Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’
Monstrum has
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… I’m scuttling along in the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh when I happened across this fantastic vehicle, whose driver was executing its function – which is to smash things.
A friend had mentioned this service to me in the past, but it’s best described by the ‘horse’s mouth’ at the company website: monstersmash.com. There’s video.
In a nutshell, they’ve got a giant spiked roller mounted on the end of a hydraulic arm, and said setup is used to compact materials which are already in a dumpster at a job site. Awesome sauce.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beyond their absolutely fantastic cartoony style branding, the service is meant to save some space within the dumpster by compacting boxes, boards etc. Pretty clever, if you ask this humble narrator.
Also: Who doesn’t like to see a giant spiked cylinder tearing stuff up?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t interact with the driver, other than shouting ‘awesome’ and ‘yeahhh!’ at him while popping off a few photos of the action. The only thing that would make this better would be they also had a big mallet that beat the stuff in the dumpster down into dust.
COOL!
Back tomorrow with something different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
Fastigio ad plana
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One made his way over to the South Side Slopes section of Pittsburgh, and decided to visit a set of interesting city steps, called the ‘Church Route,’ recently. Exercise day was upon me, once again, and whereas it was quite warm out – the atmosphere was nearly tolerable. It’s been quite and uncomfortably humid here.
This section of Pittsburgh currently fascinates, and perplexes, me. It’s incongruous, chaotic, and yet makes absolutely perfect sense at the same time. It reminds me of the landscapes in Crete, and Thera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator started down the Church Route steps (I’ve been down this route before, back in June – see here and here), hopeful that a quirk of lucky timing might result in the appearance of trains on the Norfolk Southern tracks below. No good fortune resulted, but I was out for a walk and not a ‘stand around,’ so the scuttling continued downward and onto the South Side Flats below.
No real destination had been predetermined, except that I would end up being that brewery next door to the train tracks which I’ve been very lucky with getting CSX locomotive photos at. More on that in a future post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was still had a bit of distance to cover, however, and one had resolved in advance to only inhabit spaces alien to experience.
In other words, streets I hadn’t walked down before. I’ve got a lot of that sort of thing going on at the moment. Regardless… it was exercise day, gotta keep moving. Man, it was humid…
Gotta see if I can get inside that church one of these days…
“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.
From Frank Curto Park
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the routes that I often finding myself driving, here in Pittsburgh, is called ‘Bigelow Boulevard,’ (to the right of the former Pennsylvania RR station in this Flickr shot, just for reference) which is a heavily traveled arterial road that climbs a steep hill, up and away from the downtown area, leading to several neighborhoods found upon the hill’s prominence.
A seemingly seldom used park is set along this road, called Frank Curto park. It’s a fairly high speed road, Bigelow is, and the entrance to the park (which is reasonably reachable by vehicle only) requires one to come to a nearly complete stop in order to execute a sharp right hand turn at low speed. Given the driving habits of the Yinzers, which involve them tailgating you within a yard or so of your bumper, it’s often impossible to slow down or make that turn without the risk of getting smashed into that speeding pickup truck just behind you.
Luckily, I managed to make that turn recently when the traffic behind me got stuck at a light. There’s a road through the park space, and you just sort of pull over onto the grass to park. As mentioned above, the hill here is pretty steep, and commanding views of the Allegheny River side of the Golden Triangle are available for inspection.
For reference, the Heinz Factory is in the fore, and the big white building is Allegheny General Hospital.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator was just passing through, of course, but the opportunity to wave the camera around for a few minutes was taken. This one looks towards the 16th street bridge, and over a bunch of newly constructed housing units in Pittsburgh’s ‘Strip District.’ Beyond that, on the other side of the river is found the ‘North Side.’
Way in the distance, amongst those hills, is the West End Overlook park which I’ve visited repeatedly since moving to Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks directly down the Allegheny River’s ‘triangle side’ shoreline, towards the waterway’s admixture with the Monongahela River which in turn forms the Ohio River. The large bridge span seen at the ‘end of the line’ is the Fort Duquesne Bridge.
My time was limited on this ‘go,’ but I’m definitely going to try and visit this spot again, assuming I can make that sharp ninety degree turn off of Bigelow Boulevard without a tailgater smashing into my car.
Back tomorrow, with something different.
“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.
Morning walk in Munhall
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was out and about quite early, recently. My uncharacteristic scuttling in the morning was in response to the ferocious nature of recent afternoon heat which the Pittsburgh metro has been experiencing.
The car was ensconced at the parking lot of the Homestead Pump House, which allows one egress to the Great Allegheny Passage trail. My time was limited, but about two hours had been budgeted away, to get some exercise. A church building caught my eye, one which is apparently now the home a local ad agency. How about that?
It was fairly early, but it was already quite warm and humid. Regardless, it’s not like I have a choice as to walking about constantly, as I have to keep on keeping on and keep my internally lubricated parts lubricated.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was a frustrating morning, photographically speaking. I kept on just missing things, like the CSX train crossing the Monongahela River in the shot above. I’ve been trying to capture this particular photo for a while, and it just keeps on slipping through my fingers. If I had been there five minutes earlier…
Along the way, I crossed the invisible border of Homestead and Munhall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One walked about two miles into the trail. The Whitaker Flyover bridge was my turnaround point, but I lingered there for an about twenty minutes hoping to see a Norfolk Southern train, or any train, thunder through. Like everything else on this particular day, just as I was leaving the trail a train came through. Day late, dollar short, huh?
Grrr. Some days you cant win for all the losing.
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.
Benedum-Trees Building roof tour
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described in posts all week long – Our Lady of the Pentacle and I purchased tickets for and attended one of Mark Houser’s ‘Antique Skyscraper’ tours. Houser is a journalist, author, and public speaker whose interests revolve around skyscrapers and the people who built them. A Pittsburgh native, Houser offers scheduled architectural tours, and in person presentations in his areas of expertise. Speaking as someone who’s hosted a walking tour or two over the years, I was impressed by his easy demeanor and command of the material.
It’s harder than it looks, guiding tours.
The last destination was the Benedum-Trees building, found in Downtown Pittsburgh. This corridor used to be (as Houser described it) the Wall Street of Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Built in 1905, on Pittsburgh’s Fourth Avenue – by a female(!) real estate developer named Caroline Jones Machesney – this 19 story tall building was sold to two oil drilling magnates – Joe Trees, and Michael Late Benedum, in 1913. It seems that Machesny opposed Women’s suffrage, and contributed heavily towards opponents of that effort to allow full citizenship for women in the United States, which is probably why you’ve never heard of her – as Mr. Houser opined.
Mr. Houser wrote a profile of the place, and Machesny, for pittsburghmagazine.com which he contributes to regularly. It also hosts a photo of the building’s modern day owners, and a rooftop deck which Houser brought our group to, as the final stop on his antique skyscrapers tour.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Commanding views of ‘PPG Plaza,’ which is architect Philip Johnson’s somewhat sterile and anti-human Neo-Gothic design, are available from up top at the Benedum-Trees building. A vast and castellated mirror series of mirror boxes, PPG place is somewhat off putting to me. It relegates street level life to a series of cardboard cut outs, and denies any sort of organic interaction in favor of clean lines and a worshipful treatment of the building’s materials rather than the recognizing the people within the thing nor the teeming masses without.
That’s my opinion on the esthetic, by the way, and like butt-holes – everyone’s got one.
I moved along the fenced in deck, waving the camera about and recording the scenes. Run and gun, as I always say in such circumstances.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one looks towards the Allegheny River, with the 31 story and 1988 vintage Highmark building – aka Fifth Avenue Place – in focus. As a point of trivia, WWE Wrestler Kurt Angle’s construction worker father David was killed in an accident at this site in 1984.
The area surrounding these points of view are what I refer to as the ‘ceremonial center’ of the city, with the nearby ‘market square’ and ‘PPG plaza’ hosting events and serving as a gathering place for people during municipal occurrences. An ice rink is set up in PPG Plaza during the winter, and the most recent ‘Picklesburgh’ promotion was set up here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tour was winding down, and we were directed towards the elevators to disburse. We thanked Mr. Houser for sharing his expertise and decided to grab dinner, locally, afterwards. We visited an outpost of Primanti Brothers, and each quaffed one of their ridiculously excessive sandwiches, along with a glass of cold beer. If you’re visiting Pittsburgh, you’ve got to eat at Primanti’s, in the same way that you have to go to Katz’s if you’re in NYC. It’s a thing.
We left the car at HQ, so it was a cab ride back to HQ in nearby Dormont for us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I shot all of these ‘high above’ photos using the new 24-240mm lens which I’ve recently acquired, and this set of views were its official ‘try out’ mission. I’m keeping the thing.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 