Posts Tagged ‘The T’
Heading into town
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was time for my weekly ‘long walk,’ the sort which sees me scuttling along for 15-20,000 steps over several hours. I don’t wear a Fitbit or anything like that to keep track of my walks, rather I just check the iPhone health app and see what it says after I return to HQ. It’s not a terribly accurate count, but some sort of metric is better than nothing at all, and it really doesn’t matter all that much in the end anyway.
Pictured is a street in the town I’m living in, Dormont. The car Mobile Oppression Platform was left at home this time around, and a humble narrator was heading for the Pittsburgh light rail service known as “The T.” It’s a bit of a drag, I’d mention, getting ‘up’ to the tracks, as I live way down at the bottom of that hill pictured above. There’s a less severe hill to walk up which gets you to the high ground ridge line which the T tracks are on, but that’s Pittsburgh for ya. Also, the point of this exercise is actually ‘exercise,’ so… scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Service on the T is fairly frequent, more so during the ‘rush’ periods as you’d imagine, but you’re seldom waiting more than 20-25 minutes for your ride. This one is coming from Pittsburgh, whereas I was waiting on one that’s going ‘to.’ One weird thing about their setup here revolves around fare collection. You pay when you board the Pittsburgh bound service, and pay when you’re exiting for the away from Pittsburgh route. Apparently, there’s a zone system built into the operation, but Dormont is far enough from the center that you pay full fare anyway. Once you’re in the actual center of town, the service runs free between Station Square and the North Side terminal stops.
As a note, the sky in Pittsburgh was positively boiling and cascading about on this particular day. I have been putting a bit of effort into finding the right photographic exposure settings for capturing the dynamism of these Pittsburgh sky in recent months.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The climate is very different here than the one I’ve always known back in NYC. It could be 90 degrees with an 80 percent dew point at 3 in the afternoon, but 8 hours later it’s 60 degrees with a 30 percent dew point. The clouds positively boil over sometimes, after churning about, and when they finish dumping out moisture for an hour you’ll suddenly get glorious blue skies, golden light, and cotton ball cloud formations. An hour later and the sky is black with thunderstorms. Also, there’s actual forest cover laced into the City, meaning that the ‘urban heat island effect’ doesn’t seem to be as big a factor here as it was ‘back in the old neighborhood.’
At any rate, my carriage had arrived, and it was time to get onboard and head into the City of Pittsburgh. Here’s a bit of trivia – when you see blue street signs with white/knock out lettering, you’re in Pittsburgh – as in ‘The City of…’
Back tomorrow, lords and ladies.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Scuttlin along, peaceful and calm
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A friend from the ‘old neighborhood’ who was visiting with us had headed home to NYC the night before, and ‘exercise day’ reared its head again. A humble narrator crawled up the hills here in Dormont, where HQ is found, and boarded the Light Rail service which is known as ‘The T.’ I was headed into Downtown Pittsburgh.
Unlike NYC, which is flat, in Pittsburgh you need to have some sort of plan for a walk lest you find yourself walking up incredibly steep hills and then back down the other side into a valley where you inevitably hit another steep hill which needs climbing. There’s exercise day, and then again, there’s a forced march. I don’t do forced marches unless I have to. Hence ‘a plan.’ It started with the T Light Rail, pictured above.
The so called ‘Golden Triangle’ Downtown area of Pittsburgh is a river delta, so – sort of flat. That means I can wander about without a plan and see what wants to be seen. Always a wandering mendicant, I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I debarked the T at the Station Square stop on the southern shoreline of the Monongahela River and scuttled across the Smithfield Street Bridge.
One wasn’t carrying a full kit, rather I had outfitted myself for a ‘photowalk’ and had zero intentions of getting artsy or fartsy with filters or tripods. The point of the effort involved kicking my feet about and burning off some calories while getting the ticker to tick at an elevated but not too elevated rate for a set period of time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is an absolutely surprising amount of port activity here in Pittsburgh. Lots of tugs. Supposedly, it’s possible to navigate to both the Great Lakes (Erie) and the Mississippi River from here. For reference, Pittsburgh is more or less 400 miles away and about 1,000 feet up from where you’ll notice the ocean.
Back tomorrow, as always.
“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.
Old fashioned
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That Porta Potty in the shot above might actually be a Tardis, used by a Time Lord like Doctor Who to travel through time and space. At least that’s what it looks like to me. The rubble used to be a cold storage warehouse which is in the process of demolishment, but there’s a stoppage at the site currently since the process has destabilized buildings on neighboring lots. Guess what they’re going to build here? Yup, ‘affordable housing.’
After the Doors Open tour we attended, which allowed us access to a few amazing spots including two very interesting Roman Catholic Churches, it was time to head home. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had left the Mobile Oppression Platform (the Toyota) back at HQ and were traveling ‘to and from’ using the T Light Rail system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After negotiating our way on foot to one of the T stations in Downtown Pittsburgh, we had about a 15 minute interval to wait before we boarded. The T runs off a catenary wire when it’s outside, but I think it uses a third rail shoe underground. The service is fairly frequent, even on the weekends, and there are multiple lines. It costs $2.75 to get back and forth from HQ.
Seriously, I’m absolutely loving having a car, especially one with a hybrid engine that regularly clocks in at 39 mpg while I’m living in a City where ‘all day parking’ costs something between $6 and $9, but there are days when I’d rather cut my head off than drive. The availability of transit is one of the factors that drove our choice of location regarding HQ here in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Red Line T arriving at the station. Notice the absence of garbage on the tracks, the lack of graffiti, and that nothing is dripping mystery sludge onto the platforms, and also the complete absence of pizza rats. Old ladies sat on a bench chatting while waiting for their train, without a care in the world. Nobody’s head was ‘on a swivel,’ except mine.
I used to always refer to NYC as ‘Home Sweet Hell’ in a joking matter. I don’t smile anymore when saying that.
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.
Where, when, what, why, and how
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welcome to the penultimate post to come out of a fantastic afternoon’s walking experience in Pittsburgh. This one began when a humble narrator debarked the T light rail at its terminal stop on the City’s North Side and marveled at a series of on-ramps. I had crossed the triangle, and was midway across the Liberty Bridge on my way back to another T station on the South Side of the Monongahela River at Station Square.
Thereby, that’s the ‘where.’
The light was absolutely fantastic. It was the 25th of April, a Tuesday. At just about 5 p.m., so that’s the ‘when.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ‘what’ is a little more complicated, but suffice to say that a bit of a constitutional walk was required. As is my habit, the camera was clutched in my hand. This walk saw me bring a lens out of retirement, my Sigma 18-300mm. It’s a ‘crop sensor’ lens, meaning that on my ‘full frame’ camera, I’d be throwing away about 35% of the image and making minor sacrifices in terms of image quality here and there.
Saying that, I’ve really missed this ‘one lens to rule them all’ kind of setup. It’s really nice to be able to go wide to telephoto without having to fiddle about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘Why’ I was using this piece of glass is simple, or rather its simplicity. When I moved my camera operations over from the trusty Canon 7D which I’d been carrying for about a decade to the R6 Mirrorless model I now use, most of my collection of lenses went into the cabinet along with the 7D body. The new camera uses the ‘RF’ Mount, which Canon has not licensed any Third Parties like Sigma to manufacture for. Canon is obviously trying to make as much as they can off we users, but…
Whereas most of the RF glass Canon has released is kind of miraculous, it’s also set at price points that would make even Apple blush. Even worse, most of the stuff they’ve been putting out is aimed squarely at a) wedding and portrait and b) sports photographers. I really don’t need a 6 pound, 13 inch long 100-300mm lens that costs $9,500 to do Newtown Pentacle and if I did need that sort of reach/capability for a gig or something – I’d rent it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘How’ is fairly easily accomplished on the R6, you just change the crop settings in one of the menus and the camera does the rest. I can also shoot squares, or HD TV formatted images using that menu. I have a few ‘native lenses’ that I use all the time which are RF mount – a 24-105mm, a 35mm, and an 85mm. I’ve got an extremely old 70-300mm consumer level lens which I attach to the camera via the usage of an adapter – the same thing I use for any of my EF mount lenses. The 70-300 is pretty unreliable though, and it’s autofocus was crap out of the box when I bought it years ago. After a piss poor performance by the thing recently, I decided that when I need the extra reach or it’s just a ‘photowalk day’ when I’m not trying to get all artsy fartsy the far more reliable Sigma is my ‘go-to.’
That’s the Panhandle Bridge which the T is riding on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been riding this T service a lot, especially on days when I want to keep all my options open. Maybe stop at a bar & inhale a pint, that sort of thing. Stuff I can’t do when I’m driving, basically. Also, I really don’t want to be a ‘car guy’ all the time. Gotta keep scuttling.
Also, as I’ve been quoted saying a million times: ‘you can’t see anything when you’re inside of a vehicle. Even a bike is moving too fast. You need to walk in Cities. Feel them, catch their vibe.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The icing on my photowalk cake was finally finding a POV for the Norfolk Southern tracks, which is from the Liberty Bridge. I’ll admit to stopping my forward movement for about 15 minutes, and nearly jumping for joy when I heard it coming from the other side of the tree line. These tracks are on a shelf carved into Mount Washington. I’ve gotten shots from the ground of this scene which I’ve shown y’all in the past.
I feel like I’m starting to catch the vibe here now. 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.
North, Miss Teschmacher, north!
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My current walkie walkie schedule revolves around having a couple of days a week wherein I leave the car back at HQ and head ‘into town’ via the T Light Rail system. The T is an electrically driven street car which operates off of a catenary system. Usually, they run two car train sets, but occasionally – particularly during Steelers or Pirates games – you’ll see the service offer a three car setup. It’s an odd system inasmuch as you pay your zone based fare differently depending on where you’re going. In the downtown ‘zone,’ or if you’re a Senior Citizen, it’s actually a free ride. Otherwise, you pay when boarding if you’re going into the ‘City,’ or when debarking if you’re heading away from it. This sort of thing is something you’re just expected to know.
Pittsburgh has a lot of ‘vernacular’ built into its culture. People will say something like ‘I’ll see you at Smith’s at 8.’ The presumption is that you know what and where that something is, since such knowledge is second nature and familiar to all the Yinzers. It’s the same thing with transit. Of course you know and understand the system, so why erect signage or anything? I think this might be why the amazing culture, food, and circumstances here are practically unknown in the rest of the Northeast. It is such an interesting place to live, this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator rode the T to its terminal stop on the ‘North Side’ of Pittsburgh, which is found across the Allegheny River and at the doorsteps of the Steelers stadium. It used to the Heinz Stadium, but a company called Acrisure recently secured naming rights to the place. Most of the Pittsburghers I’ve spoken to use ‘Heinz’ still.
It was a beautiful day – sweatshirt weather, as I call it – and after riding the T to the North Side station one began to scuttle forth. The loose path I had laid out for myself was going to be a fairly long one, and I would end up walking most of the T’s path through the center of the City and crossing both the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers on foot.
It was actually quite a productive day, in the end. I had a nice time, too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve always had a fascination for the massing shapes of elevated trackways and vehicular ramps, and the way that they interact with the cubic massing shapes of surrounding buildings in urban environments. On the right is the back door of the Steelers stadium, and the curvilinear shape on the left is the trackway of the T. This is on the north side of Pittsburgh, in what used to be a separate municipality called Allegheny City which was annexed early in the 20th century.
Getting back to that ‘vernacular thing,’ the North Side is one of those terms which carries a lot of implied meaning for the folks who grew up here. I can’t describe to you what that meaning is, but when I told a neighbor that I spent a bit of time walking around the North Side, their eyes narrowed and I was admonished to be careful. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
For any of you who aren’t devotees of comic book movies, here’s the reference behind the title of today’s post.
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 