The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Famously, the City of Pittsburgh offers hundreds of flights of municipal steps for the usage of the citizenry, which aid pedestrians in navigating the challenging terrain of the place. Recent endeavor saw a humble narrator hire a taxi in order to get to the top of one of the more extreme examples of this sort of infrastructure (not the ones pictured above) and then proceed downward along the rises and runs. In my admittedly limited experience, these stairs are generally compound structures composed of concrete and steel that are set into the steep hillsides.

As a note: rises are the vertical dimension of steps, whereas the runs are the flat parts which you step on.

The neighborhood which I started this scuttle in is called ‘Allentown,’ an area that I’ve visited in the past. Allentown is set into a larger residential ‘zone’ called the ‘South Side Slopes’ which cascade about a thousand feet down along the eastern side of Mount Washington, here in Pittsburgh.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My path carried me past several abandoned homes, which must have been pretty ‘choice’ when they were originally built. The views from this area are pretty spectacular, but it must be a pretty athletic experience living on the edge of a steep slope like this. Imagine carrying your groceries in from the car – there’s a workout, I tell’s ya.

Where I was heading was a set of municipal steps that proceed down the slopes to the South Side Flats while transversing the equivalent horizontal space of no more than a half mile. A passel of municipal density huddles against the southern bank of the Monongahela River down there on flat land along the river – hence ‘Flats.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There used to be ‘T’ street car service here, specifically the Brown Line, but budget cuts associated with the first decade of the 21st century ended all that. The tracks and overhead catenary wires are maintained, however. When there’s work on the T happening further to the south, or in the transit tunnel under Mount Washington which T service normally routes through, the streetcars gets rerouted through this area. Essentially, Arlington Avenue is a back-up.

There’s signs along Arlington Avenue warning truckers to switch gears along this road, warning of a 9-10 degree road grade that these heavy vehicle operators will have to contend with. There’s also the ubiquitous ‘Watch Children’ signs, which generally fill me with an existential dread.

What are these Yinzer kids getting up to, that warrants the installation of signage admonishing passerby to watch them?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This is what you see from up top, looking down on the aforementioned density of the South Side Flats. The bridge is the Birmingham Bridge, which had been mentioned here several times.

The ‘Flats’ area is where I’ve spent more than few hours walking around at this point. There’s trails on both sides of the river, which I’ve also pointed the camera at. Way off in the distance, the Cathedral of Learning can be seen jutting up out of the Oakland area, where the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University rule the roost.

One had examined the desired path using Google maps before committing to the walk, and I was looking out for a certain intersection leading to my desired municipal stairway.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There it was, and thusly there I went. The path led down, and northwards, which I intuitively find contraindicative. Another one of my NYC born presumptions is that south is both ‘down’ and flat in geologic character, whereas north is up where the terrain gradiates quickly from hilly to mountainous forests, and then to ones which no one has ever visited to the north and left of Albany.

I know… I know.

I’m also of the opinion that rivers flow south rather than north. It’s odd the way that the brain works. Mine, at least, received early training that indicated certain realities – upstate NY started in Mount Vernon or Yonkers, and it was ‘up there.’

Long Island, as in both Nassau and Suffolk, are ‘the country.’ Also; the Atlantic ocean is always on your right hand side whereas the Pacific is on the left, and somehow NYC sets the standard for ‘correct’ weather in the United States (after Los Angeles) – despite the fact that NYC’s atmospheric temperatures annually fluctuate more than a hundred degrees one way or the other and it’s vulnerable to every sort of atmospheric disturbance there is.

Additionally, Chicago is too cold and Florida too hot. Mustard ONLY goes on a hot dog, and whereas I do make an allowance for Sour Kraut, I think that’s a mistake as it ruins the bun with sogginess.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Walking down steps is pretty low impact and shouldn’t be much of a chore… to continue mentioning things which I believe, without any actual evidence or personal knowledge thereof.

At the end of this scuttle, my legs were absolutely blasted out. The soles of my feet hurt. So did the fronts of my calfs. Globes of inflammation were forming around the knees, and I think I developed a hip problem.

All told, this set of stairs (which are apparently dubbed ‘German Square’) travelled downwards about 1,000 vertical feet before reaching the South Sides Flats area. Holy Moley.

Back tomorrow with more.

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