The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Still on Pittsburgh’s Rialto Street today, see yesterday’s post for details on this amazing spot.

For the TLDR crowd: 5th steepest street in Pittsburgh, Route 28 at the bottom with the neighborhood of Troy Hill at the top. The bridge spanning over Rialto Street, visible above, is called the Ley St. Bridge. Steps, ankle, stairs phobia – now you’re all caught up.

Really, scroll back to the Monday post, as I put a bit of work into it.

The shots in today’s post were gathered while moving through here, but didn’t fit into yesterday’s missive.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s neighborhood murals all over Pittsburgh, letting you know that you’re entering a community people call home. The Troy Hill Incline mural on the side of that house is a spectacular example of the sign painter’s art, and fantastic graphic design. The brick building it adorns is a nice example of the sort of homes you might observe up here.

I didn’t wander too far afield, but prior trips through and over Troy Hill have revealed closely sited row houses. Many follow the Philadelphia model, with narrow sidewalks and shared walls. Lots of wood frame construction, and real estate sources suggest that most of the housing up here predates the Second World War.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

In the distance, that’s the 31st Street Bridge, which I’ve walked over several times since moving to Pittsburgh. In addition to highways and high volume roads, a network of rail trails snakes throughout Pittsburgh, which I often exploit. A branch of one of the trails offers egress to that bridge, or to Herr’s Island which is out of sight and down on the Allegheny River. Drivers moving towards the POV above can find connections to the high speed toad Route 28, which allows traffic to hurtle about at highway speeds.

On the other side of the river is Lawrenceville, The Strip District, and there’s street access to both Downtown Pittsburgh and up to Polish Hill.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The shot above shows some ‘very Pittsburghy’ houses. The three story wood frame house seems to need some love and attention, but has strong bones. Just beyond is a home with a bricked porch. The latter is a common adaptation for Pittsburgh’s humid climate which you’ll find in older buildings here, constructed before the age of HVAC and air conditioners. There’s historic apartment buildings all over the place in which each unit has an outdoor space designed to escape the heat.

Yesterday’s post ended at the bottom of Rialto Street, and in that post I promised ‘totally stupid fun’ today.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

OK then, here we are. At the bottom of Rialto Street, at its intersection with Route 28 and the 31st street Bridge. Pretty scary spot for a pedestrian. So, what’s a narrator going to do? Not run across a highway, that’s for sure. Ankle limitations, remember, really can’t ‘run’ right now.

As often stated, when I’m going somewhere for the first time, a bit of time has been spent in Google maps using their ‘street view’ feature to scout. I’ve also driven past this spot a bunch of times, which is how I got so intrigued about the St. Nicholas Trail.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This is actually a bus stop, believe it or not, and that narrow pathway which leads away at more or less the dead bang center of the shot is the St. Nicholas Trail. Looks horrible, doesn’t it?

How can I resist walking down 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.

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

When I describe something as ‘totally stupid fun,’ it usually means that whereas you’re not going to be terribly comfortable during the experience it’s nevertheless something worth doing, at least once.

To wit, a recent endeavor involved visiting Pittsburgh’s Troy Hill neighborhood, and walking down its infamous Rialto Street, whereupon an exploratory walk along the St. Nicholas Trail would occur. This particular scuttle begins here!

Troy Hill sits above an elevated river flood plain, which is currently occupied (since 2011) by a high speed road called Route 28. Largely Catholic German immigrants began to populate this area during the 1830’s and 40’s. Later on in the game, there used to be a concentration of Croatians (from Jastrebarsko) living where Route 28 is today, and they called the area surrounding their St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church ‘Mala Jaska.’ Route 28 was widened and expanded over a long interval, with the project wrapping up in 2011-12, forcing the removal of the church and surrounding homes. At least, that’s what I’ve been able to discern about the situation.

Again, new to Pittsburgh – if I messed the timeline or tale up, please let me know via the comments and I’ll offer corrections.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The neighborhood of Troy Hill itself is fairly lovely, except for a few problematic spots which are sort of ‘crimey.’ The neighborhood is fairly static in terms of residential turnover and housing stock, with most of the homes in the area dating back to the 1940’s or earlier.

Troy Hill sits nearby and above Herr’s Island down at water level on The Allegheny River, and is next door to Millvale. Herr’s Island was where Pittsburgh’s stock yards were once found, and Rialto Street started out as a dirt path set into a ravine which was used to drive herds of pigs to the slaughterhouse found up top on the hill. The nickname ‘Pig Hill’ is actually still used and in fairly common parlance in Pittsburgh today.

Check out this page at brooklineconnection.com for historic photos of Rialto Street.

Rialto Street itself is only 20 feet wide, and is set against the slope of Troy Hill at a 20-24 degree angle. There’s signs saying ‘no trucks’ but trucks and busses routinely get jammed up trying to negotiate Rialto Street.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s ’City Steps’ set along Rialto, placed so in lieu of a sidewalk. The first thing you encounter when starting down these steps is the Ley St. Bridge. It carries a local street over Rialto Street, and your humble narrator felt obliged to walk up that flight of steps and see what I could see from them.

The fifth steepest street in Pittsburgh, Rialto Street is. It ascends some 36 meters, or 118.11 feet – or 10.9 building stories – from the bottom at Route 28 to the top on Troy Hill. It was an easy decision to walk down these steps rather than up.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking back at where the first photo was captured, from up on the Ley Street Bridge. Those Rialto Street steps were difficult walking, even going down, I should mention. The spatial ratio of the rises and runs of these stairs cause you to descend in three step combos, and the same foot (the right sided one) always got stuck with the stepping down motion. My footsteps were thereby bunched up in sets of three, as opposed to four.

Left, right, left – instead of left, right, left, right – Y’know?

I checked with a couple of locals to see if adoption of this three step combo was ‘just me,’ and it wasn’t, as they described the same three step thing and how the staccato rhythm always threw off their stride. It was a good calf workout though, gotta say. I was sore for a couple of days after this scuttle.

I tell’s ya, if you’re spooked by stairs like I am right now (post busted ankle PTSD), Pittsburgh is definitely the place to confront that particular psychic noise and stare it in the eye.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The shot above is still from up on the Ley St. Bridge, looking down towards Rialto Street itself, with Route 28 and the 31st street bridge in the distance. The big bridge leads to Lawrenceville, which I walked through a few weeks ago back. It looks insane, doesn’t it?

Experientially speaking, when driving down Rialto Street, you’re not covering the brake – you’re riding it. My car is a hybrid, so due to the miracle of regenerative braking this pathway really helps me out with free voltage for the battery, but saying all that if you were to pick up enough speed here you will not be able to stop the car in time to avoid bottoming out at the intersection with Route 28.

I’ve seen people wreck their cars (and one semi truck) in this sort of circumstance all over Pittsburgh by not respecting the terrain. Imagine slamming the bottom of the front end of a car against the pavement at 40-50 mph… there’s a reason you see gouges in the asphalt at the bottom of steep hills here.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A few guys shot past me on the steps like I was moving in slow motion, but as I keep mentioning – I’m a bit phobic about stairs at the moment. Broke my left ankle on a set of stairs. Still see flashes of the injury randomly, often when blinking my eyes. Spent two months in a wheel chair, which blinks in every now and agin too. Six months of quite excruciating recovery time. Stairs… brrr…

I’m subjecting myself to some self guided exposure therapy, basically, as the milquetoast and well mannered younger generations would refer to it. Me? I’m from Brooklyn, so I just remind myself to ‘stop being an asshole and get on with your shit already. Nobody cares.’ Still can’t go down stairs without clutching onto the bannister though. I mean death gripping the thing, not holding it, actually. It’s autonomic.

This post ends at the bottom of Rialto Street, but tomorrow’s post will share a few more shots captured along this extraordinary stretch of the viae publicae.

More ‘totally stupid fun’ tomorrow – 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.