Posts Tagged ‘south side slopes’
Don’t worry, it’s all downhill from here
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My latest inquiries into the urban milieu of Pittsburgh involved a roadway path referred to as either ‘South 18th street’ or the ‘South 18th street extension.’ According to the fairly excellent ‘Pittsburgh Streets’ site, this pathway was originally called Meadow Street in its lower section (as of 1869), with the upper section referred to as the ‘Brownsville Plank Road’ until it was renamed as the ‘South 18th street extension’ in 1881.
Me?
As it happened, opportunity saw your humble narrator driving through here about a week ago while avoiding a traffic situation, and it was decided that I’d like to walk through and see what I could see. The virtue that this sort of street offers is its long slope, which allows one to access the otherwise difficult to exercise musculature in the front of the thigh, specifically the large triangular muscles connecting to the hip. It also really works the calf muscles on the sides of the legs, this sort of slope. In both cases, my long recovery from the broken ankle has seen muscular atrophy set in and I needed a workout, even one that’s only a few miles long.
Off we go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First stop involved a quick scuttle into St. Michael’s Catholic Cemetery. I’m notoriously a fan of such mortuary polyandrions, but this was the start of what’s currently a long walk for me and I didn’t want to spend my ‘ankle doesn’t hurt right now’ time in this particular pursuit. It’s a fairly large property, and I intend on returning when I’m behind the wheel of the Mobile Oppression Platform, a Toyota.
Saying that… what? I’m in a cemetery and not getting any shots in?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yep, there’s a view. I’ll be back sometime soon when time is propitious.
Regardless, one leaned into the scuttle and started down a fairly steep hill, down towards the South Side Flats section which South 18th street leads to.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A series of sharp turns awaits drivers on South 18th. My problem, however, involved the actual quality of the substrate I was walking on, but that’s why I chose this path. I won’t be regaining any agility or strength by walking on level carpeted floors, it’ll be by walking on pavers, and broken sidewalks, and weirdly angled pedestrian paths which cause my legs to flex in different ways on each step. A real obstacle course is what I was looking for, and I found it.
The terrain here is extremely steep, with hilltops breaking off suddenly and offering sheer cliff faces which drop off 50-100 feet. Recently. I learned that – on average – 28 people a year die in Pittsburgh from falling off cliffs. Whenever I’m marveling at the terrain, the Pittsburgh natives just kind of yawn. I explain that I’m from a place near the ocean, with neighborhoods called ‘Flatbush,’ and ‘Flatlands.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For most of this walk, I was the lone pedestrian. Every now and then, you’d spot somebody getting out of a car, or throwing out the trash.
One thing I had to be careful about was not picking up speed while walking down this sharply graded street. Have to keep on reminding myself that I’m not out of the woods yet, nor as capable as I am normally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I kept on keeping on, heading down hill. Obviously a great deal easier than walking uphill (that’s this summer at the earliest), nevertheless I was ‘feeling the burn’ after just the first mile of my downhill scuttle.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
Cola Street
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Circumstance recently found your humble narrator on Pittsburgh’s Cola Street, where one of the City’s more eye catching residences (302 Cola Street, well described in this post from brooklineconnection.com) is found. Colloquially referred to as ‘the colors house,’ #302 is an eye catcher which you can’t help but notice while transiting through the central part of Pittsburgh.
I couldn’t help myself from activating the car’s hazard lights and then waving the camera around for a bit. What a view.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The enigmatic #302 is pictured above, but I didn’t want to dwell on it overly as one of its residents was busy doing spring cleaning and I didn’t want to violate their privacy. Apparently, the architect of the building is the owner and this build was a dream home for the family.
I’ll tell you this, it’s impossible not to notice the #302 from anywhere in Pittsburgh that you’ve got a view of the Monongahela River and Mount Washington. In a sea of green, brown, and gray it’s an eye catcher.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It took a bit of hunting in the archives to find this shot, from a 2023 walk on the PJ McArdle roadway, a local road cantilevered against the face of Mount Washington on a diagonal. That little grouping of homes is Cola Street, and the ‘colors house’ is seen on the left.
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.
Fastigio ad plana
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One made his way over to the South Side Slopes section of Pittsburgh, and decided to visit a set of interesting city steps, called the ‘Church Route,’ recently. Exercise day was upon me, once again, and whereas it was quite warm out – the atmosphere was nearly tolerable. It’s been quite and uncomfortably humid here.
This section of Pittsburgh currently fascinates, and perplexes, me. It’s incongruous, chaotic, and yet makes absolutely perfect sense at the same time. It reminds me of the landscapes in Crete, and Thera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator started down the Church Route steps (I’ve been down this route before, back in June – see here and here), hopeful that a quirk of lucky timing might result in the appearance of trains on the Norfolk Southern tracks below. No good fortune resulted, but I was out for a walk and not a ‘stand around,’ so the scuttling continued downward and onto the South Side Flats below.
No real destination had been predetermined, except that I would end up being that brewery next door to the train tracks which I’ve been very lucky with getting CSX locomotive photos at. More on that in a future post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was still had a bit of distance to cover, however, and one had resolved in advance to only inhabit spaces alien to experience.
In other words, streets I hadn’t walked down before. I’ve got a lot of that sort of thing going on at the moment. Regardless… it was exercise day, gotta keep moving. Man, it was humid…
Gotta see if I can get inside that church one of these days…
“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.
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.
“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.
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.
“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.
