The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

For this scuttle, one used a rideshare cab to drop my pre-corpse off across the street from Pittsburgh’s Union Dale Cemetery, a polyandrion which is itself ‘on my list,’ but tapophilia wasn’t on the menu for this particular day. This area is in the ‘north side’ of the city.

The section which I’d be scuttling through during this effort is dubbed ‘California Kirkbride.’ While moving along the cemetery’s fenceline, a mausoleum demanded my attentions from the other side of a fence.

‘That’s something,’ said a humble narrator. Serendipity, indeed.

George Elsworth Smith died fairly young, but boy oh boy did he live.

Smith was a professional gambler, horses were his thing, and he made his living betting on them. He died young at 42, after having amassed a fortune of more than three million dollars – in 1905 – a sum which would be worth more than one hundred million dollars, in today’s money.

Another professional gambler assigned Smith the nickname ‘Pittsburgh Phil,’ in order to distinguish him from a crowd of other people in their orbit named George Smith.

Apparently, Smith designed his own mausolea, which cost him $30K, and it was ready for him some seven years before he died of tuberculosis. The portrait statue of him on the roof was commissioned by his grieving mother, and added posthumously. The piece of paper clutched in the statue’s hand is a betting slip from a racetrack.

Pittsburgh Phil.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

An effort is underway to visit sections of Pittsburgh which haven’t been considered quite yet, or at least that I haven’t experienced while out on foot. I’ve done a lot of auto based scouting, yes, but as I always say – you can’t see anything from a car because you’re moving too fast. I’ve resumed an old habit, by the way, which is to start recording the street intersection signage while moving around. I often need these ‘bookmarks’ afterwards, to make sense of all the shots and remember exactly where it was that I shot them. Good news is that a non contrived usage for AI has actually appeared, wherein I ask Google’s machine what neighborhood a particular intersection is found within. This is handy, for one such as myself.

California-Kirkbride, which is where the intersection of Brighton Rd. and Ingham Street is found, is another one of those ‘North Side’ Pittsburgh neighborhoods which has a ferocious reputation. ‘Don’t go there, ‘they’ll’ shoot you dead.’ My answer to that last one has become ‘who are ‘they’?,’ ‘what are their names?,’ ‘can we call them?’

Funny thing – wasn’t scary at all – just another residential neighborhood and kind of a lovely one at that.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

See any ‘beater’ cars covered in tarps in the driveway or front yard? Garbage and furniture on the lawn? Old tires? Wooden panels filling the street facing windows? Nope? You’re in an ok section of town then. Relax.

Brighton Road is kind of the ‘main drag’ through here, and it snakes along the masonry retaining walls of that cemetery. Across the street is housing stock that’s quite typical of the sort that Pittsburgh’s post WW2 automobile enabled suburbanization process installed.

‘Dis ain’t no suburb, Mitch, you dumb.’ Actually, if you read up on the history of Astoria, Queens you’ll find out that Astoria was considered a suburb ‘back in the day.’ You’ve got Levittown on your mind when you hear that ‘suburb’ word…

If you’re interested in the history of this sort of residential architecture, and the stories behind its development, check out this 1994 vintage Rick Sebak documentary, from the local PBS outfit (pbs login required).

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’m really going to have to take a hard look at this cemetery sometime…

Pittsburgh Phil was just a lucky find, but I didn’t come all the way over here to just stand around and admire the statuary. One leaned into it, and scuttle scuttle scuttle did I do.

As usual, I had figured out a walking route prior to leaving HQ, as it’s pretty easy to ‘cul de sac’ yourself on Pittsburgh’s hills.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It was pleasant out, weather wise, with temperatures in the middle 50’s and a steady breeze. One had zipped the insulating liner out of his filthy black raincoat, and thereby felt quite ‘bon vivant.’

I was carrying the standard ‘kit’ in my camera bag, wearing the standard ‘Mitch suit,’ and had omitted usage of the headphones as your humble narrator was enjoying all of the bird’s singing and whistling.

You gotta drink up the little stuff, yo.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Yeah, I’ll definitely and really have to take a walk inside of this cemetery sometime…

Meanwhile, I still had miles and miles of scuttle ahead of me. Come with?

Back tomorrow with more.

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