Posts Tagged ‘South Hills’
Montour at South Hills
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After walking on a section of the Montour Trail over in Library PA, I drove over to another link in the trail’s chain found in the neighboring community of South Hills. Deeply suburban, this is an absolutely lovely section of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area which often reminds one of the setting for a Disney movie.
I parked the Mobile Oppression Platform (MOP) at the Montour’s parking lot, and since I still had a bit of daylight and ‘some gas in my tank,’ decided to walk off another couple of miles. Ultimately, this day was originally scheduled as a ‘short walk,’ but two of my short walks ended up making a ‘long walk.’
I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, the community of South Hills is lovely. Picturesque homes, sitting on manicured and large properties, are everywhere. The architecture of these residential buildings are disturbingly heterogeneous but in their variety you can observe about sixty to seventy years worth of real estate development and architectural experimentation in the private home sector.
Interesting, I say.
The Montour Trail runs in a trench of sorts here, with earthen berms forming the trench’s walls in some spots whereas others are cuts in the rocky hillsides. In other flatter areas, there’s a tall fence and somebody’s back yard is on the other side of it. There’s lots of ‘posted’ and ‘keep out’ and ‘no trespassing’ signs in these sections.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was actually a bit of a chore, getting a clean shot of this section of the trail without any people in frame, as dozens of the local humans were using it to recreate. These trails are really embraced by the communities they snake through, in my observation.
I can’t help but be bitter about my Montauk Cutoff experiences back in Long Island City, both for the pie in the sky planning process insisted on by my fellows (which at one point involved human waste composting), and by the absolute obstinacy and stalling of the MTA. Imagine that one coming true, in LIC, without me driving the process along by sheer force of will?
The rail to trail thing is implemented in such a positive manner here, and embraced by both government and constituent. Win.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I reached my turn around point, and started back towards the parking lot where the MOP awaited me. Along the way, I spotted the contrails of a jet and couldn’t help myself from getting a little artsy fartsy with the framing in the shot above.
As has become my habit, I was also auditing the location for future visits by Moe the Dog. Moe’s big problem at the moment is aggressive reactivity to other dogs, and as this section of the Montour Trail was actively being used for dog walking, it’s kind of a ‘no go.’
We need deserted areas shunned by man and beast alike, Moe and I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before I got back behind the wheel of the car for the drive back to HQ, I poked my head into a small burying ground directly across the street, the St. Vladimir Ukrainian Cemetery. I took a couple of pictures, but the cemetery was small, the headstones were largely modern, and there wasn’t anything ‘monumental’ there which drew me in other than the iron work of the fencing and a large steel (or maybe zinc/aluminum) cruciform.
There’s graveyards like this one all over the place here in Western Pennsylvania, hosting a few dozen interments marked with modest monuments. The community developed around these cemeteries which were originally on farm land, and you’ll see suburban houses and commercial buildings literally right next door to the graveyards.
All part of the milieu, I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Dormont, on my way back to HQ, and I felt compelled to pull the MOP over and grab a shot of the wonderful lighting on offer from the late afternoon sun. HQ is at the bottom of this steep hill.
Yes, those are brick pavers on the street. The pavers, rather than asphalt are a combination of historic preservation and practicality here in Pittsburgh. With hills this steep, you want some extra ‘tooth’ for car tires to bite into, especially during rainstorms and during the winter months. At the bottom of the hill, it turns back into regular asphalt.
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.
Run, Montour, Run
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An exercise day, which I’m trying to have occur every other day, arrived one morning and I drove over to the Montour Trail in pursuit of a bit of a walk. This trail is about 150 miles long, and whereas I could technically walk to Washington D.C. from Pittsburgh, I’m basically exploring the Montour Trail a few miles at a pop. I’ll pull the car into one of the lots attached to the trail, which is a former railroad ‘right of way,’ and then walk to the next parking lot and back. This usually ends up being 2-3 miles one way and then back again. It’s an easy walk, usually on a well graded and crushed limestone surface, and you’ll see bike riders and joggers doing the same thing as me, except I’ve got a camera. It’s actually… nice…
The water pictured is Montour Run, and there are former railroad bridges spanning the stream. Some portions of the Montour Trail are a walk through what this city boy would call woods, whereas others give you an interesting POV on the surrounding area’s industrial present or past. Here’s a few other sections of the Montour Trail I’ve visited, with this one found in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you see in the photos, spring had just sprung. I encounter the term ‘run’ for a waterbody everywhere in Pittsburgh. It seems to indicate a steadily flowing stream or creek with mostly shallow water no more than few feet deep, but which is typically a few inches deep. The nature of the terrain is definitely part of the reason these waters flow, but I have the distinct sense that it was the railroad people who shaped these runs when their tracks were being laid down, to act as drainage for their infrastructure. ‘Run’ also seems to be an artifact of earlier times, like the word ‘Kill” is back in NYC – Kill Van Kull, Dutch Kills, etc.
I was extremely happy, of course, since there was a sewer plant on the opposite bank and it’s been a while since I smelled the good stuff. You can just see the treatment tanks peeking in at the top left of the shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On roadways which adjoin the ‘run’ waterways, you encounter signage admonishing drivers to be mindful of flooding during weather events or the spring thaw. I wonder how high the water has to rise for that to happen?
A bunch of kids who I ran into later on during this walk had been swimming just upstream, and I also saw several people fishing as well. This area of Pittsburgh is home to a gargantuan park complex called South Park, and the Montour Trail section I was in had to be less than a mile from the edge of the place. There’s conservation areas here as well, not sure if this is one of them or not. From what I understand, designated conservation areas are either watershed or ‘natural island’ related. Probably both.
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.
Piney Fork
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just under 17 miles in length, Peters Creek is a tributary of the Monongahela River, and runs from Nottingham Township in Washington County on a generally northern path towards its intersection with its parent river nearby Clairton, Pennsylvania.
As soon as I saw running water entering the Piney Fork Tunnel (colloquially known as the Corvette Tunnel), I knew that a few shots would need to be gathered along its shoreline.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been playing around with the camera settings to get the flowing water thing right. Back in NYC, it was fairly simple to deal with the water, photographically speaking. Approaching this sort of fast flowing but quite shallow waterway, which is quite common in the hills and valleys of Pittsburgh, has acquired a bit of trial and error.
Yeah, I could shoot it with a fast shutter and get every ripple and splashlet, but that’s distracting. I want longer shutter shots which show the flow but which don’t obliterate the texture or detail of the water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The approach in NYC’s water was to use a very long shutter speed – 15-30 seconds with an ND filter – to create a mirror glass pool of reflections. That approach in this circumstance would make the water look like mist, and I’ve been working on preserving some of the texture of the flowing water, in addition to slowing it down a bit, to cancel out distracting hot spots or blown out highlights.
I’m getting close to what I’m trying to do in these shots, I’d wager.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As always seems to be the case, as soon as I set up the tripod and got myself ready to shoot, a small army of people appeared. This time around, it was a group of guys whom I’d describe as being “redneck adjacent” that drove up in pickups and then started fishing. We all had a brief chat. One of them was stationed in Breezy Point for his military service, and we talked about Brooklyn, Queens, and Pizza.
It seems that a nearby ‘sportsmen club’ pays to stock the creek with trout on a nearby private property, and whereas this particular spot is legally “public,” its waters adjoin their private section of the stream. The fishermen got busy, and so did I. Nice guys, but after about 20 minutes somebody from the Sportsman Club showed up and began raising a ruckus with them about the trout fishing. Impassioned debate followed, at which point the fishermen packed their gear into the pickups and drove away.
Also, I’m told that in these parts it’s just “truck,” not Pickup Truck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one is a fairly long exposure, and you can see the ghostly afterimages of a couple of those guys still fishing around the bend. I found the shape of the tunnel, and its interaction with the water, interesting.
A second group of fishermen arrived, and soon I was chatting with one of them as he cast his line when he asked me what I was getting up to. Not wanting to get into a whole conversation, I said that I was getting “artsy fartsy” with my camera settings. The fisherman asked me to repeat that three times, as he pretended to have never heard the phrase “artsy fartsy” before. As is my practice, when I described what I meant by the phrase, his eyes glazed over from boredom, and I soon bid him adieu.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Got this last one on my way back to the Mobile Oppression Platform’s tender embrace. For the unfamiliar, the MOP is my pet name for the Toyota.
It was about a half hour drive back to HQ from this spot, most of which occurred along winding roads which I hadn’t experienced previously. Several other locations seemed kind of promising for future explorations, and I plan on returning to the vicinity of the Piney Fork and Green Man’s Tunnels again in the future. This spot must look wild in the autumn after the leaves turn.
“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.
Green Man’s Tunnel
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An urban legend which I had become aware of all the way back in 1980’s Brooklyn was Pittsburgh’s “Green Man,” aka “Charlie No Face.” This urban legend is based around a real person, one who suffered a horrific disfigurement as a child. His name was Raymond Robinson.
There’s an abandoned tunnel nearby Peters Creek in South Park Township which is colloquially known as the “Green Man’s Tunnel,” and is associated with the legend, so I decided to drive over and wave the camera around a bit at the thing. It’s an old rail tunnel, built by the B&O Railroad, and its given name is the Piney Fork Tunnel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is an obvious spot for spooky high school kids to gather in the name of drinking beer and smoking the devil’s cabbage, and the place was thereby covered in graffiti. On the ground in front of the tunnel was the graffiti pictured above, which is written in a “magickal” script. That’s “magic” with a “K,” so it’s book shop “Magick” in the Aleister Crowley mode. So goth.
“As above, so below” reads the only English part of this screed. There’s also a couple of numbers – (40.3026395) & (-79.9795603). These are GPS coordinates, if you don’t recognize the format. Those coordinates point at and lead to the Bruceton Research Mine, a Federal facility not terribly far from this tunnel whose history and occupation is conspiracy theory fodder. It includes the Manhattan Project, back during WW2, and both the CDC and the Federal Energy Dept. supposedly have ongoing modern operations there.
Spooky, and so goth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I couldn’t be bothered to climb up and look in the tunnel, although I’ve heard stories that there are abandoned cars within. Legends.
There was a nearby body of flowing water which I also wanted to point the camera at, but I decided to scuttle about a bit. See if there was any other graffiti of interest, and look around for evidences of altars or ritual circles. You used to see this sort of thing along Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Brooklyn’s Jamaica Bay coastline back in the 1980’s, but the Santeria people replaced the long greasy hair and black T-Shirt crowd in the early 1990’s. I’m usually fascinated by these sort of ritual leave behinds when they’re encountered, and am always on the lookout for them when moving around in these sort of off the beaten path sites.
On a related note: I was observing a ritual site back in Astoria at St. Michael’s Cemetery for a while in the mid 2010’s – check out “City of Marble and Beryl“, “Effulgent Valleys“, “Strange Prayers” and “pounding on the rocks.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unfortunately, the sort of iconography pictured above was spotted in a few places. On the ground, too. This ain’t the nice version associated with Buddhism, that one is set on a counter clockwise rotation, this is the Nazi version. Probably kid stuff, but Nazi types do exist out here. So do the Crips, the Bloods, and a whole lot of other stuff I don’t want to get anywhere close to. Wackadoodles abound.
Nazis? How retro.
onlyinyourstate.com has a cool post about this spot which shows the tunnel prior to being filled in. The fill is road salt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A second tunnel is punched through the landform which the Green Man’s Tunnel is contained in. I was walking on a section of the Montour Rail Trail in the shot above, which I burned down a mile or so of before doubling back to cross the road over to the Peters Creek waterway which had drawn my photo interest upon arriving here.
That’s one heck of a crap design for a road at that modern tunnel, by the way. Two blind turns coupled with two way traffic. Everybody who drove into it did so while honking their horn to signal their presence to traffic coming from the opposing direction. This one is officially the “Piney Creek Tunnel,” but the Pittsburghers whom I’ve asked about the place instead refer to it as the Corvette Tunnel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While scuttling along and kicking the dirt a bit, I once again became fascinated by a high tension electrical tower and the treeless corridor it occupied. I wonder how much it costs to manicure back the encroachment of forest on this multiple mile pathway. At any rate, I doubled back towards where I had parked the car and the spot on Peters Creek, flowing alongside the Corvette and Green Man’s Tunnel, which had piqued my interests.
Back tomorrow with some pix from Peters Creek.
“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.
Timberland Avenue
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Between 1970 and 1990, Pittsburgh lost 158,000 manufacturing jobs. That resulted in its population decline, which saw some 289,000 people move to greener pastures during the same interval. If you’re a wonk, and want to read graphs and a well thought out report on the demographic collapse of this area, check out this 2003 Carnegie Mellon Heinz School report on the situation. Observationally, and according to everything I’ve read on the subject, Pittsburgh has a lot of abandoned houses.
According to this article at pittsburghquarterly.com, Allegheny County alone has over 51,000 abandoned or blighted homes. Many solutions have been tried, including the Community Land Bank concept which my friends back in Queens and Brooklyn were very enthusiastic about. This is how that sort of scheme worked out here, unfortunately.
Combating “Blight” is a major budgetary spend for the municipal entities hereabouts. There’s all sorts of tales that are told about why somebody would abandon a property, but there are parts of Pittsburgh where every third or fourth house is abandoned. When you start getting out into the more rural areas, it’s common to see homes being overgrown by and reclaimed by the forests.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Something very similar occurred in the 1970’s version of NYC I grew up in, when former industrial properties were being fenced off or abandoned, and the dormitory tenements which provided these businesses with staff began turning into crap holes and eventually got abandoned or burned out. Remember the South Bronx of the late 1970’s, both the South and North of Brooklyn, as well as the East River coast of Queens during the 1980’s. This is before the Gentrification Industrial Complex got started during the third term of Mayor Ed Koch (it all started over in Hells Kitchen and the Upper West Side, then the contagion spread to Brooklyn and Queens).
I always had the Millennials and Zennials who had recently arrived in NYC tell me that I had seen too many movies when I would describe packs of wild dogs roaming about the empty brick lots of 1980’s Williamsburg. I was there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These abandoned houses are divided from the surrounding area by Saw Mill Run, a tiny waterway discussed in yesterday’s post and which is pictured above and connected to other roads by a now closed bridge. The water looks fairly impure to me, and there’s lots of dumping that takes place along its banks – observationally.
As always, these photos always appear at Flickr before they get the write up here, and a Flickr commenter by the name of Lucien Van Elsen left me this great bit of research on what happened to these particular houses. As it turns out, they’re quite recently abandoned.
Here’s Lucien’s commentary, unedited.
“So, I wondered what the history was here… how did they get from someone’s house to this state? Going backwards…
Pittsburgh wanted to close the Timberland avenue bridge, since it only served these few houses. They were going to take it via eminent domain in 2020, but instead paid $70k for them, and left them in this abandoned state instead of knocking them down. Details in www.openbookpittsburgh.com/ContractDetail.aspx?ID=53308&a…
The houses were originally built around WWI, when the access was a wooden bridge:
historicpittsburgh.org/islandora/object/pitt:715.185345.CP
You can see some of these houses just after they were built, with well-dressed gentlemen crossing the bridge:
digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A715.0914…
A good writeup on the backstory:
www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Building/Timberland.html”
Back next week with more from the Paris of Appalachia, 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 