get a closer look at them when I’m not moving at high speed while operating a vehicle.
This area is on the central peninsular section of Pittsburgh where ‘Downtown’ and most of the large office buildings are found, but it’s eastward of that. I had figured out a path that I wanted to walk which would culminate in seeing something I’ve been desirous of witnessing up close since my first solo Amtrak based trip here back in 2021.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Interstate 579 or “Crosstown Boulevard” pictured above, looking towards Mount Washington, which the high speed road carries motorists and bicyclists or pedestrians to after crossing the Monongahela River via the Liberty Bridge.
This particular area has a controversial history, which includes Pittsburgh having made a colossal and costly mistake, one with serious racial undertones, and there seems to be quite a bit of new construction either fairly recently opened in this zone or is still underway. This section is all about ‘the car,’ and moving cars through it. The street grid crossing the highway is similarly all about ‘the car,’ and not the pedestrian. To analogize back to NYC, this is more or less what Robert Moses wanted to do to Manhattan’s 59th street back in the late 40’s.
I used to enjoy playing a video game called Frogger back in high school. It was the kind of game you played for a quarter, and the housing for the thing was a stand alone cabinet which was adorned with cigarette burns that – in my case – was found in a plywood shack set up on a patch of frozen mud on Flatlands Avenue in Brooklyn at a mob owned news stand which also sold porn magazines, candy, and potato chips.
The point of the game was to guide your frog back and forth across a busy road without getting squished by traffic. I thought of Frogger a lot while walking along this path with its enormous and exposed intersections. There’s also a couple of spots where you cross the street at a highway off ramp. Scary pants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Where I was heading would end up involving Duquesne University and a couple of interesting churches, but that’s next week’s series of posts. The good news I can report is that I managed to walk for a several hours across a corduroy terrain – up and down hills, in other words – and got there and back using mass transit. The other bit of good news is that I only had to check my phone once to double check I was heading in the right direction. I’m actually starting to learn my way around!
More tomorrow at this, your Newtown Pentacle. Also, please like and or share this post if you dig it, as that sort of thing really helps me out.
“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.
Liberty, from on high
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another day, another Doctor’s appointment. As mentioned, this is one of the household projects at the moment. When you relocate, one of the things you lose is the network of various medical specialities which you’ve been a customer of. Meeting the new Doctor means that they’re going to want to run some tests to establish a baseline for their arts, and one of the things which Pittsburgh gets a huge recommendation for is the quality and abundance of its healthcare sector.
I should mention, this ain’t nothing like NYC where you gotta wait six months for an appointment or spend two hours on hold to talk to somebody. Things are actually functional here, and the time you spend with the Doc has zero relation to the amount of rent they have to pay some vampire in the Real Estate Industrial Complex.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Don’t get me wrong, the Real Estate people are very much here, they’re just not able to fully immerse their claws and fangs into every little thing the way they do in NYC. Pittsburgh learned the lesson of what happens when you allow one corporate sector to rule the roost and control the discourse. Every Doctor appointment in Pittsburgh, so far, has been fairly relaxed and complete. In fact, they often want to do more for me than I’m comfortable with. One of the docs I met with, a “GP,” was handed an 8 page comic book I drew for the occasion detailing my various physical issues. I told him it was a user’s manual.
The section in today’s post is called Liberty, I’m told. It’s nearby the Universities, but not too close. The people on the streets seemed a bit younger here, and it seemed like a cool neighborhood to live in if you want a more urban vibe. Apartment houses rather than private homes, but as you can see above – there were plenty of those too. This neighborhood hosts what (I guess) used to be called the ‘Western Pennsylvania Hospital’ that’s currently operated by the monolithic UPMC organization.
As a note, those homes are what I’d observationally describe as fairly typical “Pittsburgh houses” with the bricked front porches and tiny front yards. You’ll notice several of them hosting awnings, which aren’t fabric but metal instead, and those are also pretty common features. Saying that, this shot looks directly across the street from a hospital, so those are probably Doctor and Nurse and Med Student dwellings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On my way back to HQ, there was a traffic accident somewhere in front of me so I ended up cooling my heels on the highway for a while with the car in ‘park.’ I took the opportunity to open the Mobile Oppression Platform’s moon roof and crack out a few of the kind of shots you normally can’t get when you’re hurtling along at .065 of the speed of sound.
The Pennsylvania peeps use the speed limit as a suggested starting point or as a ‘minimum speed’ indication. You’ll be doing 60 in a 40 mph zone and somebody in a Ford 150 will scream past you at 80 or 90.
Back tomorrow, and please remember to share this post on your socials if you dug it.
“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.
North Side, up in the hills
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The section of Pittsburgh which I landed in after moving out of New York is called the South Hills. There’s eighty something different neighborhood/regions which make up the Pittsburgh Metro Area, and I still haven’t been to most of them, which is something I’m trying to rectify. When you say “North Side” it’s generally referring to a largish section that’s north of the Allegheny River, which is actually the former Allegheny City municipal area that Pittsburgh annexed ‘back in the day.’ There’s a small relatively flat area along the river where you’ll find a couple of the stadiums, and other cultural stuff. As you move away from the river, a steep hill begins to rise out of the river valley. The only time I’ve previously spent in this zone was a brief ‘explore’ in a part of the neighborhood that is called the “Mexican War Streets.”
I had made my way up that steep hill leading away from the flat river bank area in pursuit of a public park which promised an overlook. I like finding points of elevation for the camera to enjoy so there you are. Click, click, whirr, whirr. Afterwards, I hopped into the car and drove around a bit to see what else might be up here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Turns out that the neighborhood I was in is either called “Fineview” or “Perry” or both, and it’s a residential area which has definitely experienced a series of challenges. About every fourth structure I passed by was abandoned or boarded up. It seemed quite lovely, as far as the surviving and occupied structures that seemed fairly well maintained, but as in the case pictured above, there were several buildings where two homes shared a wall and one of them was open to the elements with the other being occupied and neat as a pin.
Apparently, this area is a fairly “crimey” one according to the TV News reports and the Police blotters. I generally don’t listen to such sources uncritically until they’re confirmed to me by people who live local and by observation, but this was my first time through and I don’t know anyone from this zone yet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is staggering, just how many homes there are in Pittsburgh which stand abandoned. That apartment house pictured above is just a few blocks from the abandoned house in the second shot. So was this one, this one, this one, and this one. Just on the other side of the steep hill this neighborhood sits on, you see wealthy suburbs and semi rural areas in the hills and valleys found along the Ohio River.
Pittsburgh is crazy, yo.
Back tomorrow, and please share this post to your socials if you found it interesting.
“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 