The Over-the-Wall Club: What’s on the Other Side?

July 30, 20232 Comments

looking over graffiti-covered fence and large building to moon in sky — The moon is just one celestial body waiting for us on the other side. Moon morning walls, Lawrenceville

“What’s on the other side?”

That evergreen question-koan has motivated—and haunted—explorers from Leif Erikson to Harry Houdini. The Over-the-Wall Club is no exception.

In our last post, the wall-eyed went deep into the wall. This time the crew looks up, over, and around some of our favorite walls to ponder the mysteries of the universe. What’s on the other side? Sure, but also Where are we going? and What happened before we got here?

Heady stuff, indeed, but we’d expect nothing less from our team of urban alchemists who can stare deep into—and over—a stack of bricks and turn the experience into a portal to another dimension, free of space and time.

Welcome to the rest of your life, just lookout for a few walls along the way.

large new condo building behind old brick wall — Something old and something new, Lawrenceville

large industrial building on sunny day — Big blue, Lawrenceville

large wall painted in four colorful quadrants — Wall quarters, New Kensington

exposed side of brick row house — A house unglued, Knoxville

brick wall with covered-over window — Stay out, Duquesne

brick garage wall with small mural — Still life with wall and tire, Friendship

side wall of brick row house with fences — Over-the-fences over-the-wall, Lawrenceville

row house with exposed interior wall of former adjoining house — Inside-out wall, Hill District

large tiled building with wooden fence — If these walls could sing! Bloomfield Liedertafel Singing Society

large brick building with painted message for The Good Time Bar — This way to The Good Time Bar, Millvale

The Over-the-Wall Club: Going Into the Wall

July 16, 20234 Comments

wall with many building materials and colors — The Taj Mahal of walls, Mt. Oliver

The old building is large enough that it was probably erected for commercial use, but couldn’t have been anything major—a small factory, perhaps, or maybe it served as a distribution point for products we’ll never know.

In the hundred-and-twenty years or so that it’s been standing—we’re just guessing here—the structure’s original orange bricks have been chipped and scarred, graffiti-tagged and painted-over countless times. Along the way, the building’s large windows were filled-in alternately with cinderblock and plywood. These after-market additions have gone through their own battered histories. They now exist as equal partners with complex lives with more in common with the original material than not.

wall partially-covered in tile — Meadville

While this anonymous building on a side street in Mt. Oliver is likely on no one’s radar as an important site among Pittsburgh’s many architectural treasures, it’s a legit rock star to wall enthusiasts. You couldn’t find a better example of pure wall than a middle-height section of interlocking rectangles, rich oranges, purples, reds, and pinks. For those who would travel halfway around the world for such an experience, the Taj Mahal of wall perfection is right up on the hilltop.

brick wall with many paint colors and textures — Bloomfield

It’s been so long since we checked in with The Over-the-Wall Club that the group’s collected bounty runneth over in the most satisfying and thrilling of ways. If you want walls—I’m talkin’ extraordinary, centuries-in-the-making, once-in-a-lifetime walls—we’ve got ’em. Walls that can be stared into to unlock the mysteries of time and space. Walls so beautiful they could be placed in the finest of modern art museums and connoisseurs would ooh and ahh with great gusto. Walls with so much to say they’re not merely worth any old thousand words, but deliver messages to change lives and alter history.

brick wall with geometric painted sections — Uptown

But wait! There’s more! There sure is. We had so many great walls that we’ll have a follow-up where we actually go, you know, over the wall as a counter to today’s experience of going into the wall. Sure, that sounds like a lot of mumbo-jumbo from some dumbo—and it is!—but trust me on this one: you’ll want to be here on this journey of growth and discovery, speculation and fantasy. We’ll see you on the other side.

brick wall painted in multiple shades of red — Rothko wall, Bloomfield

brick wall with painted white rectangle — Rothko wall, Lawrenceville

brick wall with large painted rectangle — Rothko wall, Friendship

brick wall in several shades of red — Rothko wall, Bloomfield

brick wall with doors blockaded by large cement piece — Millvale

brick wall with layers of wood attached — Bloomfield

brick wall with wooden grid — Grid wall, Hill District

wall covered in multi-color "fish scale" tile — Fish scale tile wall, Lawrenceville

brick and cinderblock wall in midcentury modern style — Heidelberg

brick wall with many textures — Don’t make that face! Hill District

brick wall with many large pipes — Lawrenceville

section of brick wall and masonry foundation — Garfield

brick wall with wheat paste Rorschach print — Rorschach wall, Lawrenceville

“This Flag”: Flag Post 2023

July 4, 2023Leave a comment

garage door painted as 13-star American flag — Tattered flag, Stanton Heights

The American Flag. It with all its symbolism and implication, patriotism and zealotry. It’s our flag—whether we choose to wave it or not—and it means radically different things to different people. We are all Americans here, sure, but it doesn’t feel that way to everyone.

Today, Independence Day, is that most flag-wavingest, reddest, whitest, and bluest day of the year. Flags and flag-colored things will be aplenty, jutting from front porches, staked into grassy yards, aggressively paraded in pickup truck beds, and decorating everything from courthouses and baseball games to cakes and cookouts.

2-story garage building painted like the American flag — Ft. Ashby, WV

This year, we made a movie! In addition to our annual roundup of interesting flags found in the wild, your author asked long-time friend and collaborator David Craig, he of the Portland Orbit, to write a poem about the flag. The result, “This Flag,” was recited by its author, put to music by yours truly, and turned into a rock-poetry video featuring flags in many forms, fluttering in the wind and otherwise.