Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’
Walking here
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, I’ve been having a devil of a time with the sort of aches and pains one associates with age, and particularly so in my legs and feet. To be fair, I’ve got a full resumes worth of injuries to the roadway interface that are the source of my troubles, but this has been a literal pain in the butt for the last few weeks. Best thing to do is exercise, get the gears spinning, and stretch out all of the meaty rubber bands contained within. Best thing to do, for me at least, is lean into it.
I headed over to the Monongahela River’s South Side frontage, here in Pittsburgh, and got moving. This was a much shorter walk than the one mentioned earlier this week, about four miles – I’d reckon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I seem to be the only person in Pittsburgh that focuses in on the T light rail. It ain’t the 7 train back in LIC, as far as cinematic good looks, but there’s something about the T service which I find visually interesting.
One really wasn’t ‘photowalking’ on this particular day but the camera is always ready to go, and so am I. You can happily wear your headphones on this trail, and I was revisiting an old favorite – Mike Duncan’s “History of Rome” podcast – as I scuttled along.
It reminded me of a forgotten opinion I hold that Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (the last and worst king of Rome before the Republic) is one of the dumbest sounding names in all of western history. I’m often surprised that Trump hasn’t added a ‘Superbus’ onto his name.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, a CSX train came shooting along the tracks, hauling coal. That’s the Fort Pitt Bridge on the left, and the Smithfield Street Bridge on the right. There’s a fence between you and the tracks in this section, one which is about five feet high, I’d guess. Not hard to shoot over it.
Back next week with more from the Paris of Appalachia, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Frustration
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weather has generally not been on my side during February, and after the trip to NYC, one has found the rubber bands in his legs and feet tightening up and offering generous amounts of discomfort. The only way out of this particular trap for me is to follow one of the mottos which people who know me in real life are sick of hearing repetition of, the one about ‘internally lubricated parts and using or losing them.’
Thereby, any spare minute when I don’t have to be sitting down, I’m standing or moving. It hurts less the following day when I do.
A recent afternoon found me with an opportunity to stand AND move, so I hopped into the Mobile Oppression Platform and headed over to the ‘Seldom Seen Greenway’ trail, which is a quick drive from HQ. I’ve mentioned this place several times in the past.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yes. I was back hunting for a certain shot which I desire to collect.
No. I did not get it, again, even though I stood around like a schmuck for about two hours.
Funnily enough, a few people appeared along these isolated tracks and interesting conversations ensued. One bloke described the problems he experiences running a dairy farm in the 21st century, another one was a genuine young railfan who aspired to achieve a Master’s degree in Urban Planning someday. Really wasn’t expecting to see anybody up here at all.
Man, just look at that composition… if only there was a subject in the shot, huh? Imagine it, a Wheeling & Lake Erie RR locomotive right in the middle of the photo. That would really be something, wouldn’t it?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While walking gingerly and defeated, down the muddy trail leading back to the paved sanctity of a parking lot, a humble narrator was cursing and frustrated.
Two hours I stood there, feet sinking into the mud along the tracks. I mention this sort of thing – and not because I enjoy describing my failures. Instead, it’s to describe that there’s a process behind the camera which you have to oblige and that whereas you can as ready as possible – gear, time of day, light etc. – sometimes you still come home empty handed despite the effort and preparation.
That’s ok too. Part of the process.
Also, I gotta get me one of them railfanning radios at some point, so I can decide whether or not I’m going to spend my time sinking into the mud productively or not. I actually came back to this exact spot a day or two later and did the exact same thing – stood around waiting for a train for hours, but ‘no bueno.’
Back tomorrow.
“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.
Squaring up
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another of my constitutional scuttles occurred on one of the rare sunny days which the Pittsburgh Metro area has enjoyed in recent weeks, a scuttle which played out along the Monongahela River. The Mobile Oppression Platform was parked in an adjoining municipal park’s lot, and so off I went.
First steps were when I noticed the Towboat ‘Sierra J’ towing a small fleet of barges, in a westerly direction towards the point where the Monongahela’s transmogrification occurs, after an admixture with the Allegheny, and it becomes the Ohio River.
There’s a lot of flowing water around these parts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up and along my way, CSX #6926 came roaring by, hauling a mixed up bunch of car units behind it. There was coal, and automobiles, and a lot of random cargo boxes trailing behind it.
This walk was from the 31st street bridge to the Fort Pitt Bridge, which is somewhere in the area of about 3-4 miles. There and back again, I guess my walk was about 7.5 – 8 miles, thereby, which I kicked out in a little over two and change hours.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular path has become fairly familiar to me, and by now I’m sure to you. Its range is along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, which follows the Monongahela River and is entirely separated from the travel lanes of vehicle traffic. Only foot and bike traffic are allowed. There’s a couple of fairly noisome gaps on the trail, but it’s nothing terribly over the top or dangerous.
There is an opportunity to gain some altitude along the route, which I did to capture the shot above, depicting the T light Rail crossing the Panhandle Bridge and is framed up by the Liberty Bridge and a concrete factory.
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.
MonongaScuttling
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After returning from NYC to Western Pennsylvania, a humble narrator really felt the toll of that exertion. Honestly, it’s the seven hour drive that does you in. It’s not a terribly challenging automotive course – I-80 to I-99, which then lead into the web of highways and bridges found in the Pittsburgh metro – instead it’s the required all-day mental focus that gets to you. These roads move at 75 mph speed limits, a speed which many regard as being a mere suggestion or a starting point rather than a delimiter. One little screw up and you’re hurtling into the woods at highway speed, a cautious narrator offers.
After a couple of days of rest and recuperation, which included raiding the supply of NYC bagels that I’d returned to Pittsburgh with, before they went into the freezer, it was time for a short walk. I didn’t want to make a big production of this one, and just wanted to stretch my legs for a while and maybe catch a shot or two along the way. There’s a particular section of this trail which I hadn’t laid eyes on yet, so…
A quick hop back into the Mobile Oppression Platform (MOP) soon saw me parking it along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail paralleling the Monongahela River, heading in a generally southeasterly direction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the river, on the site of an old steel mill’s campus, there’s some sort of technology incubator outfit. I have no idea what they’re incubating, other than a vague notion that it has something to do with self driving vehicles. People shudder when that term comes up.
The MOP has a driving assist feature that clicks on when I activate its ‘radar cruise control.’ Sensors on the front end of the car ‘see’ the road’s lane markers and make steering adjustments to keep you in the lane (you have to have your hands on the wheel and provide feedback or alert chimes begin ringing out), and another sensor in the car’s grill regulates speed and following distance with other vehicles, which its sees using a variation of radar technology. Most of my friends shake their heads and say ‘uh uh’ when I mention this capability to them, but it’s actually quite useful on long drives like the one from NYC to Pittsburgh.
That’s an Allegheny Valley RR locomotive on the other shore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s tie off points for tugs all around this part of the river, which got left behind when the steel mill they serviced was torn down. Unfortunately, they were stoutly locked and fenced off from the trail I was walking on so I couldn’t explore. The only other people on the trail, this time around, were a bunch of college age athletes from Pitt that were doing timed sprints and other track and field exercises.
On the ‘you want to know when you feel old’ subject, it’s when you’re limping along and stretching the ligaments back out, just a couple of days after a 7 hour car trip, and there’s 18 year old kids bounding past you like god damned antelopes. Ute’s.
Four miles or so, and back to the car, so about eight miles all told. Not the most photogenic section of the trail, but easy walking. That’s my yelp review.
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.
Bigly industry
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured in today’s post is the U.S. Steel’s Clairton Works, a gigantic industrial plant whose design and mission involves the transformation of coal into coke. The coke they process here fires the furnaces at other USS plants, notably the Edgar Thompson Steel Mill a few miles west of here.
Fleets of tugboats and railroads carry raw coal here (which does have the appearance of having been pre-processed, particle size wise, I’d offfer), where it’s them cooked in anoxic ovens which produces the coke. Or at least, that’s how I understand how their process works, as I’m still largely ignorant on the subject.
You can read about Coke, and its relatively short industrial history, at this Wikipedia page.
The Clairton Works is the largest manufacturer of Coke in the United States. The history of the plant and the town it is located in are wound up in each other, and this Wikipedia page offers a cogent history which I’d just be referring to over and over so – click here for the overview/scoop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One had parked the Mobile Oppression Platform on the other side of the river, at a lot offered by the Montour Trail outfit, and then walked across the Clairton-Glassport Bridge to the north bank of the Monongahela River for these points of view. I had to shoot through tightly spaced fencing for some of the shots, which is a pain in the butt.
On this shoreline, several large properties were in the business of storing and sorting coal that had been brought using maritime barges. Stout pierage and docks were observed on both sides of the river, which also had impressive concrete bulkheads installed along their water facing edges. I’m sure that I was popping up on security cameras within the plant, and that were I to have crossed some imaginary property line I’d get to meet the local gendarmes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The owners of the plant, U.S. Steel, offer this overview document on their website – which describes the purpose, challenges, and environmental control systems of their operation – you can check that out here.
The economic engine of this part of the country used to revolve around this industry, and in many ways it was the industrial heart of the United States during most of the 20th century. Steel from Pittsburgh allowed Manhattan’s skyline to rise, Detroit to build automobiles, and the Navy was able to replace the Pacific fleet lost at Pearl Harbor due to the efforts of the workers at these plants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is – of course – quite new to all of this steel stuff. The scale of things are positively cyclopean, dwarfing anything you’d encounter back in NYC or Northwestern New Jersey. The confluence of massive amounts of rail and maritime activity, everything about Clairton is amazingly large and it’s difficult to conceive of the scale of an operation this big even when you’re staring right at it.
There were about a dozen large material handlers, like the one pictured above, at work when I arrived but it must have been time for a shift change as their operators were all piling into pickup trucks and leaving their rigs behind while I was up there on that bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the view of the Clairton-Glassport Bridge which I walked over, looking back towards the south side of the river, and a residential section of the city of Clairton. The span is about a half mile long, and lined with an unfortunately small chain link fence. As I mentioned yesterday that it is virtually impossible to get a clean shot through this type of fencing.
I imagine that’s by design. I’ve had experience with this type of fence back in NYC at Sunnyside Yards, and it’s a real pickle to get a shot through. The larger chain link fencing, with a more conventional two inch diamond is a pain in the neck too, but the smaller one is nightmarish for photographers. There were a few surveyor holes cut into it here and there, but they didn’t offer salubrious view points.
I used my phone, whose lens is tiny enough to somewhat ignore the fencing, to record a couple of short videos from up on the bridge – check them out here and here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As a newcomer to Pittsburgh, I still haven’t discovered the points of view which the natives enjoy. I’m constantly looking at other people’s photos and videos, and trying to scry where they were shot from. The site linked to above is Fort Frick Photography, and I’m a fan.
Again, back in NYC at my beloved Newtown Creek, long experience created an absolute glossary of these POV spots. Climb this, walk there, stand on that – that sort of thing.
I’m still finding those things here, and my occasional encounters with other photo people have included conversation about visual access to the various points of interest around Pittsburgh. I didnt grow up here, so it’s all new to me, and I’m unsure of ‘the rules,’ or where it’s ‘kosher’ to shoot from. You have to worry about teenagers, cops, malign creatures of the street – all that. I’m never so vulnerable as when I’m on foot and using the tripod. Static target.
Back next week with something else, 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 