Posts Tagged ‘wreckers’
Scuttling, diagonally
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, your humble narrator was out for a short walk.
Not an exodus, nor a crossing of some hostile desert, this time around it was all familiar territory.
One was loathsomely scuttling down the diagonally cantilevered PJ McArdle roadway, here on the face of Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington. I’ve walked this way several times over the last few years.
That’s the Monongahela Incline, pictured. It’s a funicular railway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Every now and again, one needs to relax a bit, take it easy. Ruminate.
I’ve really been getting around, in the last six months in particular.
A lot of attention has been paid to Pittsburgh’s North Side in the last six months, and to several other ‘zones’ around the city which I have some sort of intellectual interest in. Troy Hill, East Liberty, East Street Valley, Perry Hilltop and the Swindell Bridge, Skunk Hollow, Brighton Heights, lots of new and novel sights for me.
This scuttle was a bit more like visiting a relative’s house, I’d venture.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My day was abbreviated, due to an incoming weather system promising to bring thunderstorms and tornadic warnings to the area. It was quite a nice day at the time I was out and about, climatological wise, otherwise.
Happily, I was wearing a new pair of Merrell hiking boots, after discovering that I had ground my older pair’s soles down to flat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of flat, when I got down to Carson Street, the Via Majorica of the South Side Flats section – a wrecker towing a bus was observed. I whipped the camera forward, and the two guys driving the thing saw me and started vamping for the shot. Sweet.
Me? I wanted to go shoot a picture of a train and also drink a beer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey Now! CSX #3346 shot through the usual spot and satisfied my urge. I had a singular glass of suds, and then walked back towards the T light rail which is about a half mile or so away from this spot.
All told, maybe three miles in total, if we’re stretching it.
Specific ‘leg work’ for the day involved hyperextension of, and stretching the tendons, leading into and out of my ‘bad’ ankle joint while walking downhill. Accomplished mainly via a series of walking postures.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, a ride back to HQ in Dormont on the T light rail, and yet another happy reconciliation with a dog named Moe, and a woman called ‘Our Lady of the Pentacle.’
Back tomorrow with something different.
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long coma
Trucks, trucks, trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moving about as one does, an awful variety of trucks are observed. There are trucks that suck, and trucks that carry. Pictured above is a delivery of automobiles arriving at Northern Boulevard’s “Carridor.” This is a truck which drives cars around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the corner of Meeker and Monitor and at the border of Greenpoint and Bushwick, this rusty number only carries people and a small amount of cargo. A human scale machine if ever there was one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Ash street in Greenpoint, one encountered a truck full of mini tractors. This was a municipal kind of thing, as these tractors were on their way to a NYCHA vehicle maintenance facility. There is nothing human scale about the New York City Housing Authority, of course.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Van Dam Street in Blissville, I found a tow truck of the “wrecker” type with a smaller tow truck on its bed. This was novel, thought a humble narrator, piggybacking one truck onto another. I wondered if the smaller tow truck might have a jack in its cargo compartment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in the Carridor in Queens, a heavy truck was delivering light trucks to a Mercedes dealership one morning. Whimsy demanded that I consider whether or no there might be some of those “Smart” electric mini cars inside the light trucks, but that made my head begin to hurt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, on Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn, a truck that carries ex cars. Its cargo consisted entirely of squished automobiles, which were undoubtedly headed for the SimsMetal pier on the Queens bank of the Newtown Creek.
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