Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’
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.
“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.
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.
cheerful trifles
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thing I was saying all summer was this – “if we don’t collectively hit 70% vaccines saturation by late July, Halloween and Thanksgiving will be fine but it ain’t going to be a very Merry Christmas and New Years is going to suck.” Since we didn’t hit that magic vaccine saturation number either locally or nationally, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself scheduled a holiday trip for the first weekend of December under the presumption of rough seas arriving for the holiday week. Of course, we spent Christmas watching tv by ourselves, and regardless of that, we both had a Covid experience for New Years so – “Call me Ezekiel, for I am a prophet.”
We couldn’t agree on our mode of travel for our weekend away – her schedule is far more demanding than mine currently is, so Our Lady decided to fly whereas I opted for experiencing another journey on the Amtrak. I vastly prefer travel on trains as compared to planes, as a note. It’s just a comfort thing, and I hate airports, and don’t mind spending a bit of down time reading or staring out a window.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One hopped on the subway from Astoria, and headed over to Manhattan’s Moynihan Penn Station on Manhattan’s west side. Upon arrival, I realized that one of the 2021 resolutions I had made – to explore and photograph the newly opened facility in some detail – has gone undone. It’s the “mask thing” holding me back, ultimately. Give me the choice between being outside and unmasked versus within a structure and masked up…
Generally speaking, I seldom wear a mask when outside – I’m vaxxed, and unless a crowd suddenly forms around me – am not too worried about Covid exposure as long as there’s a breeze blowing. Beyond legal requirements for mask usage inside buildings, it’s fairly prosaic and smart to religiously wear one indoors due to ventilation issues.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The National order for masking up on mass transit is, and was in early December, still in effect. One of the problems with these requirements for Covid era facial accoutrements revolves around wearing prescription eyeglasses, as I do. Getting the mask to sit just right so as to not fog up my glasses has been a struggle for me since March of 2020. I’ve tried anti-fog spray, positioning the thing just right… you name it. The only tip I can offer which has had any sort of positive effect on the fog front involves washing down your eyeglasses with a dot of Dawn dishwashing liquid before heading out into the world. Getting them factory clean and “degreased” with the detergent ameliorates, but doesn’t eliminate, the issue.
Regardless, the Amtrak announcement that my train was leaving the station was received, and I queued up to get onto the locomotive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First stop that the Amtrak people allowed us to get off the train at was in Philadelphia at 30th street Station. A roughly 15 minute layover, this is where Amtrak changes out the actual locomotive engine of the train. Northeast corridor trains operate on electrical power, whereas the ones that will be heading deeper onto the continent generally use diesel. It’s a pretty simple procedure – the Amtrak people disconnect a series of cables and the big steel locket thingamabobs that connect the locomotive to the passenger cars. The original “Cogen” locomotive rolls away and another rolls in, which then has its cables and bits and bobs connected to the passenger cars. There’s a bunch of people wearing overalls who wave lanterns at each other from either side of the train while this is going on.
Finally, bells ring and you’re instructed to get back onboard, or to stay in Philadelphia and get used to eating lousy pizza or cheese steak sandwiches in the City known as America’s consolation prize. Really, as a New Yorker, I’m obligated to shit talk Philadelphia.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We arrived at our destination about five minutes late, which really isn’t bad when you get down to it. Four hundred and forty six miles of travel, which ate up about 8 hours of my life. I enjoyed myself immensely doing absolutely nothing. Stared out the window, watching America roll past, that’s what I did.
I also ate the Amtrak hamburger again, as I’m a masochist.
When we were deciding where to go on our weekend away, the travels of September kept on intruding into the story, and since I had such a great time in Pittsburgh when I was there by myself…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welcome back to the Steel City, lords and ladies.
We were staying in an AirBNB on Mt. Washington this time around, not the downtown area where my lodgings were last time. 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.
bacterial agent
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An early assignation with Amtrak awaited me, and I was out of my rented Pittsburghian bed by 4:45 in the morning. A quick once over of the AirBNB revealed that I had left the place in the same fettle as I had found it, and after a quick checklist of gear status was accomplished, I grabbed one last shot from the 23rd floor of the Clark Building.
Well, almost the last one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I stopped off at the garbage room nearby the elevator banks, to discard a bit of trash I’d generated during my stay, and couldn’t resist this shot of the Roberto Clemente and Andy Warhol bridges all lit up.
A visit to a nearby convenience store saw me buying coffee and other travel supplies for a scheduled 7 hour long trip on Amtrak to my next destination. Seriously – if they ever put the rail pass on sale again, I’m grabbing one. All of this travel ultimately cost $299. Best deal, EVER.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the train station, the now familiar routine of Amtrak continued. Passengers heading towards the same or similar destinations were directed into appropriate rail cars. Mask on, bags stowed, and onboard America’s railway was a humble narrator.
I settled into my seat, and relaxed. It had been an intense 72 hours. Heck, it had been an intense 100 hours, really, if you count the Washington D.C. leg of this trip in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This wasn’t the car I was riding in, actually. This shot was captured when I was making my way back to the cafe car. On my way to Pittsburgh, I rode Amtrak’s Capitol Line from Washington D.C., and now I was on the Pennsylvanian line. Apparently, this car would fill up, when we reached Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County. It seems that Amish and Mennonite people are ok with riding the train, so long as someone else is driving it, and this car would be filled up by citizens from the “Pennsylvania Dutch Country” later on in the day.
Me? I had a long ride ahead of me, and this time around I wasn’t so exhausted that I just passed out, like I did after leaving Washington. I played with my phone, shot a few pics out the window, and spent a lot of time thinking about things while staring out the window.
I think I might buy some U.S. Savings Bonds with a 5 year term to hedge against inflation, that’s one of the things I thought about. Also, I added a couple of bits and bobs that I didn’t know I needed until this last week into my BH Photo shopping cart too. Step up filter rings, my wire cable release stopped working 24 hours into this journey and needed replacement – that sort of stuff. I also pondered whether joining the Postal Service would pay off from a pension point of view given my age. Nice thing about riding the train is the quiet time to think without distractions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The foam collar I had fashioned to cancel out window reflections was again employed as we hurtled past steel mills and other industrial wonders along the way. Boy, oh boy do I want to spend some time around here with a car, after having socially networked my way into these sort of properties to “do my thing.”
What an amazing part of this country Western Pennsylvania is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Amtrak passed over a river, and the Google maps app on my phone informed me that we were passing in quite close proximity to the infamous Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant, but I couldn’t see it’s iconic cooling towers. Next time… and with wheels.
Amtrak would be delivering me to my next destination in the late afternoon/evening time of day. My photo time would be severely constrained, a mere three and change hours. I also needed to fill some of that time with purely biological needs – a meal, and a spot where I didn’t have to mask up – as onboard the Amtrak. More on all that 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.
earthward dreams
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Gateway Clipper excursion boat I was a passenger on executed its turnaround on the Allegheny River and started back towards the confluence it shares with the Monongahela River where they both transmogrify into the singularity of the Ohio River. My visit to Pittsburgh was winding down, and a humble narrator had been working behind the camera, and marching around, more or less continuously for about 48 hours since arriving in the city via Amtrak.
As regular readers of Newtown Pentacle will tell you, it’s normally all Queens and Brooklyn most of the time, and it was a genuine pleasure to see sights like the ones above for a change. Learning new things, too. Miss that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Right about the moment when we passed by the monument to Fred Rogers, another native son of Pittsburgh memorialized on the waterfront, that’s when I said “screw it” and found the onboard bar. An ice cold bottle of Yuengling Beer in my grasp, for the first time in a couple of days I switched the camera to “off” and just chilled out on the boat for few minutes. “Yiz got’s to stop’s and smell’s da roses every’s now and den” as they’ll tell you here in Pittsburgh.
It actually had been a wonderful day, in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
September found me in several places, and I’ve detailed the travels, photos, and brief research I’ve done on these places in recent weeks.
72 hours in Burlington, Vermont: leaving from NYC in ultimate abyss, exploring the Lake Champlain shoreline in awed sessions, the Ethan Allen Homestead and Intervale in immemorial lore, Church Street and downtown in waxen mask. Burlington was analyzed during sunset in doubly potent, we visited Shelburne Farms in appalling seething, reel irresponsibly, took a boat tour onboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen on Lake Champlain in viscous end, returned to the downtown Burlington area in grew hoarser. I found a rail yard and an epic sunset in new equilibrium, and returned to NYC via Amtrak in white fungi.
In untellable secret, the camera and I attended a wedding in Watertown, NY.
7 hours in Washington D.C. saw me boarding a train and heading to the Capitol in swelled alarmingly, arrived at the National Mall and explored a bit in slackened speed, hovered about, whereupon a look at Union Station was offered in rolling hills.
I’ll put together a similar list of all the Pittsburgh posts at some near point in time. I had to board a train at about 6 a.m. the next day to get to my next Amtrak destination. It ain’t over till it’s over, lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After rounding about the Golden Triangles’ Point State Park and onto the waters of the Monongahela River, the Gateway Clipper boat returned to its pier at Station Square on the south bank of the River. That volatile Pittsburgh weather I’ve mentioned several times got to work again, and the temperature dropped into the low to middle 50’s. I was, of course, wearing shorts. Since I was traveling, I had no pants, just shorts.
A quick jab at my phone summoned a Lyft rideshare car to my aid, which got me back to the AirBNB acting as my home base for the stay. Images were downloaded off the camera, batteries charged, phone calls back home made. I washed up, relaxed for a few minutes, and went back out in search of dinner. Cheeseburger, and another Yuengling – that was my agenda, but I had one last thing to do first.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I decided that it would be an excellent idea to firmly locate the relative position of the Amtrak station’s location to my AirBNB. I was so severely sleep deprived when I got to Pittsburgh that I barely remembered how I got from point’s A to B. Given that I’d have to be back out on the streets when it was still dark out to catch my train… a bit of advance wayfinding was engaged in, and just look at what I came across!
Pictured above is what was once the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Pittsburgh Union Station. It’s still called that, but these days it’s a ritzy apartment building and has been since the 1980’s, whereas the modern day train station – called an annex, officially – is… well… ahem… it cannot be described as being architecturally distinguished. It’s actually reminiscent of a two story Soviet doctor’s office with Amtrak logos nailed to the walls, and a couple of escalators that lead to a train shed.
Union Station in Pittsburgh opened in 1903, 4 years before it’s namesake in Washington D.C. and 7 years before NYC’s Old Penn Station. The two Union Stations in Pennsylvania and Washington were designed by a Chicago architect named David Burnham.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was pretty much the last photo I captured on Day Two in Pittsburgh, which is kind of appropriate – no?
As mentioned, I had an early call with Amtrak. It was time to start stuffing all my clothing and camera gear back into the bags, and loading my carry back up. A bit of straightening up in the AirBNB followed, whereupon a set of clothes was set out for early morning deployment and the next adventure. After a meal, and a quick inventory of my bags, sleep ensued.
Another far away destination still stood between me and home.
More tomorrow, 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 