The Meadville PennDOT Road Sign Sculptures, Part I: The Fence/Mural

July 29, 2015August 12, 20156 Comments

It was a dreary, cool, rainy day when The Orbit crew pulled off the highway for some high art and a bag of Combos. We’d describe the weather as very un-summer-like, except it was very much in keeping with this particular summer. This cool-weather-lover is certainly not complaining–give him forty-five degrees and drizzling and you’ll find one happy blogger chortling to himself as he types. That said, we were hoping for a break in the rain long enough to photograph one particular roadside curiosity, and were granted that particular wish.

Meadville PennDOT sign sculpture fence of hot air balloons

Thurston Balloon Classic over Weight Limit Mountain

An hour-and-a-half due north of Pittsburgh lies Meadville, the seat of Crawford County. This smallish town is the unlikely host of an immense collection of sculptures, all in connection with and displayed by the local Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (“PennDOT”) maintenance yard.

Meadville PennDOT sign sculpture fence of barn and silo

Stop barn with Jct silo

According to PennDOT, the fence/mural project and its adjunct flower garden (more about that, later) were conceived by Allegheny College art professor Amara Geffen and Jack Molke, former Crawford County maintenance manager. The actual work was executed both by Allegheny College art students and the local PennDOT workers. It began back in 2001, but continued over many years until the entire maintenance yard fence was covered.

Great blue heron

From PennDOT:

The mural depicts life in Crawford County highlighting annual events such as the Thurston Balloon Classic and the Crawford County Fair. Local community landmarks such as the Crawford County Courthouse, Conneaut Lake Park, and Allegheny College’s Bentley Hall highlight the scene. The project depicts life in Crawford County with farm scenes, seasonal scenes and downtown Meadville buildings.

Meadville PennDOT sign sculpture fence of trees

Lane change ahead tree

What no set of photographs will accurately depict is the sheer immensity of this piece. The fence is well over human height and probably reaches up to ten or twelve feet. It stretches some 1,200 feet (approx. a quarter mile) down Route 322 and around the corner. The fence is at once a single continuous piece and also dozens of distinct interlocking sections that each bleed into one another.

Meadville PennDOT sign sculpture fence of singing cowboy on stage

Singin’ cowboy down at the (railroad) crossroads

There are broad strokes like rolling Crawford County hillsides and a series of sections devoted to (downtown Meadville?) storefronts. But the detail on the pieces is terrific with little touches that play with the recycled signage and “Easter egg” details that you’d never catch if you just did a drive-by.

Meadville PennDOT sign sculpture fence house

Bridge outhouse … or Bridge Out house

For all these reasons, it’s really worth parking and taking a walk down the full length of the fence and back. Then, like all great art experiences, you can cross the highway to Sheetz for some M.T.O. and group reflection.

Meadville PennDOT sign sculpture fence of Canada goose

Baltimore Life/Canada goose

Are the sculptures worth a trip from Pittsburgh? They’re pretty great, and no set of photographs is really going to do them justice, so we’d have to say yes. That said, combine them with the next time you’re heading to Erie, or Conneaut Lake, or are just making a run to Meadville’s own Voodoo Brewery and you’ll have yourself a fine combo for your Combos.

Meadville PennDOT sign sculpture fence of merry-go-round

Ferris wheel

Getting there: The PennDOT building and maintenance yard is on Rt. 322, literally just a minute (maybe a half mile?) from the Meadville exit off I-79. The sculptures leap out at you and go on for a quarter mile so you really “can’t miss it.”

Meadville PennDOT sign sculpture fence of clouds, rain, mountains, and tree

Art imitates life: rainy day scene

A Salute to The City of Sad Toys

July 26, 2015October 3, 20154 Comments

Bloomfield clip job

I only became aware of Al Hoff’s City of Sad Toys right at the end. So late in the game, in fact, that by the time I started submitting photos, the blog had already ceased to publish any new content. [Note to self: consider Rejected by Sad Toys as potential memoir title.] That was four years ago.

“Sad toys” are pretty much what they sound like: lost, discarded, maimed, or otherwise on-the-loose playthings, often photographed in the comically incongruous settings of other urban flotsam. City of Sad Toys still exists in whatever perpetuity Blogspot grants its lapsed authors, so we encourage our readers to check it out while you still can. Al generously offered to hand the keys over to this Johnny-blog-lately fan, but as we’re more Rupert Pupkin than Rupert Murdoch, we’ll stick to just one global media enterprise.

In Al’s hands, the definition of “toys” was extremely liberal–the blog accepted sports equipment, cake toppers, board games, and party decorations among its sad clientele. This is of course all fine, but The Orbit considers these outliers as merely middle-of-the-mall sad toys; the only real anchor tenants being stuffed animals and downtrodden dolls.

Despite the official blog’s inevitable denouement, our digital shutters never stopped virtually clicking and blogs exist largely for us citizen-journalists to, in Al’s words, “do whatever [we] want!”–including important work like publishing photos of filthy fake fur. Here then, we’ve collected a nice little set of Pittsburgh-area additions to share in this Orbit tribute to a great photo genre: the sad toy.

Red…thing, Oakland

Green monster, Oakland

Roadside bunny, Rogers, Ohio

Barbie hit-and-run, Lawrenceville

Medium Cool: An Orbit Day Trip to Lily Dale Pet Cemetery

July 22, 2015October 18, 20153 Comments

grave marker with a wooden duck and stone heart, Lily Dale, NY

Duck/heart

Far Western New York is certainly outside of what can be reasonably considered “the Pittsburgh region,” but at two hours and change driving time (each way), it’s a doable up-and-back, so we’re going to include this one as An Orbit Day Trip.

Lily Dale (aka Lily Dale Assembly), New York is a picturesque Victorian village that sits on tiny Lake Cassadaga, between Fredonia, Jamestown, and Chautauqua. It bills itself as “the world’s largest center for the science, philosophy, and religion of spiritualization.” While this chakra-curious blogger would be hard pressed to name a larger center for such things, at just a handful of streets, maybe a couple hundred year-round residents, it’s still a little difficult to believe Lily Dale is the largest anything. But we’ll take their word for it.

Trees with prayer ribbons, Lily Dale, NY

Prayer ribbons in Lily Dale

That said, the ratio of psychics-to-ne’er-do-wells is extremely high. Seemingly every other one of Lily Dale’s cottage-houses has a shingle out advertising the services of one or more registered in-house mediums (media?). Lily Dale is also home to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC).

The catalog for the June-September workshop programs is ample and either the lecturing-on or attending-of these courses, along with individual “readings” with the aforementioned mediums, seems to be what people do in Lily Dale. Instructors Michele Whitedove, Lee Two Hawks, Shadow Fox, and others with less spectacular names offer courses on subjects like Banshees, Curses, and Little People; Interdimensional Out-of-Body Travel; Orb Phenom–Orbs Are Among Us; Etheric Projection & The Human Energy Field; The Art of Using Pendulums, Dowsing Rods, Sticks & Stones; and Spoon Bending.

Forest Temple

While The Orbit generally subscribes to a “when in Rome…” philosophy, we’re also too skeptical (and too cheap) to pay $45 (the going rate for a two-hour workshop) to get our Laugh-a-Yoga Leader Certification. Whether all this New Age stuff strikes your divining rod or seems like a bunch of hooey, Lily Dale is absolutely a lovely and magical little place to visit. The whole landscape is completely enmeshed in tall woods and seems bathed in the gauzy soft light of an Elfin dreamland. We skipped the lectures and stuck to nice walks of the town, lakefront, Forest Temple, Inspiration Stump, Fairy Trail, and pet cemetery–all recommended.

wooden cross grave marker for a pet named Mutlee, Lily Dale, NY

Mutlee, 1988

This was The Orbit‘s first trip to a legit pet cemetery, but hopefully not our last–we’re hooked! Lily Dale’s goes way back. The earliest dated stone we saw was from 1920, but I got the sense it was considerably older than that. There are hundreds of graves in the small forest clearing where the cemetery stands. The markers range from professional chiseled stones with names, dates, and epitaphs, to crumbling homemade crosses, sculptures, cast concrete, and painted rocks.

Here are some of our favorites:

stone grave marker for pet with disintegrating tile, Lily Dale, NY

(Su)nshine, (l)aughter & friends ar(e) always (welcome)

cement grave marker for pet, Lily Dale, NY

Beanie Pastor: Lily Dale’s barkingest & fightingest & cat chasingest mongrel

stone grave marker for a chipmunk, Lily Dale, NY

The cemetery’s newest marker: Friend and Teacher, 6-29-15

Fluffy

Pumpernick(el)

Getting there: As mentioned, it’s somewhere around two-and-a-half hours drive from Pittsburgh to Lily Dale. Likely a lot faster if you can travel interdimensionally out-of-body, but we’re old-fashioned. There are numerous inns, beds and breakfast, and one old hotel on the grounds. But really, if you’re not attending the seminars, you can probably see everything you need in a few hours–it’s just not that big. There are two non-fancy/grab-and-go restaurants, one coffee shop, and one general store in the town.

Also be warned that there is a steep ($12 per person per day) gate fee to get on the grounds. My advice to the casual visitor would be to park somewhere outside the gate and see if they’ll let you walk in for free.

Sundown at Lily Dale Assembly pet cemetery

Lawrenceville Stencil Graffiti

July 9, 20152 Comments

This law-abiding blogger has never committed an act of graffiti in his life–but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about it! All the time, as a matter of fact. If I were going to get into the wall-scrawling business (don’t get your hopes up: the chances are extremely low), I’d follow a very strict code of ethics: I wouldn’t touch anyone’s personal property, I wouldn’t write some dumb, regrettable message or invent a cheesy “tag” like, say, 0rbi7, I’d make damn sure the graffiti was only an improvement to the visual landscape, and I’d perpetrate with a stencil.

Why a stencil? I’m glad I asked for you. Mostly because if they’re created with any dignity, stencils just look uniformly good, without looking uniformly, uh, uniform. They have the beauty of any hand-run print process that provides great repetition of image, but with each rendition some warm distortion and subtle variation.

All of these stenciled pieces come from a relatively small area of Central Lawrenceville–mainly 42nd and Harrison Streets (I think). I’m sure there are plenty more where these came from, so hopefully The Orbit can get a few more pulls out of this particular template.

Equal

With all due respect to The Orbit‘s female, LGBT, and people-of-color brothers and sisters, the disability community is the minority group that has by far the least public exposure and the largest and longest denial of basic human rights. No Hollywood stars are lining up around accessible transit issues, Iggy Azalea is not getting uninvited from any giant downtown deaf pride events, and no one is burning retail stores over the unemployment rates of blind people. I’ve seen these Equal graffiti splashes in Lawrenceville, Polish Hill, and Bloomfield, which is a great sign of some small amount of awareness at a very literal street level (and my wife reminds me that there are a lot of very positive changes happening in this space). Now, why the person in the wheelchair looks like Pac-Man with a torso…

Hand grenade (?)

This one violates my above-stated personal rule against “bombing” personal property. But if I was the owner of the row house whose cement foundation wall had this illicitly added, frankly, I’d be fine with it. [That is not an invitation!] So far, no one has busted out the Zinsser to cover it up, so perhaps these neighbors are on the same wavelength. Bonus points for the paint run (the stenciler’s equivalent of a beauty mark) in the bottom left corner.

Kween

According to the computer internet, “Kween” can mean umpteen different things, none of which we’ve ever heard of. So it’s hard to know what the profligate who sprayed this one was going on about. [Enlightened Orbiters: straighten us out.] But sure: top hat, weird spelling, stencil on concrete–that’s good enough for us.

Dove

Lay a flat stencil on a round surface and you’ll lose line definition somewhere. Whoever committed this one got that and more with a blurred leading edge so fuzzy it looks like this particular winged creature has just engaged hyperdrive. That, coupled with some oxidization and the pre-existing copper-colored lines it’s competing with and the results are a really beautiful addition to this particular streetlight pole.

Vacation notice: If you’ve gotten this far (and I’ll bet you have!) then, Mom: call me! No, seriously, Pittsburgh Orbit will be on a week-and-a-half vacation break wherein we’ll try to figure out what to do when we get back on Pittsburgh time. In the words of the late, great George Willard, “All of the sudden, her eyebrows were too intense.” Be good.

Flag Post: A Very Orbit Independence Day

July 4, 2015June 27, 20162 Comments

detail of door painted like the American flag, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Shur-Fine America, Bloomfield

From the mountains to the prairies and from an alley in Bloomfield all the way to a men’s room in Bloomfield, it’s Independence Day in America (aka “The Fourth of July”) and we’re going to celebrate that with a flag post.

We see a lot of American flags this time of year, and that’s no easy experience for the eyes. Red, white, and blue are not colors that naturally look great together–at least, not when served up in the kind of equal doses Old Glory delivers. So for this amateur vexillologist, it can be a challenging holiday. It’s a blitzkrieg to the corneas, a D-Day for the optic nerve, and no laughing matter for the vitreous humor.

Graphically, we’d be a lot better off with just the red and white stripes or just the white stars on the blue field. We know The Orbit wields no small amount of international influence. Fortunes have been made and men (yes: and women) destroyed with the simple addition of key tag or a righteous repost. But a rebranding of The United States of America may be out of even this blog’s enviable powers.

So what are we to do? It’s our flag and whatever one thinks of it symbolically, it’s one of the great constants in any American’s existence. We at The Orbit find that the flags rendered by actual American hands have a whole lot more charm and humanity than their perfect (if cheap) cousins that show up on doorsteps and grave markers, waving at parades and discarded or packed-away by Summer’s end.

Through absolutely no forethought or planning, almost all of these flags were picked up when we thought we were photographing something else. Super fans may cry “rerun!” but, c’mon–there’s good new stuff here! We’ll brand this a six-month “roll-up” to highlight some stories may be not everyone got to the first time. Happy birthday, America!

Fence flag, Highland Park

We came across this fine flag when we reported on Chet’s Tiny Backyard Dream World last month. Aside from the fact that Chet created this piece from old fence posts, I love that it both ended up slanted at this odd trapezoidal angle, and that it only has nine stripes and thirty stars. There is something so slyly seditious (if, likely, unconscious) about having patriotic art that is factually incorrect.

Popsicle stick flag, Munhall [photo: Lee Floyd]

Lee sent in this photo of a flag constructed of painted (?) popsicle sticks hours before going to press, so we frankly don’t have time to get all the details on it. What we do know is that just like Chet’s, the popsicle stick flag eschews the standard 13 stripes/50 stars arrangement in favor of a more loose interpretation. Whatever the artist’s intention, we like what we’re seeing from this American!

American flag sticker, scratched and graffiti'd

Sonny’s Tavern, Bloomfield

This flag begs the question: Which is more (or less) patriotic? To paste an American flag sticker above the urinal of a men’s room in a dive bar or to (fail to) properly remove/destroy it? Are all representations of the flag sacred?

Cypress flag, Highland Park

We came across this interesting flag/hedge combination when we were in Highland Park photographing the Heidi Houses back in May. The owner/tenant of this house used a huge flag to cover the entire front porch of the house, draping it between the gutter and scraggly cypress bushes. Like the men’s room above, this is a very questionable way to honor America. I love how the unmistakable red and white stripes blast out out from behind the green shrubs.

In retrospect, this photo‘s red, white, and green would have made an excellent inclusion in our Italian Colors story (and inevitable sequel!) from a while back. Magari la prossima volta.

exterior wall of a former V.F.W. painted like the American flag, Pittsburgh, Pa.

(Former) V.F.W., Bloomfield

All right–we did a whole story on the murals of the Bloomfield V.F.W. a couple months back, so this one you’ve pretty much seen before. But not this side and not from this angle! I had to climb out on a wall, leaning back against the top of an eighteen-wheeler at the Shur-Save loading dock to get any shot of this, the only side of the V.F.W. that just has flag painting (and no representational war fantasy). Also notable here is the odd choice to paint the flag on its end–with the stars at the bottom and the stripes at the top. Whatever that was about, the veterans obviously wanted big flag and they got it–covering three sides of the building. And then the club closed. Sigh.

Two Wheels Good: The Orbit Takes Healthy Ride For a Spin

July 1, 2015Leave a comment

Healthy Ride bicycle share station in the Bloomfield neighborhood, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Healthy Ride station in Bloomfield

Observant readers will no doubt have already absorbed Pittsburgh Orbit‘s favoritism toward all things bicycle. This blogger loves to ride a bike! He loves it so much that when it’s time for the inevitable maintenance on his own road-ravaged chopper, a dread creeps over. The depression of going even one non-pouring down day without some form of ride so dour that wheels wobble, brakes are worn to nubs, and gears slip on an over-stretched chain for months too long–all so we can defer the separation anxiety that comes from a few days in the shop.

So last year’s news that the city would be gaining a bicycle share program this Spring was triply terrific. First: we’re going to get excited about anything that puts more two-wheelers on the street and more keisters on bike seats. Second: I can take my bike to the shop any time I like and use the new temporary rentals in its stead. Third, of course, is that we can opportunistically turn the whole thing into a right proper blog post. Here, then, is The Orbit‘s early take on Pittsburgh’s brand new bike share program.

Map of Healthy Ride bicycle rental stations (Phase I) [map: Bike Pittsburgh]

The System

The first phase of the Healthy Ride[1] deployment involves fifty self-serve rental stations and five hundred identical bicycles. All users must have an account and register with a credit card, but this can be done right there at any station. There are a variety of ways to check out a bike: using the station computer, using on-board systems on each bicycle, or with the mobile phone apps. The technology comes to us from a German company called NextBike, which has implemented bicycle sharing programs around the world. Pittsburgh is only NextBike’s second U.S. city, but they run a ton of programs throughout Europe.

Bicycles are rented in half-hour increments and the system is designed for A-to-B transit rides (and not all-day/long-term rentals). You can pay for individual rides ($2 per half-hour) or unlimited rides for month-long periods. With a “basic” rate of $12 / month (unlimited 30-minute rides) and a “deluxe” rate of $20 / month[2] (unlimited one-hour rides), the Pittsburgh system is among the cheapest in the country[3].

Phase I of the rollout is for a concentrated area focusing on downtown, The Hill District, The Strip District, Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, Shadyside, and small sections of the North and South Side. I’m sure if you’ve been waiting for this and live in, say, Squirrel Hill or The West End, you’re going to feel gypped, but the tight grouping of the first batch of stations makes a lot of sense as an alternate public transit system.

Healthy Ride bicycle with vinyl records spilling out of its small cargo basket.

Design flaw: Healthy Ride bicycles are totally unfit for traveling with records.

The Bicycles

All Healthy Ride bicycles are the exact same one-size-fits-all design. They feature heavy “step-through” frames, big tires, front and rear fenders, lights, adjustable seats, a bell, and a small (maybe too small) front basket. The bikes are all seven-speeds, meaning they’ve theoretically got enough gears to climb hills and run at a good clip when you build up speed. Riders must supply their own helmets.

I found a couple challenges with the design. Namely that for this six-foot-five biker, even with the seat raised to its maximum height, I couldn’t get full leg extension. This, along with the heavy weight of the bike, made going up hills a little rough. Also, the anatomically aware will know that men and women have different shaped pelvises (pelvi?), which is why bicycle seats come in two very different basic shapes. The Healthy Ride system opted for women’s seats across-the-board–which makes sense–but presents a certain discomfort to the dudes of the species.

All that said, the bikes were all in fine condition (with one exception), will likely work great for the average rider, and they’re fun. Take one out any time soon and you’ll also get a lot of attention: I was stopped by pedestrians, drivers, cyclists, one 8 a.m. drunk, and one in-transit PAT bus driver–everybody was curious and wanted to either ask about the program or tell me what was wrong with it.

NextBike employee restarting a Healthy Ride station, Pittsburgh, Pa.

NextBike employee Tom rebooting the Children’s Hospital station

The Technology

As a “technologist” by day[4], I am in awe of all the moving parts (literally!) involved in the system–50 stations, 500 bicycles, multiple payment options, onboard computers, the web site, iOS and Android apps, rental maintenance, etc. I experienced a couple of glitches along the way, but given this was only the system’s third week out of the gate, it performed admirably.

A couple times in my maiden voyage I found that bicycles parked at stations and flashing their “available” lights were, in fact, not rentable. No explanation on what was going on, but I can recommend the app feature where you look at an individual station and see which bikes it actually knows are parked there. After that first day, I didn’t see this problem again.

Another time, I arrived at the Children’s Hospital station to find NextBike employee Tom having to repeatedly reboot the system and test whether it was going to process check-outs. This allowed me to ask a bunch of questions while we waited for the system to restart, eves-drop on his call back to Leipzig, and surreptitiously bag a photo for the blog. [Tom got me back: he filmed our band marching during the Open Streets event last Sunday.]

Another obvious issue they’ll have to work out is the distribution of bikes. I found that the station I was checking-out from (Penn & 42nd Street, by Children’s Hospital) had fewer and fewer bikes each day until on my final Friday there was only one rental and it turned out to be unridable (the rear fender was severely bent into the back wheel and I was unable to fix it; I ended up walking to Bloomfield and checked-out from the station by Crazy Mocha).

By contrast, the station I was usually returning to (Butler & 42nd Street, across from Hambone’s) was nearly always full. This is likely no accident–I have a feeling the system will regularly experience the higher-elevation bikes draining and welling up at the bottom of hills. Those seven gears are just not enough to get a lot of part-time riders up steep grades (especially after they’ve spent the evening at Hambone’s!). Stations in flatter areas (Bloomfield, Oakland) seemed to be more consistently medium-stocked.

rider posed on a Healthy Ride rental bicycle, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Not dorky at all. Some dude with a rented bike. [photo: Lee Floyd]

Final Thoughts

It’s very hard to tell, but anecdotal observation suggests that people are using the system and that its rollout has been smooth enough to claim some level of success. Pittsburgh presents a lot of challenges for experienced cyclists–steep hills, tight streets, rutty roads pockmarked with potholes, few designated bicycle lanes, much unfavorable weather–so loosing a bunch of non-riders on city streets with unfamiliar bicycles seems like it’s not going to end well for everybody. But then, neither does automotive travel.

If allowed to succeed, it seems like the program will inevitably grow interest in cycling and more awareness of bicycle needs in infrastructure planning and design, which are all good things in The Orbit‘s book.

I plan to maintain my “deluxe” subscription partially because I want to support the program (even though I own a bicycle) but also because I can imagine a ton of scenarios where I can legitimately put a short rental to use. Plus, it’s cheap. If you haven’t given it shot, we suggest you do. Happy (and healthy!) riding to you!

Footnotes

“Healthy Ride” is a pretty square name, but I imagine the underwriting from Highmark and Allegheny Health Network played into the branding.
Though monthly, the rates require a minimum three-month signup commitment.
I started looking into comparison pricing against other bike share programs, but with each city having their own rental time windows, subscription terms, etc. this quickly became a fool’s errand. The claim that it’s “among the cheapest in the country” seems legit, though.
Not a good one.

Pittsburgh Orbit

Around every corner, a new phenomenon

Month: July 2015