Posts Tagged ‘south side slopes’
Shocking coruscations
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My scuttle down the Lauer Way steps in Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes section was meant to be just a part of my walk, the first third of a fairly long route. As mentioned previously, this was the last day of that crazy heat wave which afflicted most of the country in July. A cold front was scheduled to blast through Pittsburgh, and would bring thunderstorms and terrific amounts of rain, but it wasn’t meant to roll through for several more hours.
Apparently the weather forecast people underestimated its speedy advance, which led a humble narrator into a bit of a pickle..
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described several times, Pittsburgh has quite a dynamic atmosphere. I’ve always known oceanic weather, given my long occupancy in the archipelago of New York Harbor. Large shifts in dew point and temperature are fairly predictable and play put over hours, given the governing effect on weather systems that is caused by the nearby ocean. Here – big fronts of continental plain origin can just blow through suddenly, and you can observe five different kinds of sky in just an afternoon. River and mountain valleys found next door to the flat lands in Ohio are the cause, or so I’m led to believe.
My plan had been to hang around on a rail bridge spanning over a set of Norfolk Southern rail road tracks, and wait around for a train to come. I fitted the correct lens for that job onto the camera and got busy waiting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve shot here before, and it’s a fairly decent spot where you can actually see the signal lights. Said lights can tell you if and where a train is coming from, once you learn how to read their codes.
That sky though… it was turning a bit ominous and the wind had kicked up significantly. Right about when I shot the exposure test image directly above is when I felt the first drops of rain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An unholy storm broke out suddenly. One found a spot to stand in which there was a bit of tree cover, but once the storm really started whipping around that became a precipitant liability. Within a minute, I was soaked to the skin, except for a patch of my shirt where I was protecting the camera, directly under my chin. My other hand was grasping the umbrella, but the rain was coming down diagonally at the moment that the shot above was gathered so the umbrella wasn’t all that useful.
Sheiste!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The spot I was in was pretty far from anything that could be construed as shelter from the storm, but I used my NYC honed senses to find and occupy a spot between a building wall and a mailbox, and then positioned the umbrella so that it was touching the wall. This kept my torso, and both the camera and the bag, somewhat dry. I whipped out my phone and called for a Lyft ride out, but this was about 5:30 p.m. on a week day so I had quite a wait ahead of me.
Double sheiste!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After getting back to HQ, and by that point the storm had passed and the weather had become unbearably beautiful, I peeled off my soaked clothes and laid out all my possessions to dry. The camera was fine.
Moe the dog was particularly amused by the predicament, and he is pictured above in a moment of his reverie.
Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Lauer Way Steps
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The day which I had picked to visit the Lauer Way steps here in Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes area was at the very end of that crazy heat wave which had plagued the nation for a couple of weeks. A cold front was forecast to blow through later in the afternoon, trailing a powerful line of thunderstorms behind it, and I calculated the timing that would save me from getting wet.
I was totally and absolutely wrong in my calculation, which wouldn’t be the first time that I screwed myself over, but that’s just tomorrow’s post being foreshadowed for you.
After descending down the first section of the Lauer Way steps, there’s a very narrow road cut into the steep hillside which one encounters.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking left, my first thought brought a shudder, as I pondered about having to potentially drive through here. I also wondered how you’d bring a fire engine, garbage truck – or really any large vehicle – through here. Jeez.
Heck, I was thinking about how difficult and nerve wracking it would be to drive my Toyota RAV4 through here, and that my Mobile Oppression Platform really isn’t all that much bigger than a standard car and even then it would be a difficult route to navigate. Brrr.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking in the other direction – and same deal.
I mean… it’s a paved road, and there were fire hydrants and such, so obviously it’s done by someone, but wowza.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The steps continued their downward journey, after a bit of wooden patchwork that had been married to the older steel and concrete dealie.
I was traveling light, I should mention. Prime lenses in the bag, along with my trusty umbrella and the now ubiquitous water bottle. Last time I was weighed in at the doc, I asked them to indulge me and we did one with and one without the camera bag.
Seven and a half pounds in toto, as it turned out, for my ‘bag of prime lenses’ bag configuration, with umbrella and water bottle riding within, as well as the camera strapped onto me separately.
Bare minimum kit, just what I need, most of the time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Lauer Way steps don’t go all the way down to flat land, instead they terminate on a street called ‘Fritz.’ From there, about 3-400 feet of cross scuttling will find you at the last section of the German Square steps, which terminate at a pedestrian bridge over a set of Norfolk Southern rail tracks. As you may have guessed in recent months, rail is a big draw for me, in terms of pointing the camera at something.
That pedestrian bridge is where I was heading while the wind was starting to pick up, and the skies darkened. That cold front was a bit ahead of schedule.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The views from Fritz Street were great. To the left is Pittsburgh’s ‘Downtown’ section, and the red brick section of the shot is the city jail. Instinct found me constantly reaching back to my bag and touching the umbrella. One of my little dealies is to constantly and obsessively check the contents of my pockets and bag to ensure that I haven’t dropped or lost any of the gadgets in the bag, or my keys, or wallet.
A mundane fact I’m quite proud of is that a part of my key ring is the last surviving part of the very first key ring I was presented at 8 or 9 years old by my parents back in Brooklyn. My wallet is a 1983 vintage Levi’s velcro one, purchased at the Gap in Brooklyn’s Kings Plaza shopping mall back in Tenth Grade. I’ve never lost either one, which elicits a somewhat shocked reaction from others. Those little check in’s of mine pay off.
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.
Sicut ambulans hic
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before you ask, the Latin title above means ‘I’m walking here.’ See, I just saved you a Google. I’ve included latin titles this week to make it seem like I’m better educated than I actually am, but it’s all just a ‘Fugazi.’ Often, I’ll intentionally create the impression that I’m dumber than I actually am by mispronouncing words. I’ll say ‘spahtoolah’ instead of ‘spatula,’ as an example. In reality, my intellect is best analogized as being an institutional beige/gray wall with a badly framed picture of a kitten on it which bears the motto ‘What, me worry?’
As you may recall, last Friday’s post ended with a humble narrator mid walk and heading down the roughly 12 stories of ‘City Steps’ that the kids call ‘German Square.’ Well, the kids of the 1920’s at least, but they likely referred to themselves as ‘Kinde’ back then.
My return to this installation was initiated by wanting to impact all of those muscle groups which I had strained and sprained on my first outing – the front of the thigh, sides of the knee, the ligaments between, and those calf muscles which reach down into the top of the foot from the shin, the entire lower back. This is a really good workout for those particularly hard to reach areas, and the views are sick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My inexorable march would lead to one of Pittsburgh’s Light Rail or ‘T’ stations, where I’d board a train and ride out to its terminal stop in South Hills Village – which is a shopping mall complex of some size. It’s not exactly pedestrian friendly where I was heading, and my journey was cloaked in fear and loathing. A Doctor’s appointment awaited me, which was set to address an ‘out of nowhere’ medical condition which has recently asserted itself.
The fear and loathing part involved the nature of the practice itself, which is Ophthalmology. Last time that I visited the Optician to update my glasses prescription, the Doc spotted something worrying and advised me to climb up the eye doctor food chain to a ‘retina guy.’ The retina guy confirmed the condition and after a thorough examination, ordered me to return on the very day these shots were captured, for further examination and possible treatment.
What’s the treatment, asked I?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hypodermic injection into the eye, said the doc. ‘Don’t worry,’ he continued, ‘we’ll anesthetize you.’ I needed to be anesthetized right there, after hearing about that nugget of nightmare fuel.
My friend Steve Bissette (the legendary cartoonist and illustrator) offers a lecture, periodically, which traces the roots of horror in graphic narrative, and presents an overview that begins with the invention of the printing press and passes though the lurid ‘EC comics’ era of the 1950’s, and into the modern era. He categorizes several motifs that have always gotten a rise out of people during this talk.
One is the ‘hand mutilation motif,’ and there’s also the ‘eye mutilation motif.’ Both thema offer a visceral and instinctual reaction from the viewer – it’s deep down monkey stuff.
Thoughts of the ‘Zombie 2’ Lucio Fulchi film (content/trigger warning on that link) thereby assumed a front and center position in a humble narrator’s mind, during the month long interim between my first visit and the one scheduled for later in the day.
Paroxysms of anxiety erupted within, but all I could do was to keep on walking. My fate was binary – it would be ‘either’ or it would ‘or.’ Given that I had zero agency to affect things one way or the other… I couldn’t worry about things outside my control.
More apprehension, and raw existential terror, tomorrow.
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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.
Dispassionate observation
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An errand had carried me out the door quite early in the morning recently, and I found myself killing time between that task and my next ‘have to’ by sitting in the car and talking on the phone with My Pal Val, who’s back in NYC. Suddenly, I said ‘have to hang up, train coming,’ and jumped out of the Mobile Oppression Platform to capture the shot above.
Depicting a Canadian Pacific locomotive engine operating along CSX’s Mon tracks, the shot above is what I got. If you’re reading this, Val, there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The next afternoon, on another fairly warm day, one was negotiating the streets of Allentown on foot. Said community is found amongst the South Side Slopes region. I had left the car at home, and used a cab to get from HQ to here. It’s only a couple of miles, but the hills are ferocious and I’d have to cross a major traffic interchange on foot otherwise, which would frankly be a death defying feat of courage.
As always stated – my physical cowardice is vast, and I must be the least courageous exemplar found amongst all of the living males in these United States. Not wanting to freeze up and or then start crying out of terror and fear, I took a cab.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘It’s all downhill from here’ is an oft retreated phrase of mine, one which all of my friends from NYC dreaded hearing, since it was usually followed by a ten mile death march through an industrial zone. Literally true in this case, this is the apogee of the steep hill upon which Allentown nests, and I’d be heading downhill. There used to be an incline found right in the middle of the shot above, as a note, but it was demolished well before my birth. C’est la vie, huh?
I actually had a limited amount of time allotted for this walk, as I had to attend a Doctor’s appointment, several miles away, later on in the day. I left the car at home as my eyes were going to be chemically dilated to aid in the medical personnel’s examination thereof, and having already made the mistake of trying to drive home after a prior dilation… I’d be calling another cab to return to HQ. There’s a big difference between the dilation effect of an Optician’s chemicals versus the absolute ferocity of an Opthamologist’s formulation.
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.
18th street steps
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As has been mentioned in prior installments, a humble narrator has working his way around Pittsburgh’s inventory of ‘City Steps’ in recent weeks. Serendipity found me standing on the veritable breach of the 18th Street Steps recently, found in Pittsburgh’s ‘South Side Slopes’ section.
Somebody installed a pleasing bit of signage for this pathway, I’d mention, a close up of which you can admire here. The steps enjoy the same status that sidewalks do, as in they’re there for the scuttling public to use.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This set is a bit shallower than the German Square steps that I’ve described in the past, and offer a plunging descent that’s probably no greater than about six building stories.
As the name would indicate, these South 18th street steps deposit pedestrian traffic onto South 18th street in the South Side Flats area. There’s actually something quite magical about these paths, I’d also mention. Hidden corridors, surrounded by lush vegetation and private residential lots, and you don’t have to worry about motor vehicles or bicycles suddenly appearing and smashing into you. Instead you worry about stumbling, but that’s a different banana.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This set of steps ends in a high set structure which winds down to the street level, but what drew me to this particular path was a POV which I had noticed one day while driving through on that street down there. I walked down to a shady patch on the next landing and hung around for a few minutes hoping to see a train moving through.
Oddly, I was experiencing a slight bit of vertigo while walking this section, and thereby held onto the steel bannister while doing 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 