Posts Tagged ‘South Side’
Look fly, walk the sky
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After negotiating a path across the broken pavement of ‘Uptown’ and down to the pedestrian ramp of the Birmingham Bridge, which spans the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh, your humble narrator leaned into it. This scuttle, other than satisfying my curiosity about a thing or two found behind me at the start, was all about working on retraining the musculature in my roadway interface in pursuit of speeding up my striding gait, in this post busted ankle period.
Long story short: Working on getting the spring back into the steps, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After several months of picking pathways which would exercise other musculature in my roadway interface, which had atrophied during the recovery interval surrounding my shattered left ankle, it’s now the time to start working on the next phase of ‘getting back to normal’ – specifically endurance, and especially speed.
The endurance part is just about being able to keep myself moving, constantly, and not allowing any ‘sit downs’ or ‘quick breaks.’ The speed thing is returning, but I’m not talking about running here – rather I’m shooting for ‘walking with a purpose.’ Prior to the injury, I was moving at (according to my phone) between 2.6 and 3 miles per hour on average and up to 3.5/4 mph when needed. Post injury, my walking speed had dropped down to as low as 1.2 mph.
Over the last six months, I’ve gotten that number back up to 2.3 mph, which is ‘normal’ human walking speed for someone of my height. I’m hoping that by the Spring, I can get that back up to 3 mph, even if only for short bursts. It’ll likely be another year before I can even think about 4 mph.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ll conventionally ‘have a plan’ when going out for a walk, and particularly so in Pittsburgh with its steep hills and ‘cul de sac’ neighborhoods. In the last six months or so, these plans of mine have revolved around whichever physical tortures I can subject myself to in pursuit of getting back into whatever the hell ‘normal condition’ might mean for one such as myself.
The plan on this day was short and open – ‘check out Kirkpatrick Street on foot, and then walk across the bridge.’ ‘Whatever happens on the South Side will be up to serendipity.’ ‘I’d like to have a beer at the end of it and hopefully get a train shot or two.’ That was the entirety of my plan.
I knew where I’d be ending up, at least, at that brewery by the train tracks which has become a regular stop for me when in the area.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This scuttle was perpetrated on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, so the city was pretty much depopulated. I’m probably the only person on Earth who misses the COVID lockdowns, as I enjoyed the loneliness, but there you are.
The river was crossed, and I took a moment to scan around and figure out my next set of moves.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That distant ridge line in the shot above is where the South Side Slopes neighborhood is cantilevered out from the hillside and into space.
Those city steps posts which I’ve been showing y’all for a while largely play out up there. The area directly surrounding the Birmingham Bridge’s southern landing is either simply called the South Side or it’s the South Side Works if you want to get all technical and political.
I decided that I’d stick to the shoreline and walk along one of the riverfront trails. Might get to see a train, that way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot of Birmingham Bridge, and then off I scuttled. I stuck to the shadows, crawled along the edges of buildings, and generally moved along in the ‘spasmodic flying’ type of posture I’m known for.
Back tomorrow with more.
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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.
Always heading nowhere
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Aimlessly wandering down Pittsburgh’s East Carson street with Our Lady of the Pentacle, in the south side flats area of Pittsburgh, where the ghostly outline of a former structure was spotted on the wall of an 1888 vintage merchant’s building. It made me want to deep dive a bit into the history thereof, but I stopped myself.
Sometime in the future, I’ll use my magnifying glass to study the historic building stock found along this corridor, its story, and learn about all the ‘once, long ago, used to be…’ but that’s not today.
The rest of the walk was uneventful, and then we headed back to HQ, where Moe the Dog awaited.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Separately, we were wandering around Pittsburgh’s Dormont during the evening of a different day, Dormont being where Newtown Pentacle HQ is currently found, and the T light rail suddenly exploded into view.
I cannot stop myself, so… HEY NOW!
Our Lady and myself were going out for dinner at a local burger joint, one which offers a fantastic happy hour menu if you sit at their bar. I had a bourbon/apple cider cocktail that ‘rocked the bells,’ alongside a double smash burger. Yum.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot, depicting the Sterling Street steps, which I returned to with Our Lady in tow (she’s caught the bug for exploring the steps), was shot in a manner that attempts to visually describe the PTSD symptoms I’ve been experiencing when traversing stairs, since breaking my ankle on a set of steps at home last year. It kind of looks like this to me, that moment when the blossom of terror opens.
Enough of all that personal terror and weakness, though, it was a beautiful day and that was the focal point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One truly odd holdover from that experience is that due to all of the opioid pain killers that the Docs were feeding me after the surgery, my memory of this exact period (approx. September to November) from last year is extremely fragmented, or nonexistent. I’m missing about 5-6 weeks of time.
Constant agony, yes. That I remember.
I promise I’ll eventually stop talking about this. Don’t worry, something else that’s horrible or profound will happen to me and then that’ll be my new ‘thing’ to worry about. Sigh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our final set of stairs for the day were attained, and we returned to more or less flat ground at the bottom of the hill. The rest of our walk would be mundane, visiting shops and eating lunch, along the commercial corridor of East Carson Street in the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh, which brings you back to the first photo and the end of the the last steps story.
It was nice having company for a scuttle, must say. I used to sell tickets in NYC to groups of people who wanted to walk around with me. Narrators need to narrate, occasionally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Eventually, we found ourselves at the shoreline of the Monongahela River, nearby the Birmingham Bridge. It was time to head back to HQ again, and Moe the Dog. He’s sort of our constant, Moe.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“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.
Skedaddling through the sky
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A wide angle 16mm prime lens had been affixed to my camera while walking over the Birmingham Bridge, which spans the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh, and an attempt was made to tap into the lens’ potential.
You have to be mindful, with a lens like this, of weird optical distortions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s one of them now.
It really matters where the ‘what’ you focus on is ‘in’ the frame with this lens, due to severe barrel distortion. A hemispheric knob of glass forms the lens’ objective, rather than a flat element on the face of the thing.
I wasn’t listening to anything interesting on this walk, preferring to stay cognizant of my surroundings while moving through an area of urban density.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot with the wide angle lens, as I crossed over the bridge and got to the south side of the river. I sat down again, and refitted a zoom lens to the camera. Options.
I looked down and saw a set of rail tracks, thinking to myself that it would be super cool if a train came through just then.
Then I heard a train’s horn…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX was rolling through, hauling a line of mineral cars. Y’know what? It was ‘super cool.’
Sorry, but I’m going to have to say this bit again…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It looks like coal, or maybe ‘coke,’ which is cooked coal. I don’t know for sure, and long practice has taught me not to make assumptions about the things I see and photograph. I can say pretty categorically that it’s ‘minerals’ in those train cars.
This is a practice which I learned to follow on the fabulous Newtown Creek, which is that ‘unless you know for a fact what ‘something’ is, don’t try to ‘sound smart’ and guess.’ The hardest thing in the world for someone like me is to just utter the phrase ‘I don’t know.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a quick stop off at a Saloon for a rehydrating pint of Guinness, accompanied by a quick sit down and conversation with some amiable company, one set off for the final destination of the evening – a restaurant and pub which specialized in British food, of the specifically Scottish variety. Our Lady of the Pentacle is from England, so… homeland chow for her.
Back tomorrow with something different – 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.
Gap Trail: Homestead to South Side, part 3
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator broke off of the Great Allegheny Passage trail during a walk from Homestead to the South Side Flats, briefly, to find somebody willing to sell me a Gatorade nearby the South Side Works development, here in Pittsburgh.
Another ‘used to be a steel mill’ and ‘redeveloped as a mixed use retail/residential zone’ sort of place, this South Side Works area is. CSX’s tracks flow through an underground tunnel here, which you can definitely tell when one is passing beneath the pavement.
Having soon attained a beverage, one set out of the last leg of this scuttle. My Dracula adaptation had run its course, in my headphones, and I opted to pocket the audio device for the remainder of the day.
Situational awareness. This is the start of an area which I colloquially refer to as ‘Junkie Town.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This warm and somewhat humid day was a perfect one for slurping a pint or two of beer, thought I, and then soon reacquired the GAP trail. Passing under the Birmingham Bridge, pictured above and then to the South Side Flats neighborhood towards the Sly Fox Brewery, which is often mentioned here. Sly Fox also happens to sit along a choke point in CSX’s Pittsburgh – or Keystone – Subdivision, with frequent rail traffic.
There were lots of people clustering around the water, and interacting with a loathsome specie of feathered reptile which kids call ‘Canada Goose.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d guess that the photos embedded in these posts from this scuttle represent about five to six miles of distance by this point, but I wasn’t keeping count on this particular day. Now that I don’t have to report progress to a Doctor anymore, it’s a lot less important for me to know it was four miles, or six miles, or whatever.
I’m probably going to buy a bike sometime in the next year, just to increase my range, but I’ll offer my usual complaint about bikes which is the same one that I do about cars – you’re traveling too fast to actually see where you are and you miss the interesting stuff. Things just shoot by you too quickly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is what most of the trail looked like on this stretch, a long and unremarkable vegetation tunnel. At least it was shady.
As I understand it, caring for these trails is a largely volunteer effort, although governmentally sourced from ‘Uncle Sugar’ or the Commonwealth are used for equipment and consumables, like the salt used for de-icing the path during winter months. The volunteers also have to regularly deal with landslide materials which migrate down from the prominences.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, I managed to scuttle out from the boring section of the walk to a more interesting section of the City, nearby the South Tenth Street Bridge and the Color Park. As mentioned above, I was already thinking about what I would order when arriving at the Sly Fox Brewery.
I also figured I’d be shooting a bunch of trains while there, so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Color Park is where you’re supposed to do graffiti or street art in Pittsburgh, and people take advantage of that in the same way that they used to at LIC’s 5ptz, or still do at Astoria’s Welling Court back in Queens.
Back tomorrow with the 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.
Looking totally ‘Sus’
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ask anyone who knows me, your humble narrator always leans a bit paranoid. Part of it is that even as a child, old ladies would clutch their purses when I walked by. It’s all ‘vibe,’ I guess. If you saw me walking towards you the first thing you’d think is ‘wtf’? Accordingly, one is always quite aware of the fact that I’m being watched by suspicious eyes and acknowledgment of that fact is an admission of how ‘sus’ it must look when I stride or drive up somewhere and then whip out a camera with a huge telephoto lens. Ain’t normal. I’ve got rules, thereby, to govern my actions.
The shot above is an exception to one of these rules, and there are many rules, as it depicts a private home. The only reason it caught my interest is that it’s at the dead end of two streets, and its back yard fencing separates the property from a rail yard and the river.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I prefer large and somewhat anonymous chunks of infrastructure as a subject, as in the case of the Birmingham Bridge over the Monongahela River – pictured above. Nobody is going to emerge from the bridge with a shot gun to keep me from cracking out a shot or two. Ok, maybe the cops, but they mainly use pistols and assault rifles these days.
After a bit of exploring in Hazelwood, I had driven across the river on a different bridge and was picking my way along the south side of the river in a generally homeward direction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For all of the posts you saw this last summer and spring that involved Pittsburgh’s ‘City Steps,’ that’s the landform which the steps that I’ve so far focused in on are set into. Won’t be chancing any journeys of that type for a while, as the broken ankle continues to heal.
As far as that drama goes: the Surgeon is happy with the X-Ray, the Physical Therapist is happy with my progress, and it looks like the whole “PT” experience will be wrapping up at the end of January – barring any mishaps. I’m able to walk again, although with a bit of a limp.
Saying all that – the car will be coming with me for photowalking duties, and for a while.
Back tomorrow with something different.
“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 