Soupaneur 6 and a Surfeit of Murals

1/6/12 15M

Saw a lot of new streets and a few new murals today, 15miles in about 28F. We began by riding to some of the murals that we'd learned about yesterday.

This mural in North Oakland, at 645 Clyde Street, is Stevo Sadvary's homage to "Girl Before a Mirror" by Pablo Picasso. The buildings are an apartment complex for international students at CMU.



This mural, Sunny Side (in Shady Side, inevitably, at 926 South Aiken) had ice accumulating on it today, but you could click the image below to see it on a more temperate day.




Next we went to see Octavia, by Laura Jean McLaughlin, in her new location in Friendship, at CMU Professor Kristen Hughes' community garden.

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Stopped to get a better photo of the MLK Mural at Station Street Hot Dogs, 6290 Broad Street in East Liberty:



Having been on the bikes for about an hour and becoming a bit cool, we decided to head over to Whole Foods and Soupaneuring Stop Six, the final soup-stop to meet the First Annual Soupaneuring 2012-2013 Challenge.




A completely unexpected mural discovery, We Get Back Up, at 250 Paulson Avenue in Larimer by KH Designs.

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Next we went looking for a mural on Frankstown Road that we'd had some vague information on but nothing solid, and it turned out to be a pretty significant work of art:


This mural is a representation of "The Block" (1971) by Romare Bearden, which was a tribute to the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Each of the six panels of "The Block" presents an aspect of the neighborhood, such as the Evangelical church, the barbershop, and the corner grocery store.

The original mural, on display at NY's Metropolitan Museum, looks like this:

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Stevo Sadvary had told us about a "bird park" at an elementary school at 8080 Bennet, where he did an installation he calls "Tweet Tweet". The project took an unused corner of the school property, placed bird-friendly plants and birdhouses, and included mosaics of different birds:

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By this time, we had warmed up and the 28F was no longer an issue. We had one more mural we wanted to get to, which we'd heard of in an email exchange with Jeffrey Katrencik and Colleen Black. The directions were from memory and a few years old, but they told us to go "through a tunnel, down the street, turn right and go a few blocks" - wow, did we have low expectations and were we surprised.

The Whitney Avenue Tunnel

The Whitney Avenue Tunnel is a walkway connection Penwood Avenue on one side of the East Busway, and Hamnett Station on the other side. We found some tremendous murals in there, although some are suffering from leaking water on the tunnel walls.

The Whitney Avenue Art Gallery

The Whitney Avenue Art Gallery is a project by Wilkinsburg artist Lazae LaSpina to decorate abandoned homes and reposition them as "homes-in-waiting".

The Hamnett Station Park and Ride Murals

This is the "Pittsburgh Angel" by Colleen Black:



This is Joe Magarac by Jeffrey Katrencik:



After that, we rode to Squirrel Hill and Commonplace Coffee, then rode Forbes back into town. It was a very nice ride, very good food, once we got pedalling the temp was OK, and it was very fruitful in terms of documenting murals. Writing this blog post was almost harder than the bike ride.

BurghMan, Randyland, No Tanks

12/15/12 237# 23M

Sometimes you know a ride is going to be great within the first moment. Today I met a superhero in Minute :01.

Getting started on the trail, saw an opposite-direction rollerblader whose outfit identified him as BurghMan. "Hey, I've met you before, haven't I? Silver suit, motorcycle?"

Oh no, he explained in a courteous and confident voice. That's SteelMan. I'm BurghMan. Burghman is all about the kids. He handed me his card, tipped his helmet, and skated off.



How do you know you live in a great city? A great city has Steel Man and BurghMan, and they're both cool with that.

Rode around the stadia, came upon this unexpected mural at 1212 Arch Street, painted by Benjamin Schneider:

We rode over to Randyland hoping to find Randy Gilson but the gates were closed and nobody was around. Took this photo showing the Arch Street perspective of RandyLand:

In that photo above, bottom-center, you'll see a red sign, it's a panel of exhortations which I think is new.

Along the south side of Randyland, there's a Junk Deposit Box where you're to deposit the junk in your mind before you come in to visit.

The Junk Deposit Box very much reminds me of a 2006 Burning Man photo by Gabe Kirchheimer:

Subsequently the notion of "Fears Erased Daily" was implemented on college whiteboards across the country, generating this response from one computer science student:

And that's how I roll. Pittsburgh -> RandyLand -> BurningMan -> Javascript. Sorry.

The gates at Randyland were closed, so we rode west and took this picture at the Northside Common Ministries facility at 1601 Brighton Road:

Stopped at Buena Vista Coffee, 1501 Buena Vista Street. Excellent biscotti, great staff, relaxed vibe, I'll go back there. Wanted to try Randyland one more time, so rode along Sampsonia Way to see the Asylum Houses (which are very cool) and got to RandyLand just as Randy was admitting a group of visitors, excellent timing.

We got to spend about an hour inside RandyLand, it was very interesting and entertaining. It's a cross between Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory, a Zen Garden, and PeeWee's Playhouse. This is a photo of an arch over one of the gates:

Ft. Duquesne Bridge, Ft. Pitt Bridge, saw the ice rink at Highmark HoHoHounds Stadium, stopped at Station Square to see a gingerbread display, rode south to Keystone Metals (nothing new to report), Hot Metal Bridge, and then we stopped along the Jail Trail to photograph some NTM (non traditional murals):

"The Chief", a homage to Old Man Rooney:

"Tanks But No Tanks" (CU, this one's for you!)

23 miles, 46F at the end, a very nice ride.

Dec 15, 2012 this week: 166 miles

237#

4th Qtr 1583 miles 21.1 mi/day4QTD

2012: 6894 miles

Why Did the Worker Cross The Road?

12/12/12 241# 38M

Yesterday in Pittsburgh a 53-year old woman was killed while crossing the street, using the crosswalk from her parking lot to her workplace. Hit by one car, then a truck, then another car like a pinball. It's a known dangerous street with lots of accidents, and a local employer hires off-duty police to stand in the intersection during peak hours because they've lost so many employees due to accidents that it affects their business. Tragically, this woman crossed outside of peak hours.

Biker, blogger, and transportation guru Stu often asks a seminal question in these situations which I used to dismiss as being pedantic and wonkish (sorry, Stu) but I've come to realize is an essential question. Stu tends to ask, Why was he/she driving there? Often it illuminates fundamental issues or choices in transportation policy that drove the accident.

As I rode around today I wondered, Why did the lady cross the street? Which evolved into, Why did the lady cross that street every day, until it killed her? Which became, Why do they all cross that dangerous street every day, even though it kills some of them?

I think the answer is, because we've designed and tolerated a situation where they have no choice. Jobs are over here, parking is over there, home is way over yonder, no way to get from Home to Work but a Car, and as a City and a culture we're good with that. And furthermore, the people using those parking lots aren't city residents, they're Outlanders who come in and use city services without paying for them, harumph, and city residents should pay police overtime - I don't think so!

Although the investigation will apportion Blame to Individuals, it's really a Design Fail, it's a Systemic Failure, and it's in a lot of people's interest to ignore the systemic and policy issues.

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Started at the Bastille. The temps seemed too brisk to start riding right away so I procrastinated by doing some work on the bike. I used to be the guy who bought auto parts and then worked on his car in the Pep Boys parking lot, now I'm the guy who works on his bike at the trailhead.

I needed to replace the wiring harness for my Cateye Astrale bike computer, which I love and I have one of these on each of my three bikes. The existing harness was giving inaccurate rear sensor readings, and - even worse - it was giving low rear sensor readings, and that's just not tolerable. The cadence sensor was just fine. Still, I had the device on the bike for five years, that's pretty good.

Instead of replacing just the wiring harness I bought a whole new computer and harness at Performance Bike, and today I started my time with the bike by removing the old harness which was an ugly rainbow of multi-color zip ties and installing the new harness. Put the old computer into the new harness, spun the pedals, shazam! good cadence numbers and good speed/distance numbers. Tightened up the zip ties, tested it again, still good numbers. Went to trim the excess zip ties and I cut the wire for the cadence sensor, and then it didn't work so good no more.

Argghhhhh. This is why, of course, people buy wireless bike computers. Tried to splice the wire, the magic wasn't happening, no luck. Packed up and went for a ride, my first destination now chosen for me: Performance Bike, to get yet another harness.

Rode along the North Side to the 40th Street Bridge, then Penn Avenue. Saw this mural at 5313 Butler Street which is still a work in progress. On Oct.19 2012 (my first sighting) it struck me as Conway's Game of Life:

But now it's looking a lot like Winter Urban Digital Camo:

Continued along Butler Street to Washington Blvd, the street where people drowned and now we have gates to keep people off the street during floods we consider that progress. Up Washington Blvd, which is a climb I enjoy to Bakery Square, where I was surprised to see the Bakery Square Bike System.

• Wow! Bike Share! In Pittsburgh, before New York!
  
• Ugh. Right now, first wave, only for people affiliated with CMU or Google.
  
• Yay! Eventually, it will cover downtown, east end, north side, south side.

Went to Performance Bike, purchased a wiring harness. As I came out, I saw a flash of color off to my right where I didn't expect to see a mural. Rode over to investigate and found an MLK mural where S and I had searched for one a few weeks ago. We were within 50 feet of it, but we'd never looked behind this building; it's a Busway mural, visible only to people taking the bus. Ha!, take that, you first-wave CMU bike riders. No murals for you!

Rode to the Whole Foods Starbucks, which probably sees itself as just Starbucks. Surfed their Wifi and warmed up. Considered the Venti Skinny Vanilla Latte, calculated that it would be about $.01/calorie, decided not to. Back to Penn Avenue, Beechwood Blvd, Forbes, S. Braddock, W. Hutchison, Frick Park.

At one point teh Interweb said that Nine Mile Run was closed for construction and I thought I'd check it out. It was open and in very nice condition, it was a nice ride through there. At the river I took the Duck Hollow Trail to Second Avenue, the Jail Trail to the Hot Metal Bridge, then rode south to Keystone Metals.

Back north along the SouthSide Trail to the Fort Pitt Bridge, Ft Duquesne Bridge, and back to the Bastille. A very nice day, a found mural, 38 miles.

DuBloo (Down Under Bloomfield Bridge) and the Three Neville Streets

12/6/12 27M

I was out and about a bit early today, so after crossing the McKees Rocks Bridge I stopped at the Brighton Heights Java House (3619 California Avenue). Very nice coffee shop, wifi, an amazing sitting room back behind the serving counters. I'll stop there again. Very nice people.

Joined S. at the Bastille. It was pretty brisk, probably 28F, so we got started and decided to ride to breakfast. Rode around the casino and crossed the 16th Street Bridge, went to Kelly O's diner at their second location in the Strip District, 24th and Smallman. Totally excellent food, diner, staff, food. There are bike racks across the street and murals on the exterior. Total package. +Recommended.

On Wednesday's ride, some gentlement we met at Spak Bros' Pizza told us about some street art under the Bloomfield Bridge and we set out to ride over there. As we rode, I thought about Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Offramp) and I wondered, what would be the Gentri.Burgh.2.0 equivalent?


How would we code Down Under the Bloomfield Bridge? Best I can come up with is DuBloo - Down Under Bloomfield Bridge. Open to suggestions via comments.

Our first approach to DuBloo came via the Church Brew Works, Liberty Ave, Sassafras Street, Neville Street, and Lorigan Street.

Serendipity struck fast and we saw an intriguing set of metal shops, Iron Eden (see Pop City article) which was just amazing. The men working there were very hospitable and let us walk around. The grounds are open to the public Saturdays in December, set your GPS to 4001 Lorigan Street.

Up on top of the workshop, there's a rooftop patio with Iron Eden's astrolabs around the perimeter, totally cool:

We did a lot of gawking at the artwork on display then pressed on to find the expected graffiti. It seemed like there wasn't any to be found, then we realized we needed to get to the Polish Hill side of the DuBloo (Down Under BLOOmfield Bridge) ravine.

Bloomfield Bridge, Bethoven Street (sic), Finland Street, Melwood Avenue to a point back under the bridge:

On a concrete abutment that's no longer in use, somebody had anchored a sculpture of a figure looking out over the DuBloo Ravine, keeping watch over the iron works on the other side.

Anybody who has any info about the artist, the blog would be happy to attribute the work.

It's a really cool sculpture, way out of the public view.

If a person was to go out on that concrete structure and sit with the sculpture, a person might (or might not, I wouldn't know) find an iron nameplate of sorts. Possibly a cue as to the artist?

Rode North Neville Street and then South Neville Street (that's three Neville Streets so far, for those keeping score at home) and I wonder if there was just a single Neville Street back in the day, before the Busway tore up the legacy alignment of these streets.

Junction Hollow, Hot Metal Bridge, Keystone Metals. The gate was open into the future trail at Keystone Metals, no indication of whether somebody was working there or if somebody riding by decided to open the gate.

Southside, stop at REI, climbed up 18th Street to take another photo of the South Side Slopes Mural. (click to embiggen)

Inevitably, in order to get down the hill we first had to ride uphill a bit more to the top of Mount Washington. Took this photo from GrandView Park, which has a really commanding view of the town below:

Although it's a local sport to bash politicians, when you look at that skyline and the parks and the trails, somebody has been doing something right.

Rode to Allentown, 601 East Warrington Street at Beltzhoover Avenue, to take a picture of a brand new mural, no artist info available:

Proceeded via Beltzhoove Ave, Bailey Ave. and William Street, which is a mini-adventure in itself. Joined the Station Square trail and an uneventful ride to the vehicles.

The weather forecast predicts rain for the next few days, this was a great ride to have just before an interruption.