Posts Tagged ‘PJ Acardle Roadway’
High to low
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a ride on the T from HQ in Dormont to the center of Pittsburgh, a humble narrator rode the Monongahela Incline up the face of Mount Washington and then proceeded along stately Grandview Avenue. My desire for this walk was to explore the upper reaches of the PJ McArdle roadway, a diagonally placed truss structure which starts at the top of Mt. Washington and leads you back down to ground level about a mile away, horizontally speaking. There’s a pedestrian and bike lane on McArdle, which is mostly ‘protected’ behind a concrete structure. Mostly.
Just before heading onto the thing and descending back down to my usual base level on the street, the ‘Saint Mary of the Mount Church & Saint Adalbert Church’ caught my eye. Don’t know much about it, but it’s a cool looking church, if you ask me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What drew me to this spot on this particular day were the many times I’ve driven up or down this roadway, every one of which saw me eyeing the pedestrian path in a somewhat lascivious manner. The views are quite stellar from this path. This walk was another one of my scouting missions, and I intend on returning here sometime at night, when the trees have enjoyed their autumnal transmogrification. I should be able to get away with doing tripod shots here, but the vibration from passing automotive traffic is probably going to hobble that effort.
That’s downtown Pittsburgh, by the way, at the confluence of the three rivers; Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio. The bridges are: the ‘Fort Duquesne’ in the distance, with ‘Fort Pitt’ poking up through the tree canopy at bottom left. It was a hot but breezy day in Pittsburgh, with climbing levels of humidity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Grandview Avenue can be analogized for New Yorkers as being a lot like the Brooklyn Promenade. It’s one of the high points in Pittsburgh, and certainly offers the most well known set of views of the place, but I actually prefer the West End Overlook. There’s a huge public space between the two inclines with overlook platforms, which is populated sparsely, in comparison to Brooklyn’s analogous promenade ‘back home.’ Right about where the PJ McArdle Roadway slopes away and down from the top of Mount Washington, a series of buildings are set in along the steep and sharp edge of the landform.
Apartment houses and private homes, what looks to me like it must be an Old Age home, a bunch of bars, restaurants, and a catering hall are amongst what I’ve observed up,here. These buildings all jut out onto structural cantilevers to take advantage of the epic views, which is apparently quite a valuable commodity. I wouldn’t say no to living in that place pictured above, provided that the lottery gods are smiling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fence on the left, the one in green made of iron, is in an absolutely terrifying state of repair. What’s so terrifying about it? I looked on the other side of the rusted out fence. There’s about a 30 feet drop on the other side of the rickety thing. That’s a thirty foot drop onto heavily forested land, which would only be the location where you first bounce, and that’s where your tumbling journey down a roughly 1,000 feet/60-70 degree angled descent would start. Wow.
I don’t know if any of you have enjoyed any similar pleasures, but a humble narrator once experienced an icy slide down a forested hill, of about 35 degrees, and nearly cut his neck open on some thorn bearing shrubbery which was uprooted when I body slammed into it. Mount Washington? Brrr…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By far, the coolest thing you get to see along this stretch of the PJ McArdle Roadway is the trackway for the Monongahela Incline, whose funicular trackway is cantilevered over the prime cantilever which carries the vehicle lanes. There’s a concretized set aside area surrounding the thing, and this is another composition I plan on coming back for at night. All those lights on the track are illuminated! Don’t forget, I was scouting on this one.
A humble narrator is quite aware of how ostentatious he must appear, while photographing. My oft stated policy is to keep moving, lest one draw unwanted attention. In this case, however, I broke my rule and hung around this spot since the funicular service is actually fairly frequent. I know, also, that which goes down must also come up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This view will definitely be revisited as well. I’m wondering what morning looks like right here, but I mean really early in the morning. Might be a cool shot when they’re popping off fireworks at the stadiums, such as when one of the local sports ball teams validate the hope and trust which their fans have offered or when Taylor Swift (of blessed memory) comes back to Pittsburgh.
They really like the sports ball stuff around here, as a note.
Pittsburgh is so damn cool! Back tomorrow.
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Day late, dollar short
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned last week, a longish walk found me scuttling along the pedestrian/bike path of the PJ McArdle Roadway here in Pittsburgh, which connects the prominence of Mount Washington with the South Side Flats section found on the banks of the Monongahela River. I entered the roadway path at about the halfway point, leaving the upper section for a future walk.
There are some pretty impressive points of view available along this path, although negotiating your way to it is pretty terrifying as you need to cross several vehicle lanes which all lead into a primary crossing and tunnel leading out of the city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My desire was to wrap up the walk at a spot I’ve become pretty entranced by, which also happens to host a brewery with outdoor tables. Further enhancement of my personal joy in this matter is provided by the bar’s proximity to a fairly busy set of freight rail tracks. The icing on my proverbial cake is provided by the fact that the tracks involve an at-grade street crossing, meaning that gizmos with signal bells with flashing lights and lane blocking arms activate when a train is nearing so I get advance notice of the approaching locomotive, and subsequently the time to run over and get into position.
That would be later on in the evening, though, and I wasn’t done kicking my feet about. This ‘zone’ in Pittsburgh hosts a lot of relict building stock, much of it seeming to date back to the early 20th and late 19th centuries.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I should mention that I’m making a concerted effort to not get all ‘history boy,’ quite yet, here in Pittsburgh. Partially, it’s because a series of existential issues concerning the ‘now’ are occupying my time. Also, I’m not really planning on becoming the walking encyclopedia that I was in NYC. Whatever happens to drift into my head and lodge there is osmotic gravy, but I’m currently not involved in any form of research.
That building above is pretty interesting, to me, at least.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After looping and scuttling about for a bit, one decided to head towards the ultimate destination for the evening – that aforementioned brewery. It’s a part of some gentrification scheme being pushed by a NYC real estate developer, wherein they’re making the same mistakes here that they made at the Bush Terminal in South Brooklyn. Saying all that, I don’t care anymore about stuff like that, and all I wanted was to pour a couple of pints of cold beer into the talkie hole on my face.
I enjoy the solitude and anonymity here in Pittsburgh. For the last several years along Newtown Creek it became a standard thing, for instance, to have a garbage truck driving by and hearing the driver shout out “where ya goin today, Mitch?” Once I was actually stopped by a DSNY crew who asked me to let the city councilman know about a broken water main that nobody cared about fixing which was getting in their way. It got fairly weird, being me. I like being some random bloke with a camera, again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Frustrating is how I describe the situation when I’m approaching a set of rail tracks here in Pittsburgh, and I’ve just missed the opportunity to photograph a train. The only shot I really want from a freight train is one of the head of the snake – the locomotive engine.
Wasn’t a big deal, since my plan involved an hour and change of sitting on the keister and drinking, but still…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This spot has a fairly nice view of the Panhandle Bridge, which the T light rail uses to cross the Monongahela River, so I zoomed in on that while I was waiting for the show to come to me. When the train’s grade crossing signal alert bells started ringing again, I’d pay my tab and head back home. Luckily, they serve pretty good suds at this watering hole.
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.
Utterly pedestrian
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another ‘long walk’ started with a humble narrator riding on the T light rail service from HQ in Dormont, and back to the center of Pittsburgh. My end stop for the day would be a bar I found that sits alongside the Pittsburgh Subdivision tracks of CSX. Beer and trains! What could go wrong?
This all started around noon, of course, and I had a whole megillah planned for the interval. I negotiated a series of street crossings from the T which would make the ‘Bicycle People’ back home clutch at their pearls, and found my way to the pedestrian path of the PJ McArdle roadway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the way, I discovered a few absolutely beautiful spots to capture Norfolk Southern rail traffic from, and was treated to a series of intriguing city views which I’d only witnessed from behind the wheel of the car while hurtling along at speed.
This is sort of the lower half of the viaduct, sometime soon I’ll show you what a subsequent walk of the upper section revealed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A pretty view of the St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church was on hand from on high. For a panorama image of the view from 100 steps further down the path, click here.
Next week, I’ll be displaying what I captured on the rest of this walk, and the train photos I got while sitting at an outdoor bar drinking pints of craft beer. They’re real big on the craft beer thing here.
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.
McArdle Roadway Viaduct
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was cracking out the shots of St. John’s featured in yesterday’s post, it was noticed that I was particularly close to sort of a little bridge which I’d driven over countless times. Every single one of those times, I’ve made a mental note to look it up, and to figure out a way to access its pedestrian and bike partition. I’ve also made a mental note to look up who this P.J. McArdle guy was, and it turns out he was actor Zachary Quinto’s Great Grandfather, so there’s a Spock/Star Trek angle. Win.
Turns out the bridge is called the McArdle Roadway Viaduct, and it’s part of the P.J. McArdle Roadway – which ramps traffic up off of the flat lands south side of Pittsburgh and towards the Liberty Tunnel which is punched through the base of Mount Washington.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When you’ve got a de facto cliff adjoining the confluence of three rivers sitting in the center of your City, engineering challenges abound. There’s the automobile and other vehicle lanes, and there’s also a series of heavy freight rail tracks, all terraced and woven in on the side of the cliff. This shot is from about a 1/4 mile or so west of the bridge structure, as a note.
Historicbridges.org has a nice page about the McArdle viaduct, accessible at this url.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get to the top of the viaduct and walk down the frankly terrifying sidewalk which leads to the walkway on the bridge. Problem is that the top of the walkway is where the entrance to the Liberty Tunnel is, and that area ain’t exactly what I’d refer to as “pedestrian friendly.” There’s some pretty choice and “less common” views of the city center available from there, so…
Back next week with Choo-Choo’s.
“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.
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