Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’
Misttsburgh
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a few weeks of rain, and snow followed by extreme cold, a temperature inversion finally occurred and banks of heavy fog appeared here in Pittsburgh. It wasn’t the good kind of fog, I’d mention, it was more of a precipitous mist.
After banging my head against the wall for two weeks during an arctic interval of gray and rainy gloom, I couldn’t stand staying inside anymore and jumped into the car to go see what I could see. This one is from West End Overlook Park, a nearby facility which I visit periodically.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The elevation is the star of the show here, which offers a panoramic view of Pittsburgh’s center. Pictured above is the ‘North Side’ area which I’ve spent a bit of time getting familiar with in recent months.
In the foreground is part of the West End Bridge, a span over the Ohio River which I’ve also been getting to know. It started raining again while I was up here, so I headed back to the Mobile Oppression Platform for cover and decided that I needed to go somewhere else that offered my lens some overhead cover from precipitants. It was about a 15 minute drive to my next destination.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Seldom Seen Greenway’s fantastic brick lined tunnel entry pictured above. Another spot I’ve visited quite a bit in the last year. I like bringing Moe the Dog here for walks, as there’s a small trail and flowing water and a bit of woods.
As the crow flies, this cannot be more than a couple/three miles from West End Overlook, but you need to drive a long and curvilinear path through a couple of neighborhoods and an industrial zone to get here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The water moving through here is a stream called Saw Mill Run. On weekends, you’ll encounter groups of people climbing the masonry walls and rappelling about on ropes. It’s organized, I’d add, and they’re part of some club from one of the universities.
The water is pretty dirty, I tell’s ya, and it smells of residential sewer overflow on rainy days. Trust me when I tell you what the various flavors of sewage smell like, as I’ve got a lot of experience in that arena.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s an active rail bridge over the trail, one which I’ve spent several frustrating hours waiting for a train to appear upon in the past.
What looks like a staircase on the left is actually quite cylcopean in scale, and you’d have to be of Professional Wrestler or NBA stature to consider it as being a set of stairs. I get up to the top via a dirt trail on the other side of the masonry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As always seems to be the case, just as I was breaking down my kit and getting ready to head back to HQ, a train appeared when I wasn’t prepared to properly shoot it.
It’s a Pittsburgh & Lake Erie train set, if you’re interested.
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.
Thwarted
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weather was just awful, here in Pittsburgh, during the month of January. The conditions seriously impacted my whole ‘walk around and take pictures’ dealie. After what seemed like weeks of snow then rain then snow then sun arctic then rain again, the weather forecast seemed to be on a humble narrators side and that’s how I ended up trudging up the hill and boarding a Pittsburgh bound T light rail train set.
The forecast called for – perhaps – a light drizzle. What I got, roughly an hour into the walk, was teeming rain with sleet. It was the sort of sleet, mind you, that you actually feel pain as it’s hitting you in the face. Little cones of ice that had fallen thousands of feet, surprisingly hurt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the time I had scuttled south to the Monongahela River coast of Downtown Pittsburgh, it was seriously coming down. Luckily, I had worn my ‘Pittsburgh winter coat’ which is impressively water resistant, but my pants and shoes were pretty wet. I was using an umbrella of course, but that was mainly to protect the camera as I scuttled along my way. I heal, the camera doesn’t. I set out and across the Smithfield Street Bridge.
I occasionally had to deal with this in NYC, of course, but a lifetime of habitation there meant that I knew how to walk around raindrops and use buildings’ ‘rain shadows’ to my advantage. Overbuilt environments like Manhattan don’t really exist here, and certainly not so once you exit the ‘Downtown’ area.
Pictured are some of the interchanges between US HWY 22/30 and I-376, which run along the southern coast of the peninsular Downtown section.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The walk had to be aborted, but an evening assignation with Our Lady of the Pentacle was still a couple of hours ahead of me. I opted for ‘option B’ with the ‘B’ standing in for ‘Beer’ just to get out of the rain. I popped into a tap room and watched a group of televisions tuned to sportsball programming for an hour or so and then hailed a cab to take me the rest of the way towards our end of the week ‘night out’ dinner date.
Back tomorrow with a considerably less soggy experience, 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.
Ten Mile Scuttle, part six
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I punked out on the last section of my walk, and headed over to the T Light Rail Station on Pittsburgh’s First Avenue to catch a ride back home. Of all the T stations I’ve visited, the one that looks the most ‘right’ to me is First Avenue.
On your way out of Pittsburgh, you either pay when exiting the T or at the Station you’re getting out at. It’s all very confusing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Dormont, after debarking the T and getting a Gatorade at the gas station across the street, I stopped off for a quick shot of a Pittsburgh bound train set picking up passengers.
I began my scuttle down the hills towards HQ, with a genuinely weary gait. I had walked somewhere just over ten miles in about three hours.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As I faced down the ice on the steep hill of the block that HQ is found at the bottom of, I cracked out one last shot of a lovely little house that has just changed hands at the top of the hill. I know the place is vacant, and thereby positive that nobody’s privacy was going to be pierced by clicking the shutter and sharing the photo here.
According to Zillow, this 1,104 square foot, three bedroom and two bathroom house just got sold for $319,000. There’s a driveway, and a pretty big yard, too. Sweet.
Back next week.
“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.
Ten mile scuttle, part four
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As a humble narrator was in the process of debarking the 31st street bridge over the Allegheny River, one couldn’t help but admire the terraced setup of a section called Polish Hill. That’s the Immaculate Heart of Mary RC Church, which is in an area that I’d paid a brief visit to last year. Even after a year, I still find Pittsburgh’s verticality remarkable.
My next set of moves involved hanging a right at the foot of the bridge and to start walking downtown. Rush Hour, as it is humorously referred to here, was just starting up. Seriously, what the locals refer to as ‘heavy traffic’ just makes this ex New Yorker giggle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As stated in earlier posts from this walk, the plan was to walk back along the Allegheny River on this side of the water, and then cross the Monongahela River to access the T Light Rail, and get back to HQ. I punked out on that as it was starting to snow/rain again. At this stage, it was just starting up, and little piles of water were slowly appearing on my eyeglasses. Nothing major yet, I still had a good hour to go before it really started up, but wet and cold aren’t amongst my favorite combos.
More on all that later in the week, for now I was walking past the Amtrak Station and trying to imagine what it must have looked like back in the ‘good old days.’ I’ve taken Amtrak to and from Pittsburgh, and I believe that my description of the modern station as looking and feeling like a Soviet Orthodontist’s office is still apt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This isn’t exactly the nicest street for a pedestrian in Pittsburgh, I’d offer. The left side of the shot offers the ruined former entrance of the train station which is fenced off and gross. The right side of the shot is the City’s morgue and medical examiner’s offices. The liminal space of the highway ramps above are where most of the occupants are. Awful and barren street scape, this, with sidewalks that just end leaving pedestrians stranded and walking on a busy road. Uggh.
They do a lot of things right here in Pittsburgh, this ain’t one of them.
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.
Ten mile scuttle, too
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Using the Three Rivers heritage trail as my path, a humble narrator was taking a very long walk in Pittsburgh recently. It’s been extremely difficult to maintain the walking schedule, given the ferocious winter weather we’ve been experiencing here in the Paris of Appalachia, throughout January. Extreme cold, lots of precipitation, winds… brrr.
When the odd day comes along that you can be outside, you take maximum advantage of that condition. At least I do. As described in the preceding post, I had a plan to wander all over the joint.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 8th of January is the day these shots were captured. It was balmy but not freezing out, although the sky vault and sun were obscured by a solid layer of clouds. I was packing a full kit with me, and I found myself using three lenses over the course of the walk – primarily it was my 28-105 zoom, but I found spots where the 16mm f2.8 and 35mm f1.8 were required, before I made it back to HQ in nearby Dormont. I had a tripod with me but didn’t use it, just like the folding umbrella that I was also carrying.
This was a filthy black raincoat day, coupled with a fleece sweatshirt and thermal longjohns under my pants. As is my new habit, I was wearing a flash orange ball cap, an adaptation I’ve made to the usual black sackcloth that I clothe myself in normally.
It’s Hunting season, here in Western PA, and a little extra visibility is a sensible prophylactic given how much time I’m spending walking around on wooded trails. This walk was in the center of the city, where you’re not encountering gun toting woodsmen, but a little extra visibility does not hurt when you consider ‘traffic.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My principal goal for the day was to really blast out the legs with a long walk, which would see me upping my normal walking speed a bit. Given the weather, and the frequency with which my normal exercise schedule gets thwarted once the winter set in, I was determined to take advantage of the day and really lean into the walk.
Of course, I was also scouting locations for shooting sessions when things warm up a bit. Especially locations where I could pull the car over into a parking spot, and set up the camera for cool night shots.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 