– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part eight.

This is the last post in this series, which began up in the Perry South section nearby the Swindell Bridge here in Pittsburgh. We then followed Perrysville Avenue to the Federal Street Extension, got some rail shots at Allegheny Commons Park, and here we are – crossing the Allegheny River on the way to ‘the train.’

I’d be heading back to HQ in nearby Dormont, and using the T light Rail to do so.

As you may have noticed, I’m a bit of an enthusiast for the light rail service, which makes me stand out a bit here in Pittsburgh. People would rather spend $25 on a cab to ‘get into and out of town’ than $2.75 on the train. Weird.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Slow Danger!

That’s the worst kind of danger.

My ‘dogs were barking’ by this stage of things, but ‘push, push, push.’ Back and shoulders were a bit sore as well. I was thirsty, and concerned about the future.

All told, this ended up being a 7ish mile long walk. The path got my heart beating quickly a few times, surmounting hills and such, and the goal of ‘hitting the fronts of the thighs and hips’ on downward slopes was accomplished. I’m still regaining strength and endurance – post broken ankle ‘orthopedic incident’ – and ‘downhill’ is currently my jam.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One made it to the ‘other side,’ onto the central peninsula of Pittsburgh.

I would have boarded the T on the North Side if it wasn’t for all of the NFL Draft preparations. Bah!

It was decided that the Gateway Station was likely the closest one to my physical location, and one headed there.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This is one of the underground ‘subway’ style stops on the T light Rail. It’s built into an old freight train tunnel.

I used the elevator rather than the stairs, because…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Brutalism meets 1980’s style ‘modern,’ that’s how I’d describe this station’s esthetic. One of the odd things about the T system is that few of the stations look anything like the next one.

Sure… there’s similar stainless steel accents, signage, and primary color plastic panels… but Gateway doesn’t look like Station Square, which doesn’t look like First Avenue, which doesn’t look like South Hills Junction, which doesn’t look like Washington Junction… you get the idea.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Finally, my chariot was arriving, and the ride back to HQ..

Back next week, with something different.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part seven.

That’s the same Norfolk Southern train seen in yesterday’s post, transiting over Pittsburgh’s Merchant Street Bridge, on the city’s North Side. There’s been a decent number of bridges seen during this scuttle, huh?

When these shots were gathered, specifically on the 9th of April, a great tumult had seized Pittsburgh, in advance of the forthcoming NFL Draft event. Workers were everywhere; obliterating graffiti, painting things, filling potholes, etc., and a large number of street closures here on the North Shore, where the Draft would play out, were enacted. Lots and lots of wind blown garbage was collected, from both highways and river fronts/

The powers that be called it ‘the immaculate collection.’

Even we happy pedestrians were ejected from our tenancy over the sidewalks during this interval, on these affected streets, and many detours were introduced.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Now, this pathway which the ‘detour’ signage directed me towards is one that is commonly transited by scores of people, but there are explicit ‘Private Property’ and separate ‘no trespassing’ signboards seen all over the place back here.

In accordance with my normal policy of respecting that sort of thing, I’ve not walked through here once during all of my scuttles. There’s a proper ‘street’ path you can take instead, which is actually a lot more direct, so why trespass if you don’t need to?

This time – though – the government’s signage people were telling me to trespass, so… gotta follow the law, right?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Some members of the Urbex crowd think me timid. That’s ok, but I don’t have a Police record. You?

I’ve got a lot of ‘rules’ based on lived experience.

The ‘youngins’ don’t remember when packs of wild dogs prowled around in Brooklyn, for instance, but I do. Don’t want to mess with the junk yard dogs, and the Mafia isn’t just a thing in the movies. It’s real.

Just the other day, during a scuttle which I’ll be discussing in a few posts from this one, I turned a corner and saw some guy dancing around with a knife in his hand behind a building, and near a waterway that I was interested in grabbing a shot of. ‘Noped’ out of that one, right quick.

When you spend your time in potentially dangerous places, you’ll often meet potentially dangerous people.

Also, yes – the Newtown Pentacle time warp is still in effect – as I’d really been ‘hitting the bricks’ and ranging all over the place in March and April.

As stated above, these shots were gathered on the 9th of April, and the posts are being written on the 27th of that same month. If I’ve got my scheduling right, you’re reading this in early June.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

So… this was the pedestrian detour path.

It’s running through one of the ‘overflow’ parking lots nearby the stadiums. The ramps above are a combination of Route 28 and the various bridge ramps that it feeds into.

The big wall on the left is a rail berm, carrying tracks which lead back to the Merchant Street Bridge, and that rail trench in Allegheny Commons Park, and eventually back to the Conway Rail Yard and beyond. Whew.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This area is regularly transited by street people, which is something I can report from observation. It ‘ain’t so nice’ under these ramps, lots of highway noise, and you can observe little piles of ‘precipitant’ from auto exhaust soot which is lurking everywhere. Blech!

This shot looks back at where I was.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One got to walk through a decent amount of that sooty zone under the highways before sunlight began factoring back in. An Allegheny Valley RR unit was just idling up on the tracks, for a long while. I hung around to see if anything was going to happen and then got bored.

Back tomorrow with the end of this one.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part six.

After walking down from Federal Street, here in Pittsburgh, and then through a section of the Mexican War Streets neighborhood, your humble narrator soon found himself loathsomely occupying a two cubic meter patch of the space at Allegheny Commons Park.

They’ve got a manmade lake in there, dubbed ‘Lake Elizabeth.’

I was just passing through, on my way to a rail trench which bisects the park. This is a cool location for railfanning, and there’s usually a few guys (it’s always guys, you don’t meet many lady rail fans, or at least I don’t) sticking a lens through the fences here. I’m often one of these guys.

That horrible thing with the camera, over there, too terrible to behold – that’s me.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Hey Now!

Norfolk Southern’s #4309 appeared. It was a train. That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter.

Also, I very nearly fumbled these shots, due to being a clumsy idiot.

I’d spend the rest of the afternoon in a broad ranging self critique after nearly fumbling them, as that’s all it takes to set me off into a spell.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One of the ‘things’ which you have to manage, when wandering about American Cities with a camera, are the various straps, pouches, and cases that the ‘gear’ lives in. It’s important to pat down your pockets periodically to ensure that everything – lens caps, etc. – are where you think they are. A little bit of ‘OCD’ is actually helpful.

I was right in the middle of doing all that when this train showed up, which meant that I had to position the camera and set the exposure triangle in just under a second or two to ‘catch the shot.’

Whew!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One moved to another position, on the bridge which carries local streets over these trenched tracks in the park, and another Norfolk Southern train appeared, heading in the opposite direction to the former one.

Hey Now!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Your humble narrator was ‘enroute’ to a light rail station where a ride back to HQ awaited, and given the peculiarities of Pittsburgh’s street layouts and river crossings, the path that brought me here is one which I commonly transit through.

Lucky for me, this train trench turns this ‘zone’ into what I call ‘a feature rich environment.’

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I still can’t run, but I did ‘quick step’ across the bridge to other side to get a shot of the train’s transit. Black minerals, likely coal or coke.

Back tomorrow with the penultimate steps of this scuttle.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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“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.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part five.

Yet another abandoned residential building, seen on Pittsburgh’s North Side, and captured while mid scuttle on a medium length walk. That blue sticker on the door is what a Pittsburgh condemnation notice looks like.

Much of the building stock in this ‘zone’ miraculously avoided demolition, during two 20th century seismic waves of urban renewal, which ravaged nearby blocks and neighborhoods. The ‘zone’ used to be part of a separate municipality called Allegheny City, which Pittsburgh annexed at the start of the 20th century.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Having written about the Borough of Queens back in NYC, endlessly documenting how the warnings of LIC’s last Mayor – Patrick ‘Battle Axe’ Gleason – that ‘if the Manhattan people ever get a hold of us, the first thing they’ll do is export all their dirty industries to LIC’ – played out.

Looking around LIC, at the Midtown Tunnel, and the LIE, and the train yards that serve Manhattan and not Queens, and the waste transfer stations and the rendering plants and… and… yeah, we can state that Gleason was right in his assessment.

A similar process played out in Pittsburgh. Need a highway? North Side. Prison? North Side.

Now… here’s where some ‘nitty gritty’ that I’m not a hundred percent sure about begins to come into play. I was cutting down what turned out to be Eloise Street. Eloise is a bit more of an alley than it is a street, but what I was wondering was ‘am I in the Mexican War Streets historic district?’ I used to be able to point to the exact border between Astoria and Woodside or Sunnyside, so this sort of pedantry means a lot to me.

According to Google AI:

• The Mexican War Streets in Pittsburgh’s Central Northside is a historic district renowned for its restored 19th-century Victorian row houses and tree-lined streets. Developed in the 1840s, the area features streets named after Mexican-American War battles and figures, including Buena Vista and Monterey. It is a vibrant residential neighborhood, featuring community gardens, the Mattress Factory art museum, and proximity to Allegheny Commons.
• Key Aspects of the District
• Location: Situated in the Central Northside, adjacent to Allegheny Commons, and within walking distance to Downtown.
• Architecture: Characterized by restored late Victorian, Greek Revival, and Italianate row houses, often with unique architectural details.
• History: Originally the “Buena Vista Tract,” the neighborhood was developed for residential use in the mid-19th century and is recognized for its successful urban preservation efforts in the 1970s.
  

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The ‘main drag’ is a block away, and facing Allegheny Commons Park. There’s retail businesses there, and that hospital which you see on the HBO TV show ‘The Pitt.’ Medical offices, retail businesses, one truly great pizza joint. It’s nice.

Me?

I don’t navigate through this section often, as I’m usually moving a lot closer to the river, and I generally tend to avoid residential streets. It’s never good if- the humans notice me slopping along, and pointing a camera at their homes.

Additionally, driving wise, it wouldn’t make sense to interact with these narrow streets unless you had to. One scuttled along, with the eventual goal of connecting to the T Light Rail, for a ride back to HQ at the end of this walk.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Interesting housing stock, have to say. ‘Disturbingly heterogeneous’ is how I’d describe what’s on display. Again – just like Western Queens.

This area is easy walking, as a note. Mostly flat.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s quite few ‘gems’ back in here, and this is quite a desirable neighborhood to live within, if you can afford it. It’s a bit more ‘urban’ than I’d want these days, but when we were moving out here from NYC nearly four years ago, this neighborhood was actually one of the places we considered living.

Thing is, I’ve got a strong desire not to share a wall with anyone anymore.

This is something realized when end stage planning the move from Astoria, and it’s why we ended up in ‘the burbs.’

I don’t have to worry about the old lady/cat hoarder who lived next door to me in Astoria having a fire anymore, or why the common wall we shared with her was always wetly bulging in from her side. Nor am I still concerned about my upstairs neighbor falling asleep while drunk, forgetting that she was deep frying something on the stove (same neighbor once fired up a BBQ – in the house). Nor do I have a bookie pulling up in front of my house at seven in the morning, every day, yelling ‘Mario, where’s my money, Mario,’ anymore.

Haven’t had a roach or a mouse randomly turn up in the house for nearly 40 months, either. That’s a record for this ex-New Yorker.

Yeah, there’s a lot of things I don’t miss…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That one is a beauty, I tell’s ya. Turns out it’s all kinds of historic.

According to Google AI:

The cottages located at the intersection of Resaca Place and Eloise Street (formerly known as Civil Alley) in the Mexican War Streets Historic District are classic examples of the neighborhood’s mid-to-late 19th-century architecture.

• Architectural Features Scale and Material: Most homes in this area are approximately 20 feet wide and two stories high, constructed primarily of brick, though some rare wood-frame structures exist.
• Design Styles: The district showcases a mix of styles, predominantly Italianate and Second Empire, characterized by ornate woodwork, stone or marble fireplaces, and high ceilings.
• Independence: Unlike row houses in other cities that were built as unified blocks, these cottages were often constructed independently, leading to subtle variations in height and detail between neighbors.
• Neighborhood Context Historic Significance: The streets were named by William Robinson Jr. in 1847 to commemorate battles and generals of the Mexican-American War (e.g., Resaca de la Palma).
• Preservation: Saved from demolition in the 1970s by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, many of these cottages have been meticulously restored from a state of disrepair into “refined beauties”.
• Layout: The district is known for its walkable, tree-lined streets and narrow alleyways like Eloise Street, which often house smaller carriage houses or modest cottages originally intended for workers or as auxiliary structures.

  Back tomorrow with more.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part four.

Continuing with an interesting walk, from the Perry Hilltop section down to Pittsburgh’s North Shore along the Allegheny River. See last week’s posts for predicate and other details. This section of the walk was headed down Perrysville Avenue, towards the Federal Street Extension.

My ‘spidey sense’ for danger operates at historically acute levels these days, since I still cannot run due to the ongoing after effects of the orthopedic incident, but given that I was feeling happy and secure with zero worries – I decided to pop the headphones in to the ear holes for this section of the scuttle.

The weather had been uneven here, one day cold and the next hot.

This was a warm but breezy day, and I was wearing shorts with a cotton hoodie sweatshirt up top. A new camera bag that I’ve acquired is working out, although there’s a couple of modifications I need to make.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A few weeks ago, frequent commenter George the Atheist asked if ‘all I do is walk around.’ My answer was no, but what I specifically write about here revolves around my long walks. If the question was ‘do I enjoy doing anything besides walking around thusly,’ my answer would be ‘no.

I’ve hit that stage of life where everything just sucks. Restaurant meal? We could have done better for less at home. I don’t want to sit in a movie theater, attend a live concert, or see a play. I’ve become incapable of playing along with a conversation I’m disinvested in. Particularly so if the topic revolves around some kind of sportsball competition. Patience is not something I do anymore. If you’re boring me, I’m out, and I’m easily bored.

I’m more interested in what Boeing or Raytheon is doing than I am in following news about professional athletes, or anything like that.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I was never a sports kid.

Played a few games with the kids on the block, but soon discovered that ‘I ain’t no athlete.’ Your humble narrator was always a comics and sci-fi nerd instead. Want to talk about Federation’s ‘First Contact’ protocols? How about the macro economics of the Star Wars Galaxy?

If you told twenty year old me what nearly sixty year old me gets up to, I wouldn’t have believed it. That long haired angry kid didn’t make many good decisions, and unfortunately neither does the gray haired and somewhat less angry old man that now wears the same but quite scarred up skinvelope. I like to think that what I get up to now is kind of fun.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This route had quite a few abandoned structures along the way, which were incontrovertibly sitting between occupied residential structures, ones that were obviously maintained with love and attention. So weird.

As mentioned during prior posts about Pittsburgh’s North Side, what I’m seeing here is aftermath. This ‘zone,’ I’m led to understand, used to be territory, fought over by local ‘entrepreneurs’ during the crack era.

Things are a lot quieter and safer up here than they used to be, I’m led to believe.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s a public housing project along this route, so maybe that’s why this area seems to host so many abandoned or shut-up homes due to the blighting effect of reputation. As a former New Yorker, the idea that a house or property could just sit there empty, less than a couple of miles from the center of the city… it’s madness.

For yet another Brooklyn analogy, this part of the street that I was scuttling down might be analogized as being a lot like Pittsburgh’s ‘Nostrand Avenue.’ It almost makes it to the ‘center,’ but not quite.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The Federal Street Extension path becomes just plain ‘Federal Street’ where the ground begins to flatten out a bit.

My plan for the day involved breaking off this particular route, as Federal Street’s route ends in about a half mile – and then wandering for a bit – following my nose as it were.

More tomorrow.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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“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.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part three.

Perrysville Avenue, in the ‘Perry Hilltop’ section of the larger Perry South neighborhood in Pittsburgh, is pictured above.

The ‘Perry’ in that ‘naming convention’ is Matthew Calbraith Perry, aka Commodore Perry. He secured the Commodore rank when he was the commanding officer of what we would call the Brooklyn Navy Yard in modernity, back on the East River in NYC.

Famously, Perry fought in the war of 1812, the Mexican-American war in 1845, and ‘opened’ the Ports of Japan to American Mariners, via the usage of ‘gunboat diplomacy.’

Perry’s career would likely be described by members of the Millennial generation as being ‘deeply problematic.’ To others, he’s the epitome of national service and was considered a hero during his lifetime. Perry is also considered to be the ‘father of the steam Navy.’

Anyway, Perry South…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Another one of the Pittsburgh neighborhoods that causes no end of apprehension for the locals, this area hosts a fantastic amount of residential architecture predating the 20th century, and is set against a steep hill that leads down to the ‘flat’ flood plain areas surrounding the river which were once the center of an early 20th century annexed municipality called Allegheny City.

In a tale that reminds me a great deal of the one I used to tell about Queens, and Manhattan, and NYC Consolidation, after the annexation things went great for Pittsburgh, but not so great for Allegheny City.

Pittsburgh got historic preservation, and the North Side got urban renewal, and then the highways into Pittsburgh were rammed right through its neighborhoods and cultural centers. Churches, cemeteries, they gotta go, we need highway ramps.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The original path through here is described as having originally been a plank (or Corduroy) road. That’s when you jam cut lumber into the mud, or you create raised timber bridges overflying boggy soils or flowing water. This plank road was barely sufficient for horse drawn wagons, let alone early motor vehicles. After the annexation by Pittsburgh, the plank road was taken out of those private hands which built it – and who also charged a toll – and Pittsburgh ‘normalized’ the route into mapped and ‘macadamized’ streets.

As the road heads up the hill, away from the ‘center’ near Allegheny Commons Park, it is first called ‘Federal Street,’ then ‘Federal Street Extension,’ and it finally transmogrifies into Perrysville Avenue, which then continues on its course to the north and west for a spell.

These shots in today’s post are from the area where ‘Perrysville Avenue’ becomes the ‘Federal Street Extension.’

To continue with my Queens analogy, Jackson Avenue starts in LIC, then becomes Northern Blvd. at Queens Plaza, it continues as such through all of Queens, and then enters Nassau County as Route 25a. It terminates some 73 miles east of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, in Suffolk County. Federal Street/Perrysville Avenue, thereby, is basically a low core Northern Blvd.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There are some absolutely spectacular properties up here. Wow.

There’s also public housing projects and a few apartment buildings with modern stylings. This ‘zone’ has a fierce reputation, as intoned above.

As usual, though, I was the only pedestrian – although a few automobiles and work trucks were observed scooting about, here and there.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Lots and lots of cool old homes up here, including a couple that seemed to have been churches which have been converted over to residences.

Neat.

Have to be haunted, those church ones.

Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The hills get fairly steep as you head south along the Federal Street Extension. Lots of abandoned houses inconvertibly line the street, even here so close to the titular center of the city of Pittsburgh..

The occupied ones seemed to be meticulously cared for, as a note.

My usual measure of a ‘bad’ versus ‘good’ neighborhood involves observation of how people maintain their properties. Overgrown? Boards in a broken window? Junk cars in the yard? ‘Sheiste’ covered in tarps on the porch? All ‘tells’ for a ‘bad’ neighborhood where you should be VERY aware of your surroundings. I saw none of that, at all, on this walk.

Back next week with more.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

Swindell Bridge to North Shore, part two.

Your humble narrator journeyed over to Pittsburgh’s North Side and the neighborhood of Perry Hilltop, in order to access the pedestrian walkways of the 1930 vintage Swindell Bridge.

The span is in pretty bad shape, with both state and city’s inspectors describing its condition as ‘poor.’ Rust, concrete issues, you name it. When you get up close, you can actually see the various flaws, and they’re fairly terrifying if you know what you’re looking at. I kind of do, and it is.

That hill which the interstate (I-579/279) bends around to the right, and right on the other face of the landform, is where the amazing Rising Main city steps, mentioned a few weeks ago are found.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Blighting of urban areas isn’t accomplished simply due to a high speed road’s actual course just on its own. You’ve also got to factor in the service roads, ramps, and uselessly wooded areas which act as sound dampeners… so there’s also lots and lots of additional concrete, tons of vehicle and pedestrian barriers, and few or zero accommodations for humans who are not within motor vehicles.

Given other recent experiences, which will be discussed in forthcoming posts, I guess the walking public should just be grateful for that single sidewalk which is visible on the access road at the far right.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Personally, I drive the route pictured above maybe once or twice a week. I may bitch and moan about these high speed roads, but I do use them as well, so the hypocrisy is fully on display here. As I always said, the only NYC I knew during my time there was the one that Robert Moses left behind…

It’s a very, very easy thing to exceed the speed limit here, follow the flow of traffic and before you know it – you’re going 20mph over. There is little, if any, Police enforcement of speed limitations on Pittsburgh’s highways, unless it’s a holiday weekend and the cops are doing a ticket blitz – of course.

Sated by this early part of my morning, your humble narrator pointed his toes back towards the path he got in here using.

My plan was to shlep about for the rest of the day, following a colonial era pathway which has been turned into a ‘main drag’ street in modernity. Shouldn’t be too ‘physical,’ I said to myself.

It’s all downhill from here, essentially.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

So, I mentioned that this nearly century old bridge is in pretty lousy condition, right? The bus people aren’t allowed to use it anymore due to weight restrictions, and there’s weight limits for cars and trucks as well. In a couple of spots, concrete jersey barriers are placed, reducing the bridge down to one shared lane.

When I got a bit closer to one of the closed sections where the jersey barriers are, I decided to take a closer look. Holy shmigoley!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The expansion joints! A plate of metal was welded against this expansion joint to keep it from further separating. Holy Monroley!

I’ve seen drawbridges over Superfund Sites in Queens with better joins. Sheiste.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I walked back out to Perrysville Avenue, but this time I went under the Maple Street Bridge, where that high tension power cable had sagged down to about shoulder/head level.

What could go wrong there?

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.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This missive is the start of another multi-day series of posts.

Welcome to Perry Hilltop, a plateau neighborhood found in the larger Perry South section on the North Side of Pittsburgh.

This walk, and the series of posts which fell out of it, began right about here. Efforts have been underway to explore Pittsburgh’s ‘North Side,’ which is the former ‘Allegheny City,’ a separate municipality that Pittsburgh annexed at the start of the 20th century.

These photos were gathered on the 9th of April.

As is my habit with such matters, I’ve been following ‘street corridors’ which overlay the past. Modern roads are chosen, obviously, whose path more or less mirrors the historic ones which were cut through the woods and cliff faces.

In the case of this walk, it’s Perrysville Avenue and the Federal Street Extension areas (which you’ll be see in over several incoming posts) which were originally set up as a plank road, between the Allegheny/Ohio River shoreline and less settled areas found up in the hills, with the path ultimately leading to some colonial era Military Fort up north.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The start of this series of postings, however, starts with a tiny bridge which leads to a larger one.

I’m told it’s called the ‘Maple Avenue Bridge,’ a 1929 ‘riveted cantilever truss,’ and I didn’t need to look anything up to tell you that it’s in a deleterious state of repair. There’s even an electrical supply cable sagging down over the thing, hovering right about shoulder height, as measured from when I scuttling along on the roadway’s sidewalk below.

This trip started with one of my one way cab rides from Dormont, which dropped me off right across the street from Maple Avenue Bridge.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

First thing that happened after getting out of the car, some kid walked up to me and asked me if I had any ‘smoke.’

I said ‘nope,’ don’t have anything on me to smoke, and asked him if he was hoping for a cigarette or something. He clarified ‘smoke’ as ‘weed’ and then made clear that he was seeking to sell me some. This misunderstanding and interaction amused both myself and that local entrepreneur. The kid wandered off, whereas I got busy with the camera.

Capitalism, huh?

The 1930 vintage E.H. Swindell (aka East Street) Bridge awaited.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The Swindell Bridge is pretty huge, a little over a thousand feet long and five hundred and forty five feet high. It connects two hilltops, spanning the ‘East Street Valley,’ which the I-579 and I-279 high speed roads run through down below.

The Swindell Bridge is – observably – in a horrible state of repair, and a $27 million rehabilitation project is meant to kick in either at the end of this year (2026), or early 2027, which will seek to address its many issues.

As linked to above, they’re going to try and spruce up the Maple Street Bridge as well, and there’s an areal ‘safe streets’ project which is theoretically going to be implemented concurrently with these other projects.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This one looks down from the Swindell Bridge, at the interstate corridor below. As always, I need to state that I love the parabolas, curves, and massing shapes which are created by highway engineers.

Additionally, I hate the historic storyline that resulted in these visually interesting shapes being created. That tale included the demolition of more than 800 homes, and alienating the thousands of families who used to live down there, in the East Street Valley. Bah!

This view look north, although it kind of bends a little bit to the east too.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking south/west from the Swindell Bridge, Downtown Pittsburgh just kind of appears, peeking out from behind a hill. It should be mentioned that for the last nearly four years, I’ve been saying that ‘I’ve got to walk over that bridge sometime,’ while referring to the Swindell Bridge, while driving on the ‘Parkway North.’

That’s what the Yinzers call this road.

Check! Another one off my list.

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.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As described yesterday, during a lament about a Shell Plant found further north/west along the Ohio River, I had some rather mundane stuff to take care of ‘up here’ – about 25 miles north of Pittsburgh ‘proper.’

I had planned a couple of hours of ‘me time’ into the obligation, and spent about an hour of it lurking on a street called ‘Fourth Avenue’ in Freedom, PA., while staring at the Norfolk Southern Conway Yard.

Positively, there are better angles to see this gargantua of a rail yard from, but killing time is killing time, even if it only offers ‘profile’ shots.

from Wikipedia:

• Freedom is a borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 1,496 at the 2020 census.[3] It is 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Pittsburgh and is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Originally founded as a steamboat-building town, it later became known for producing oil and caskets in the 20th century.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One was sitting in the car, fairly obviously, and for some reason I love this shot from within the Mobile Oppression Platform’s cabin, accidentally captured while pulling my camera out of its bag.

I’m going to have to do a bunch of research on Conway Yard, and figure out locations for better points of view. Also, have to make sure that the camera is shut off while within its bag.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One set of switcher locomotives caught my eye, as they shuttled lines of train cars from one track to the next. They had an atypical paint job for Norfolk Southern, which usually means that it’s got some ‘one off’ pollution control or fuel saving gizmo at its heart. Something they’ll roll out for politicians or investors to see at press events.

Notably, Conway Yard was once a prized property of the Pennsylvania Rail Road company.

from Wikipedia:

• Conway Yard (also known as Conway Terminal) is a major rail yard located in the boroughs of Conway, Pennsylvania, and Freedom, Pennsylvania, 22 miles (35 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along the Ohio River. It was the largest freight yard in the world from 1956 until 1980. It is currently owned by Norfolk Southern (NS) and is one of the largest yards in the United States and on the east coast.
• Conway is the only remaining large operation of the four early-20th century PRR yards. NS processes 90,000 to 100,000 cars per month (as of 2003). The site occupies 568 acres, with 181 miles (291 km) of track and a storage capacity of over 11,000 cars and is a hump yard.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I must’ve been hanging around Freedom for about an hour, waiting for something interesting to happen. As I often say, my kind of photography is a whole lot like fishing. You can’t make a fish bite a hook.

So – That’s what Freedom, PA.’s Fourth Avenue looks like, incidentally, directly paralleling the rail yard. These shots were gathered right about here. Nice residential homes, most likely built under the ‘mill town’ model.

All the reading I’ve been doing about coal has kind of bled into me recognizing the sorts of homes which would be offered to miners. I’ve come to be able to recognize these ‘miner houses,’ but there seems to be several prevalent styles of residence which can fit into either description. The ones above are a few notches higher on my ‘size, livability, and quality’ meter than miner houses are.

The latter form are essentially brick boxes with as few a number of windows as the bosses could get away with installing. You’ll see some of those in the near future.

Coal is a fascinating subject, but this post is about Conway, the existence of which is – tangentially speaking – consequential of coal, but there we are. It’s all connected.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A Towboat was navigating down the Ohio River, which was visually interesting, but these shots really disappoint me and I actually considered not running them. It’s that patchwork of horizontal lines. There’s nothing technically wrong with them, it’s just… I dunno.

I’ll definitely be back to this ‘zone’ sometime this summer, but I have a bunch of googling to do first. ‘Rail fanning locations near Conway Yard’ is likely going to be one of my first queries to the Googleplex before I do. I also imagine YouTube is going to come in handy here.

I had to get on with the utter mundanity which had brought me up north, so a last shot or two of those long horizontal lines, with trains in them, were cracked out before firing up the MOP’s engine and hurtling off into space again.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Neat, huh? Good thing I had that green swoosh to frame around. Bah!

Mitch’s rules of composition include: ‘triangles!,’ ‘Z’ shapes, and that whereas one thing in a shot is best, three is cool too, but there should no more than five. Odd is better than even. Establishing shot, medium, up, down, all around, close up. Pay no attention to the man behind the camera, folks, he’s busy.

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.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Occasion found your humble narrator, within the confines of his car, alongside the Ohio River, in a municipality called ‘Monaca.’

Atop an island on the Ohio River is found a plastic factory operated by the Shell Corporation. Officially, it’s a ‘cracker plant,’ meaning that raw hydrocarbons enter the place and then get turned into something else via the art of engineers, and chemists.

This plant is a big deal – both economically and environmentally.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’m told that the hydrocarbon feedstock which it manipulates emanates from a nearby horizontal drilling/fracked gas operation. The plastics manufactured here are the sort you’d need if you were planning on making plastic soda bottles.

Basically, that’s a giant garbage machine pictured above, with a century long source of raw material and fuel. Gas comes in one side, and landfill destined ‘forever’ plastic future garbage pours out of the other.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Saying that… jobs, jobs, jobs… blame Joe Biden… blah, blah, blah.

The economic impact of the plant on this locality has been profound, which is something you don’t necessarily need to ‘look up’ to witness.

Fewer abandoned homes locally, businesses on the nearby ‘main drag’ are open and not confined to housing ‘vape shops’ or other low hanging retail fruit. The roads are serviceably paved. There was a Police presence.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

People need plastic bottles, to temporarily possess liquids, don’t they? So what if it’ll take centuries in a landfill for them all to break down into different toxins – if at all. Sigh…

Here’s the official/non environmentalist slanted take/POV on Shell’s garbage factory in Pennsylvania:

Via Google’s AI:

The Shell Polymers Monaca plant is a $14 billion petrochemical complex in Beaver County, PA, completed in late 2022. It transforms ethane from shale gas into polyethylene pellets for plastics, drawing controversy over environmental violations, pollution, and a $1.65 billion state tax break. The plant is exploring a potential sale amid financial and environmental concerns. 

Key Details About the Plant:

• Location: Potter Township, Beaver County, along the Ohio River near Monaca, PA.
• Operation: Uses an ethane cracker to produce polyethylene pellets (HDPE and LLDPE) for food packaging, industrial products, and consumer goods.
• Construction: Spans 386 acres, with peak construction employing nearly 9,500 workers.
• Environmental Concerns: The plant has experienced multiple air quality violations, high emissions from flaring, and noise/light pollution, leading to concerns from residents and environmental groups.
• Economic Impact: While promising jobs and economic growth, the project is also notable for the massive, 25-year, $1.65 billion state tax credit incentive, which critics have debated.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One had navigated himself in this direction (about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh) for a couple of other, and quite mundane, purposes but since I was ‘in the neighborhood’ – why not stop off to get a few shots?

My usual methodology of scanning the path ahead, through the Google Maps street view technology, had been employed. That activity brought me over to a riverfront park, and a few street ends, here in the community of Monaca.

It was lovely, the park, and it provided sweet points of view on an overcast day. One needed to move on, however, so…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Since I was in ‘the neighborhood’ anyway, a visit was also paid to the gargantuan Conway Rail Yard operated by the Norfolk Southern Railroading outfit, over in a nearby PA. community called Freedom.

More on all that 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.