Posts Tagged ‘South Side Flats’
Tooty toot toot
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After all of the uphill and downhill efforts described in prior posts, your humble narrator next found himself wandering through the South Side Flats section of Pittsburgh during a medium length scuttle.
This was the easy part of the walk, as it is quite obviously ‘flat’ in this area, and I took the opportunity to take long strides in obeisance to my ankle problems.
The orthopedic surgeon has ‘released me into the wild’ after my last set of X-Rays and the concurrent consultation. Saying that, a year later, the joint still aches and moans regularly. The Doc said it could be up to two years for a full recovery, but I thought they were joking and offering a worst case scenario. Sheiste!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If a wall is inserted in front of me, I will throw myself bodily at it until either it shatters or I do. I’m an idiot like that. The ‘will to power,’ it outweighs all discomfort and turns obstacles into sand.
Saying that, the ankle was ‘singing’ at this stage of the day, and I required a ‘sit down.’ I’d been walking solidly, with a brief break while riding the T light rail, for a few hours at this point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A point was made, while transiting through this increasingly familiar area, to scuttle along streets that I don’t normally route through.
The South Side Flats remind me a great deal of the East Village during the 1980’s, and Williamsburg during the early 2000’s. Gentrifying, but still edgy. I’ve had a few encounters with ‘creatures of the street’ in this area, but I can out talk anybody and I’ve had far more dangerous encounters with random strangers coveting a camera in NYC than anything Pittsburgh has thrown at me – so far.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I turned down ‘Cabot Way.’ In Pittsburgh, if a street is called a ‘way’ then it’s an alley. Dark alley? Yeah, count me in.
One was leaning into the last mile, as it were. Needed to use ‘the loo,’ and also I was extremely thirsty and somewhat hungry. I made the best possible decision then, and decided to have a glass of beer for lunch.
My toes were pointed in the direction of that brewery by the train tracks which I often visit, the one with the trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The remaining plan for the day, thereby, involved one last session of shooting trains while drinking lunch, followed by a walk over the Monongahela River via the Smithfield Street Bridge would occur, and then I’d shlep over to a T station for a ride back to Dormont. Fun.
All of that crossing the river and catching a train business is pretty minor, exercise wise, about a half hour of more or less of walking relatively flat ground. This is also the part of the walk where I was ‘striding’ and trying to move as fast as is possible these days.
I still cannot run. A quick scuttle is all I can maintain. This means that I have to wait for the walk/don’t walk signs at intersections, which is weird.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh is so damn visually interesting. The accommodation and adaptations of the terrain for the demands of everyday life… it’s neat!
Back tomorrow.
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Hey Now!, times three
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of a medium length scuttle down through and around Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes neighborhood, detailed in prior posts, your humble narrator now found himself in a quite familiar setting: drinking a pint of beer while at Pittsburgh’s Sly Fox brewery, and photographing passing CSX freight trains.
First up was CSX #3284. Heading northwesterly, towards Ohio, and away from the steel plants found along the Monongahela River, West Virginia, and or Maryland.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was a Saturday afternoon, which made it kind of surprising just how much rail traffic there was during my relatively short visit. I’ve started working out the timing of their operations, and have observed that there seems to be a long interval in the late morning and early afternoon when nothing is rolling through. After about 3 p.m., CSX seems to get a lot busier. I’m seldom if ever here in the early part of the day, so…
After the train passed through, I marched into the brewery, put my glass on the counter and said ‘reload.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In addition to the bartender, CSX seems to heard me say ‘reload.’
Next up was #430, which was heading in a southeasterly direction (away from Ohio). One of the things I like so much about this spot is there are two grade crossings with signal arms here. I get plenty of notice that something is going to be coming through, and an idea of what direction it’s coming from, based on which one of the signal arms triggers first.
They do blow the train’s horns while approaching, but that sort of sound isn’t necessarily ‘directional,’ due to it bouncing around off of buildings and the geology, if you know what I mean.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It had been a pleasant early autumn day in Pittsburgh, weather wise. I was quaffing Helles branded draft Lager at the brewery. Intervals between train sets were about 15-30 minutes on this particular day.
After #430 passed through, I headed inside, demanded another ‘reload,’ and also paid my tab.
Big difference between ‘having a drink’ and ‘getting drunk’ for me is volume related, and these days alcohol in excess just makes me want to go take a nap. I always figure that I’m ‘paying rent’ for the train photo opportunity and am obliged to buy a drink in return for the seating, but this spot is ‘a public park area with a brewery’ rather than the other way around. I usually don’t mention the pints of water I’m also drinking, but there you go.
I could just sit and wait, but I like access to the bathroom and your humble narrator really enjoys a nice cold pint on a warm day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last up – for me, at least – was CSX #7086. It was headed in the westerly direction, towards Ohio, and it was the last thing I’d end up photographing on this particular day.
After a little while, I summoned a rideshare to pick me up, and carry my carcass back to HQ. That habit is something I’m going to be (and have been since the time of this writing) attenuating.
Made sense in terms of the ankle situation, all these months, but I’m back to riding the T light rail again, and using it as my mass transit springboard into various situations and spots. The T has limited range, however, which is why it’s a ‘springboard.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, that’s the end of my tale of the walk down the Sterling Street Steps, through the South Side Flats, and then gathering train photos at a familiar brewery. Nice time, for a Saturday in October.
Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
Flats scuttle
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After worrying about hidden subterranean tunnels housing armies of atavist cannibals, Day Walking Vampires, and all the other usual stuff I think about while walking down the Sterling Street Steps here in Pittsburgh, your humble narrator had arrived in the South Side Flats neighborhood.
The end goal at this point involved grabbing a beer at a favorite spot, and waiting around with the hope of photographing a few trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the PJ McArdle Roadway, which I’ve mentioned (and walked down) several times. There’s a sizable homeless colony which exists below it, along the Norfolk Southern trackage. A recent Mayoral election here in Pittsburgh, and a concurrent ‘cleanup’ order issued by the incumbent, saw several of the large encampments in this very public area disassembled by Police and Sanitation departments. ‘Squeezing the zit,’ as it were. The incumbent lost anyway.
If a Vampire feeds on heroin or opiate enthusiasts, can they catch an addiction sympathetically? Do drugs work on the armies of the night?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yeah, I made a couple of turns I shouldn’t have while walking, and had to consult Google Maps when I went the wrong way. Signage told me that I had.
You have to figure that Vampires are absolute reservoirs for all sorts of blood based diseases. Hep C comes to mind. I’d also imagine that the Nosferatu must have food prejudices and preferences. ‘I only feed off Vegans’ or ‘Nope, he’s been eating Cod.’ Maybe ‘I’m in the mood for a nice juicy Christian’ or ‘I feel like Chinese tonight.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, I’ve established that you can’t trust the ground, or any people that you might meet as they might be Day-Vampires. What about the air itself? Think there’s miasmas or floating jellies up there in the vault, just waiting for a chance to eat you up? Can you rule that one out? Everything is possible, now, after all.
I’ve advised against swimming in the ocean my entire life. The seas are giant open stomachs and everything in there wants to digest you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nowhere is safe, everything and everyone is a threat. If not to your person, than to your sense of reality and self. Best thing to do, thereby, is barricade yourself up within a personal castle and hide away with your guns and your god. It’s only going to get worse, chaos rules.
Really… I cannot tell you how many people tell me stuff like that these days. The world is the world and always has been, bad things abound, but something like 5,000 puppies are being born every minute of the day, globally speaking. Get a grip, people’s.
Sure, there’s Vampires. Why not act like a Van Helsing then? It would be hard to explain to a judge, I admit, burning down Carfax Abbey.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, I arrived in the ‘zone’ which I had been ultimately been walking to for a couple of hours, nearby the ‘Colors Park’ and the brewery where I planned on spending the next hour of my life photographing trains.
Something to do.
More on that 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.
Back to level ground
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator was highly satiated and satisfied by scuttling the spectacular Sterling Street Steps in Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes section, as described in prior posts. The subsequence of this walk played out on the way downhill, and then into the South Side Flats area. I was already thinking about photographing trains.
Saying that, what a fascinating place this neighborhood must be to live. Challenging, though.
What if you drop an apple or orange on your way back from shopping?
The tumbling cultivar might build up enough momentum, rolling down that hill, to achieve ballistic speeds. You wouldn’t expect that, an orange moving faster than the speed of sound smacking into you. That’s ‘how they get ya.’
Also, as you’ll recall from a few posts ago, I’m quite concerned about the idea of Diurnal Vampires – Day Walkers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just like back in NYC’s Queens, all those centuried waves of immigration to Pittsburgh have also allowed egress for hordes of parasitic ghouls, devils, and all the horrors that bedeviled these populations in the old world who followed their victims overseas. These entities have long set up shop here in the Republic.
Vampires are just part of the ‘evil equation,’ and luckily they’re pretty rare. You can’t have too many human hunters in one area, even in NYC, for the same reason that Tigers are solitary and have to maintain huge hunting ranges. A wolf, for instance, needs to consume 5-7 pounds of meat a day. Too many predator vampires, not enough blood. Basic economics suggest thereby that the price of keeping a human alive prior to exsanguination becomes expensive, and inflated. Best to spread out.
There’s persistent local legend here in Western PA., about ‘hill people’ who secretly inhabit the larger Appalachian region – as in they’re cannibalistic ‘people’ who live inside, and under, the hills who grab and carry away kids and hikers from the woods. It doesn’t get talked about.
Actually, Lore Lodge recently did discuss it extensively.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wittering and worrying about the armies of the night on a brightly lit afternoon just speaks so much about my psychology… I can find a ray of darkness in any point of light…
This part of Pittsburgh was extensively mined in the 18th and 19th century. Mount Washington, which is the landform that these steps are set into, used to be called ‘Coal Hill.’
Coal mines that were abandoned, even the ones which the State environmental people know about, are a real problem in these parts.
About a year ago, some poor woman and her dog were swallowed up by a sink hole that spontaneously subsided in their back yard. That hole dropped them down about 40 feet into an old coal mine which nobody knew about. The lady died, but the dog was rescued by Fire Dept. personnel. Concrete was poured into the mine’s void and the ground restored.
It seems that you didn’t need to file a building plan with the local Government, back to the 1830’s and most of the way to the 20th century, when you wanted to start digging into the verge in search of fortune. Lots and lots of small scale mining activity happened below the surface, and no records were left behind of the subterrene corridors, columns, and chambers which were carved out and then abandoned.
Pennsylvania has maps of the abandoned mines which are known to exist, but every Academic and Authority bemoans that it’s incomplete.
Beyond these abandoned voids allowing a place for the ‘Hill People’ and other legends to congregate and lurk in fuligin darkness, abandoned mines also produce acid runoff and other environmental hazards. Good news is that Pennsylvania leads the nation in terms of mushroom harvest.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A rickety steel bridge at Mission Street, overflying a park and also neighboring a municipal water pumping facility, marked my turn off from the Sterling Street Steps and corridor. From this point out, it was all fairly familiar ground.
The plan from here out was to really lean into my strides and walk as quickly as I could, these days. Flat ground was nearby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve walked down South 18th street quite a few times. Steeply graded, South 18th’s severely angled pavements have helped me regain the strength in my calves after the broken ankle incident.
South Side Flats isn’t an area where I’ll worry about esoteric things like Ghasts or Day Walkers, instead I’m looking out for the ‘dope sick’ and desperate who might decide to try and take something from me to feed their habits.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Were I younger, and I mean in my early thirties, the South Side Flats would have been where I wanted to settle here in Pittsburgh. A nearby commercial street is full of restaurants, bars, nightlife. Great spot. Lots of junkies, street people, and tons of ‘law and order’ trouble at night, however. Very much reminds me of First Avenue or Avenue A in NYC’s East Village.
I’m old, though, so we moved to the suburbs, and just come down here when a night out is desired.
My toes had already pointed in the direction of the Sly Fox Brewery, where a pint of beer and – hopefully – a bunch of CSX trains would be waiting for me for the price of walking another mile or so.
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.
Things a-popping, everywhere’s ya looks
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a long interval of ‘have-to’s,’ your humble narrator finally found a little time for the camera’s exercises. I had the car with me, and drove to where I was going, violating my normal habit of leaving the car at home when out scuttling. Since I was hyper-mobile, I checked in on the Rook Yard of the Wheeling & Lake Erie RR outfit while on my way. They were doing ‘something,’ with that train set moving back and forth while workers adjusted the switches. Everybody has something to do.
Our Lady of the Pentacle was out of town, and Moe the Dog was thereby nervous and ‘faklempt’ without her for better than a week. She’s goodness and light, Out Lady is, and when she’s not here all the dog has to rely on is me.
I’m horrible, an intelligence of malign instincts housed in the decaying cadaver of a man, an outsider and abomination which somehow walks and breathes but never seems to stop talking. Poor Moe had to deal with me, but after a certain interval of service to the pup, one needed to get some exercise and wave the camera around lest madness take over.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I drove down to the Monongahela River shoreline, and the Colors Park, where there’s also a parking lot. After the Mobile Oppression Platform was safely stowed, one gathered his gear together and set out for a scuttle. It was just a few miles this time, and I opted for a familiar section of the Great Allegheny Passage trail to focus in on and where I’d slap the pavement with my feet.
The concrete factory next door to the Sly Fox brewery was unloading a minerals barge and piling the stuff up for processing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since this was going to be a short walk, it had been decided to try and walk as fast as I’m capable of these days. Cardio, yo.
It was a warm autumn day in Pittsburgh, with clear skies and temperatures in the upper 70’s. Your humble narrator ‘leaned into it.’ No headphones or audiobooks for this walk, which I’d already capstoned as being ‘Liberty Bridge to Fort Pitt Bridge and back.’ There and back again is just under three miles. A short walk, thereby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back at HQ, Moe had really been working me during Pu Lady’s absence. I’m fond of telling the neighbors that Moe is very much Our Lady’s dog, but that I’m his favorite toy. That played out in an ever tightening circle of annoyance for me, and I desperately needed a break from the inter species dynamic for an afternoon.
Great care was exercised, in terms of moving about the world, given that Our Lady was on another continent and recent experience with the broken ankle revealed that your whole life can be turned upside down unexpectedly. Moe’s life was literally in my hands.
A ‘deadman’s switch’ was instituted with one of my neighbors. If she did not receive a daily text from me, her husband would then be instructed to break into my house after work and save Moe. I told them to just leave my body lying wherever they found it for the coroner to deal with.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now! I was hoping a train or two might appear.
That’s CSX #7225, heading away from Ohio along the outfit’s Pittsburgh Subdivision (aka Keystone Subdivision) tracks along the Monongahela River. Tankers, that what it was hauling. Could have been fuel, or chemicals, can’t tell you what was inside. I also fundamentally do not care.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I still had a few days of solo service to the dog ahead of me. Our Lady is British, and she had headed home to visit her Dad and Brother as well as her passel of old friends. A hellish interval for me.
I hate the loneliness. I’ve become ‘institutionalized.’ Moe the Dog ain’t a great conversationalist.
Back next week 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 