Tag: pranks

Art Walk: The Pipe Cleaner Fern Frames of Lawrenceville

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pipe cleaner fern frame

Consider it a wild weekend with woebegone weeds or First Fridays for forgotten ferns. Heck, this may even qualify as the Make a Wish Foundation for misunderstood moss. Whatever you call it, there’s a new street-level contemporary art walk on exhibit now–for what may be a very limited run–in Central Lawrenceville.

pipe cleaner fern and moss frame

Someone has taken the fascinating step of constructing simple colorful rectangular frames from mismatched pipe cleaners and attached them to an old stone retaining wall along 45th Street, bordering St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery.

Their placement on the soot-blackened stones is no haphazard act of vandalism or careless littering–no, they’ve been very precisely curated to frame and highlight the kind of the minute nature dioramas that appear around us everywhere, all the time, but usually go unnoticed. In lieu of anything more witty, we’re calling these fern frames.

popsicle stick fern frame

Nature is an absolutely amazing thing–and one that we can reasonably trust to outlive and survive the appetite-for-extinction behavior of the human race. In every sidewalk crack, a burst of life; on each block of pavement, itty-bitty creatures scurrying around, just doing their thing. And yes, in the thin vertical spaces between wall stones and mortar joints there exist tiny blasts of green in the form of soft fuzzy moss, delicate miniature weeds, the spindly leaves of little ferns.

pipe cleaner moss frame

We have no idea what motivated the person or persons responsible to construct and place the fern frames–they come with neither attribution nor artist statement. So we’re left to speculate on what’s going on with these simple displays. Are they a goofy stunt with leftover crafting materials? Psychological experiment? Candid Camera-style prank where The Orbit is the butt of the joke?

Anything’s possible, but to the imaginative mind what these little pieces seem to say echoes Alfred Joyce Kilmer’s famous couplet I think that I shall never see / A poem as lovely as a tree. You can put a lot of effort into painting a picture, singing a song, or–gulp–writing a blog post, but you’re not going to top Mother Nature. Look around! Keep those peepers open! The world is a wonderful and mystifying place.

It can be really hard given the news of the day–you name the day–and, yes, people have all kinds of heaviness they’re dealing with. But what these little fern frames seem to say is, don’t just stop and smell the roses–those sell-outs already get enough attention!–put your schnoz right down in between the cracks in the sidewalk and up against the stones in the wall. There is so much beauty all around us, but sometimes it takes an anonymous stranger with a couple pipe cleaners to point it out to us.

pipe cleaner weed and moss frame

Dang-là Vu: The Return of the East End Dangler!

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plastic apples dangling from tree limbs

ripe (looking) apples hanging from bare tree limbs–The East End Dangler has returned!

I. The Return of the East End Dangler

Things had gone quiet on Centre Avenue. Spring turned to summer, and then summer rolled over to autumn with nary a bustle in our hedgerow. It was enough to make the few who experienced it believe the whole thing had been a strange dream.

Cue: soft focus and shimmering harp glissando. A line of fish, each one tied to the next by a length of twine knotted around their tail fins. The little garlands, suspended from branches of mid-sized street trees, gently swaying in the breeze like decorations for a strange holiday. Did that really happen?

Oh yes, it was for real–and serious as a heart attack. Even more, after an apparent six- to ten-month dormancy, this dang-là vu is happening all over again. The East End Dangler is back–and this time, he or she isn’t fooling around*.

plastic fruit dangling from tree limbs

apple, grapes, East Liberty

We know these things about The East End Dangler:

  1. The Dangler has a ready supply of small children’s toys and decorative plastic fruit.
  2. The Dangler regularly traffics on upper Centre Avenue in East Liberty (nearish Whole Foods).
  3. The Dangler loves all-you-can-eat Asian seafood buffets.

That’s about it.

plastic grapes hanging from tree limb

bunch of grapes, Hokkaido, Browns Hill Road

To catch you up: starting in 2017, Orbit staff began to notice strands of toys hanging from the limbs of street trees in East Liberty. What first felt like a one-off goofy prank soon revealed itself as full-on, serial hanging-around. We’ll not rehash the whole series of events here, but that initial story unwound in “Something Fishy: Angling for the East End Dangler” [Pittsburgh Orbit, May 13, 2018].

As mentioned in the intro, a quiet period followed this initial rush of dangling–too quiet, as the cliché goes. Indeed, after some period of months Orbit beat reporters spotted brand new dangles in the same approximate locations starting up in the late fall.

toys dangling from tree limbs

shark, cargo chopper, Hokkaido, Browns Hill Road

In an attempt to smoke out the assailant, the crew settled in for that most grueling part of detective work: the stake out. Between the salt-and-pepper squid and wood ear mushrooms, “crazy roll” sushi and cheese wontons, kielbasa and garlic bread, all eyes were trained on the handful of trees just above Hokkaido Seafood Buffet’s parking lot on Browns Hill Road. Why, assuming we weren’t up re-loading another platter of pork shumai and seaweed salad, cotton candy ice cream and banana pudding, the focus was unrelenting. But–unlike the case of heartburn that hit a little later that afternoon–The Dangler didn’t show.

We do see some new media this time around–The Dangler has moved on from a strict palette of Happy Meal toys and rubber fish to now including decorative plastic fruit. All other signatures are entirely consistent.

toy airplane hanging by wire in bare tree limb

plane wreck, Hokkaido, Browns Hill Road

II. The Hunt for The Dangler

Not content to just sit on our collective keister while a mad prankster was stringing up their next trophies, we decided to send The Dangler a little message.

Borrowing from our own arsenal of cast-off Hot Wheels and sandbox-encrusted earth movers, co-assistant to the mailroom intern Lee baited the hook by assembling his own strings of pearls. These were taken to the same general batch of street trees along high Centre Ave. and placed for maximum effect to catch The Dangler’s attention.

And then we waited.

toy cars hanging by string from tree limbs

Dangler bait #1: Hot Wheels high up

Now, we know correlation is not causation, but let’s just say we set a trap…and The Dangler stepped in it. Sure enough, the ol’ tree stringer came a-runnin’ as if mom or dad had served up supper in the sycamores of Danglerville. Or, at least, the R.S.V.P. we mailed out on a whim was answered with a bouquet of plastic grapes hung high in the branches at Centre & South Euclid.

The Dangler also went on to bomb several more trees in the same pair of previous locations. Our serve was returned with a volley that could only be read as a challenge. Well played, Dangler.

yellow toy trucks hanging by string in tree

Dangler bait #2: yellow trucks in low tree limbs

III. A New Clue?

Just as it’s naive to assume our solar system is the only one in the universe sustaining life, we should sooner hand over our quasi-journalistic credentials than think we’ve cornered every possible dangle. No, Pittsburgh is a big city–at least, in terms of square miles and tree coverage–the idea that unassisted Orbit staff would have just randomly tripped across the only two locations of serial dangling would be foolish. The Dangler must have struck elsewhere, right?

That seems not only plausible, but a sure thing. However, if true, the dangles remain in tree limbs so far un-spotted.

statue of William Shakespeare with plastic apple added

Carnegie Music Hall’s Shakespeare statue with appended apple–the work of The Dangler?

That may have changed with one additional clue at the beginning of this month. The statue of William Shakespeare in front of the combined Carnegie Music Hall/Library in Oakland was updated to include a single red plastic apple, hanging from The Bard’s neck.

It is absolutely not The Dangler’s style to suspend single objects from public statuary. And yet, there are enough obvious similarities here to send us into a certified tizzy. Is this the work of a brazen copycat? Coincidental pranksterism? Or has The Dangler decided to taunt his victims in an obvious act to goad us into making an impulsive mistake?

Pittsburgh Orbit cannot answer these questions…yet. But Dangler, if you’re reading this, know that we’re onto you like a strand of fish in a street gingko. We’re putting the pieces together and we’ll not rest until your dangling ways are understood.

If you have any additional information on The East End Dangler or other dangled targets, please contact our anonymous tip line. We need all the help we can get on this important case.

* Actually, he or she probably is fooling around.

Something Fishy: Angling for the East End Dangler

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boy with tree twig and strand of toy fish

The littlest Dangler angler with another clue from the trail, East Liberty

It started, as these things do, with just a single incident. Back in the early fall, out on an afternoon constitutional, the crew came across a curious sight. Tangled in the mid-level branches of a street tree on Centre Avenue was a six-inch plastic tiger shark, hanging by a length of rough twine tied around her tail fin. Following the string led to a purple dolphin, then a starfish, and so forth. Six miniature sea creatures in all, very much out of water, and awkwardly tossed into the leafy undergrowth just above head level.

strand of plastic toy fish tied together with twine and hanging from tree branches, Pittsburgh, PA

exhibit #1 aka “two sharks,” as found in East Liberty, Sept. 2017

As we’ve mentioned before, Orbit staff maintain a strict do-not-disturb policy when it comes to street art, pranks, and other happenstance findings in the public sphere. Our interns do not always abide by the same code of conduct.

Such was the case on this day, as cub reporter Lee extracted the string of toys from the overhead branches and brought it back home for further examination. While that felt very much like disturbing the scene of a crime way back in September, it would prove eerily prescient. It was only just recently that we became aware this was no isolated incident.

That’s right: Pittsburgh has a repeat offender on a loose and he, she, or they have struck enough times to warrant serial status. The East End Dangler walks among us, covertly decorating the city’s flora with strange garlands of (mostly) plastic fish.

6 plastic sea creature toys connected by twine

exhibit #1 aka “two sharks,” found on Centre Ave., East Liberty

Nearly seven months after that initial encounter, we were certainly in for a surprise. Walking back to the office on a chilly early spring afternoon–the belly still reeling from a lunch of huevos con chorizo con tortillas con frijoles con arroz y unlimited chips–to see a tiny die-cast aeroplane poking its propeller schnoz out of the newly-cut grass. On retrieval, we found the same tell-tale twine knotted around the plane’s tiny tail and rudder. It wasn’t until just this moment that the connection between aircraft design and sea life anatomy became so perfectly clear–but let’s stay on topic.

Our very same cub reporter not only identified the toy as “Dusty Crophopper” from Disney’s Planes but also spotted a tiny rubber fish nearby. The squishy little fellow was dislodged from the strand when its tail broke off, but in an unlikely and gruesome turn of events, the dismembered body part was still caught in the twine to confirm the relationship.

toy airplane on string of twine

exhibit #3 aka “Dusty Crophopper,” (partial) found on Centre Ave., East Liberty

The revelation that the string of sharks was not a one-time deal would have–should have–been enough, but we were in for a couple more shocks. Mere feet away–O.K., maybe one or two hundred of them–was another bare tree with another set of dangling fish. In this case, two bug-eyed, cartoonish blue fish and one tiny red-orange fellow. Unlike the previous two marks of The Dangler, this trio was connected by wire (not twine) and thrown way up high, out of arm’s reach, but well within eyesight.

plastic fish toys strung together with wire and hanging from tree limb, Pittsburgh, PA

exhibit #4 aka “blue fish,” as found in East Liberty, April, 2018

Attentive readers are already yelling at their mobile devices, hopefully not in public restrooms. How did you jump from exhibit #1 to exhibits #3 and #4? What kind of amateur-hour investigation are your running around here?

Ah–that’s where the plot thickens! Lee had already bagged exhibit #2 (aka “orange fish”) and just never filed his paperwork. Way out of the relatively-small perimeter we were working, this yang to “blue fish’s” yin [three fish, the little one in the middle, single color scheme, wire connector–orange and blue are even opposites on the color wheel!] hung from a tree along Browns Hill Road, miles from Centre Avenue.

three plastic fish hanging from wire in a bare tree

exhibit #2 aka “orange fish,” as found on Browns Hill Road, April, 2018 [photo: Lee Floyd]

Like Ed Gein and Ted Kaczynski, Rudy Giuliani and Pauly Shore, we may never know what motivates The East End Dangler to do what they do. In lieu of any hard evidence on the person behind the dangling, we’re left with just the physical items: toys–specifically fish toys–and location.

On that first point, one popular theory holds that the perp is a parent, the child or children having aged out of their fish phase and into teenage alienation. What to do with those leftover sharks, goldfish, and neon tetras but string them up and throw them in city trees? A little goofy, but more unlikely events happen around us every day.

3 toy fish connected by wire

exhibit #4 aka “blue fish”, found on Centre Ave., East Liberty

These may also be the work of a prankster or frustrated conceptual artist. The nearby Goodwill on Centre likely offers an ample supply of second-hand toys at by-the-pound prices. If decorating trees with Happy Meal castoffs is your thing, it can be done easily and at bargain rates. As art? Well, it beats spray paint tagging.

A third opinion holds that we’ve got deeper symbolism here–something very specifically fish-related. All three of the Centre Ave. finds are within rock-tossing distance of the East Liberty Whole Foods; “orange fish” was spotted adjacent to the Hokkaido Seafood Buffet restaurant. It doesn’t take Hercule Poirot to connect these particular dots. Whether the Dangler might be addressing mercury in the food chain or the Pacific Ocean’s plastic vortex is unclear, but lines can certainly be drawn.

3 toy fish connected by wire

exhibit #2 aka “orange fish,” found on Browns Hill Road

We may never know…or this may just be the beginning of the conversation. If you’ve noticed the work of The East End Dangler (literally) hanging around a tree you frequent, please let us know. Until then, to paraphrase Casey Kasem, keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the fish in the trees.

BREAKING NEWS: On the eve of going to press, The Dangler dropped another bombshell on us. There, in those same Centre Avenue street trees hangs yet another dangled concoction. This one appears to be just two toy airplanes, one a bulbous, cartoonish propeller; the other, a second Dusty Crophopper. As of this writing, the dangled bits remain tree-side.

toy airplane hanging from wire in tree limbs

exhibit #5 as found in East Liberty, May, 2018

The Protractor Files: One Last Big Score

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protractor glued to Bloomfield Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA

Bloomfield Bridge

Oh, their demon powers! The perfect arc, the cosine-solving magic, the eternal urban egg hunt! Wherever we go, that’s where we are–and so are they! Attached to the low wall of a concrete pedestrian walkway, stuck to the base of a lamp pole, glued to a park bench, painted red and white on a Polish Hill mailbox. Like the protagonist of any decent jewel heist flick, just when this blogger thought he was out, the Pittsburgh protractors held a dear family member hostage, blackmailing him back to the game for one last score.

protractor glued to base of light pole, Pittsburgh, PA

Squirrel Hill

protractor glued to electrical box, Pittsburgh, PA

#32, Strip District

When Pittsburgh Orbit first wrote about them last year, we suggested right in the post’s title that the protractors are “disappearing”. The existing stock seemed to be in the process of removal by authorities, stripped by trophy-seekers, weather-eroded, and/or painted-over with no replacements arriving to replenish the supply.

Given a little time and perspective, though, reports of the protractors’ demise seem to be somewhat–if not greatly–exaggerated. Many of the specimens spotted in this spree–certainly the solid purple and yellow ones photographed here–appear to be new, unnumbered additions to the landscape since last we looked.

If so, why the change of M.O.? Did the protractor perpetrator just get lazy? Lose count? Or do we have a copycat on our hands? One Office Max dumpster dive plus a tube of Shoe Goo[1] and anyone could add to the city’s long-running street art mystery.

protractor attached to mail box, Pittsburgh, PA

Polish Hill

protractor glued to Bloomfield Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA

Bloomfield Bridge

And what a mystery it is! How does anyone keep their big yap shut for this long without spilling the beans?

Is there a message to the protractors we’re all just too blind to see? Do they actually mean something or is this just someone’s goofy prank? Like the Trump voter coming to the realization the pathological liar he elected was telling the truth in just enough horrifying ways, are we in on the joke, or the butt of it?

Ah, hell. Maybe that’s something that could–and should–be said of all art[2]. If these little plastic doohickeys glued to nondescript bridge joints and light pole bases get people off their keisters, stretching their gams, asking questions, and looking at the world a little closer, you know, I.R.L. we’ll be happy to take a few lumps for Team Humanity.

protractor attached to graffiti-covered mailbox, Pittsburgh, PA

Polish Hill

protractor glued to I-beam in city park, Millvale, PA

Millvale Riverfront Park

protractor glued to pedestrian overpass, Pittsburgh, PA

Pedestrian overpass, Bigelow Blvd.

purple protractor attached to "Receiving Entrance" sign on stone building, Pittsburgh, PA

Lawrenceville

purple protractor attached to metal expansion joint on bridge, Pittsburgh, PA

40th Street Bridge

protractor attached to graffiti-covered mailbox, Pittsburgh, PA

Polish Hill

protractor glued to park bench, Pittsburgh, PA

Lawrenceville

See also:
* A Paean to the Disappearing Pittsburgh Protractors Pittsburgh Orbit, June 5, 2016.
* A Protractor Bender Pittsburgh Orbit, June 30, 2016.

[1] “Sources say” this is the origin story and application method for the protractors, but that is not confirmed.
[2] That the protractors may be “art” versus, say, “prank” or “graffiti” is worthy of its own debate.

Golden Babies: Strange Things Afoot!

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golden baby and baby foot hanging from wires in front of row houses, Pittsburgh, PA

Dismembered foot of Penn Baby with Penn Baby 2, Lawrenceville

Regrettably, The Orbit had accepted the mystery around the Golden Babies–like the Kennedy assassination, or where real babies come from–would likely never be solved.

But then a tip of the reddest and hottest variety came in: “MAJOR new development in the golden babies,” it began. What followed was a pair of plot twists to this ongoing street art narrative that both flipped our collective wig and, like Michael Phelps waking from his doobie-smoking Subway bender, re-lit a fire underneath this blogger that fans had thought long extinguished in the purple haze of five dollar foot-longs.

golden baby and baby foot hanging from wires, Pittsburgh, PA

Golden baby has a leg up on other street art

Faster than you can say quasi-respectable news source we hoofed it up to Constellation Coffee. The café sits right where our first-sighted golden baby (“Penn Baby”) appeared. Here, we could confirm the tip–and also enjoy a delicious cup of coffee*.

The story, right from the baristas at Constellation, goes like this: one Sunday morning, a concerned citizen phoned in a complaint to the city. Apparently the golden baby, dangling by his ankle from the wires on the 4000 block of Penn Ave., was just too much. The substance of the concern is not known, but we’ll take a wild guess that the baby was deemed “offensive,” “creepy,” and/or “weird.” Fair enough, I suppose**.

Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA with golden baby hanging from wires

View down Penn Ave. with golden baby and loose foot.

With nothing more substantive ablaze, the fire department was dispatched to remove the offending infant from the airspace over Penn Avenue. For whatever reason, they were unable to either undo the baby’s hanging wire or just cut it off, so the crew made the bizarre decision to instead saw through its tiny plastic leg. This allowed the removal of most of the kid, but left one stray golden foot, ankle, and calf dangling from the telephone wires.

Side note: This action begs a number of questions. Among them: Is leaving a disembodied leg really less offensive than the whole baby? and How is it that a street artist/prankster has a longer ladder than the fire department? and If I’m in the third floor of a burning building should I just accept fate and kiss my feet goodbye?

golden baby and baby leg dangling from wires, Pittsburgh, PA

Golden baby: foot loose and fancy free

Strange? Sure is! But what happened next will blow your mind! [That is, unless you’ve already looked at the pictures.]

In less than 48 hours, a brand new golden baby went up on the same stretch of wires–within mere feet of the foot. “Penn Baby 2” generally looks the same as the other golden babies, but with the key differences that s/he’s clothed in a red onesie (the others are white) and that garment appears to be stamped or silk-screened with some mystery insignia (the others are plain/unadorned).

close-up of golden baby in red onesie, Pittsburgh, PA

Penn Baby 2. Note the red onesie with cryptic insignia.

If blogging teaches us anything, it’s to not rest on one’s assumptions. The strange circumstances of Penn Babies 1 and 2 only prove that black is white, up is down, child is father to the man, and therefore, baby is, uh…older sibling to the child? Ah, hell.

This story is not over yet–no, not by a long shot. There’s one very important piece of evidence still in dispute–the whereabouts of the footless and foot-loose Penn Baby. Sources say it’s in the possession of Constellation Coffee–secured in a drawer right on the premises. But when the subject came up during The Orbit’s interrogation of the staff, the aforementioned “friendly” baristas clammed up tighter than a set of quad toms at a Sun Devils half-time show. Believe you me: their guilty eyes have got no rhythm.

What are they hiding? O.K., we think we know what they’re hiding, but why are they hiding it? You can bet we’ll get to the bottom of this…or at least to another cup of that delicious coffee.

* Constellation makes a damn good cup of coffee.
** If only a phone call could have the much more offensive Crocs stripped from the feet of our citizenry so easily.

A Protractor Bender

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protractor glued to base of light pole, Pittsburgh, PA

#234, Arsenal Park

Much like starting on a bag of potato chips or listening to Creedence records, when you finally break down to blogging about the Pittsburgh protractors, you can’t stop at just one*.

Oh, how long had this blogger let his eyes skip over them, camera safely stowed in the hip pocket? No temptation at all–we’d let other hack bloggers work this scene.

But once we ran the Orbit Obit waxing on about the fate of the disappearing Pittsburgh protractors, the floodgates were officially open. Like a drunkard on a first bender after rehab, we were bagging everything in sight–bridge railings, bases of light posts, electrical boxes, the posteriors of park benches, an air conditioner. (Yes, even an air conditioner!)

So, whether you’re full-on pro-protractor or just geometry-curious, here you go. It’s an Orbit collection of a bunch more of the arced creatures, picked up in just the last couple weeks. Drink up.

protractor glued to lamp post base, Swinburne Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA

#425, Swinburne Bridge

protractor glued to light pole, Pittsburgh, PA

#218, Bloomfield

protractor glued to electrical box panel, Pittsburgh, PA

#236, Arsenal Park

purple protractor glued to power box on light pole, Pittsburgh, PA

#410, Bloomfield

purple protractor glued to metal plate on Swinburne Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA

Swinburne Bridge (number unreadable)

purple protractor glued to rear of park bench, PIttsburgh, PA

Friendship Park (number unknown)

purple protractor glued to window air conditioner, Pittsburgh, PA

#418, Lawrenceville

Purple protractor glued to 10th Street Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA

#448, 10th Street Bridge

purple protractor glued to electric power box, Pittsburgh, PA

Troy Hill (number unknown)

protractor glued to lamp post base, Swinburne Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA

#430, Swinburne Bridge

* Yes, even this choogler can stop before he gets to Mardi Gras.

A Paean to the Disappearing Pittsburgh Protractors

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purple protractor with number "500" written on it attached to garbage can, Pittsburgh, PA

The final protractor? #500, river trail, North Side

They’re all over the damn place. Protractors–those same cheap plastic devices we had to pony up for to complete ninth grade geometry–are glued to guard rails, bridge supports, waste bins, mailboxes, lamp posts, and the backs of street signs all over the city.

If you haven’t seen them, you either don’t live around here or you haven’t been looking. There are–or were—hundreds of them[1]. In the hands of our pranksters/artists/mysterions (take your pick) each of the protractors has been painted a solid color, sequentially numbered by hand in big block numerals, and grafted to every manner of publicly-accessible metal surface.

green protractor glued to graffiti-covered mailbox, Pittsburgh, PA

#100, North Oakland

Until now, The Orbit has resisted writing about the so-called “Pittsburgh protractors”. They’ve been around for a number of years and have achieved a certain level of obscure fame. The phenomenon is well documented in one dogged blogger’s map and database[2]. Even the local TV news got involved. The protractors don’t need us…or do they?

We started to realize that a lot of the old familiar golden, purple, green, and pink arches we’re used to seeing around town are disappearing. Gone are standout creatures of the Fort Duquesne, Smithfield Street, and Hot Metal bridges. Lamppost bases are scraped clean; big relay mailboxes and waste bin containers have simply been painted-over in not-quite-matching colors, sparing the maintenance workers the trouble of decoupling the protractors underneath. When oddity turns into nostalgic despair, that’s when The Orbit steps in.

protractor glued to mailbox, both painted hunter green, Pittsburgh, PA

#273[3], mailbox, Oakland/Shadyside (painted-over)

protractor glued to public waste bin container, Pittsburgh, PA

(unknown), river trail, North Side (painted-over)

What do the protractors mean?

The Orbit has always been content with a state of bemused wonder, so trying to suss meaning out of someone’s goofy art prank doesn’t concern us that much. As the protractor perpetrator(s) have remained mum this long, it’s unlikely we’ll get any definitive answer any time soon–if ever.

That said, it’s been commonly theorized that the shape of a protractor echoes the gentle arc and twin supports of a standard truss bridge–think the Fort Pitt, Fort Duquesne, or 16th Street bridges. It’s an appealing and believable theory. Pittsburgh is, after all, the “city of bridges,” and the protractors have been applied liberally to many of them.

Fort Pitt Bridge over the Monongahela River, Pittsburgh, PA

Fort Pitt Bridge, possible protractor prompt?

Who put these up?

It sure seems like no one knows–or, at least, no one’s talking/blogging. According on one old axe, “Three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” By this logic, we’re dealing with one lone wolf–but who knows? What does seem obvious is that the person or persons behind this are intimately familiar with the walkable/ridable core of central Pittsburgh.

The aforementioned map contains points almost solely within the East End, Central North Side, and a very small representation of South Side (really just the river trail). We see nothing up in or over the hills, in the suburbs, or, frankly, in the black neighborhoods. There are also no reports from downtown, Squirrel Hill, or Greenfield–but some of this may be the bias of who’s reporting the finds, rather than actual placement.

All this certainly points to a bicycle-rider. There are a ton of protractors along the river trails and probably more along the bridge pedestrian walkways (although many of these have been removed). But beyond that….we got nuthin’.

purple protractor glued to metal blocker on bicycle trail, Pittsburgh, PA

#408, river trail, Millvale/North Side

Frankly, we’ve always had some issues with the protractors. It’s such an interesting and dedicated act of…mystery, but the slapped-on, haphazard approach and application often feels like it falls just short. Why not even them up, add an element, make them sing?

But as we muddled over this story, we realized what a minor gripe this really is. This blogger has great respect for any covert operation that exists for this long without anyone spilling the beans. We also love that the targets are all the city’s forgotten infrastructure–no private property has been harmed in the addition of the protractors[4].

And then, of course, there’s the egg hunt. If this whole thing has gotten even just a small number of dedicated weirdos to take to the streets, bridges, and bicycle trails with an eye out for the curve, well, The Orbit says hats off for the protractor perpetrators getting people off their keisters, into the outdoors, and observing their surroundings.

blue protractor glued to metal plate on 40th Street Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA

#303, 40th Street Bridge

[1]  At least 500. But, you know, it ain’t official.
[2]  Just in comparing notes for this story, it was obvious how difficult keeping the map accurate and current would be. Many of the inclusions on the map are no longer there, and likewise many of the (newer?) protractors we located aren’t listed.
[3]  Identification from Eric Lidji’s Pittsburgh Protractor Map, which also includes a photo before the paint-over.
[4]  We wish the War on Google and Facebook is Boring taggers would be this respectful.

Golden Babies: The Final Chapter?

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golden baby hanging from electric line, Pittsburgh, PA

Golden baby #4 (aka “Clement Baby”)

Almost as soon as this blogger’s index finger migrated January’s More Golden Babies! post from “draft” to public record even more tips on the mysterious street art/prank started rolling in. Three of them, in fact, one right after the other. Another golden baby had been spotted just off Main Street in Bloomfield/Lawrenceville, a second over on The North Side, and yet a third down in the 10th Ward on Butler Street. That last one turned out to be duplicate report of Butler Baby (golden baby #3), but, as a famous realist–and entrée–once said, two out of three ain’t bad.

silhouette of baby doll dangling from electric line over row houses, Pittsburgh, PA

Golden Baby #5 (aka “Sampsonia Baby”)

Oh, you can believe that chops were licked and hootenannies kicked into high gear to confirm these reports. Orbit readers who’ve already perused the included photographs will note that we were not let down in our pursuit.

Golden Baby #4 is (still) dangling from the electrical infrastructure on tiny Clement Way, just off Main Street, right next to The Shop and Liberty Beer. Golden Baby #5 was caught hanging loose in the Mexican War Streets on the very block where both The Mattress Factory and City of Asylum houses are. In both cases, the baby dolls seem to perfectly match their siblings: same gold paint, same white onesie, same dangle by the ankle.

The jump across the river for #5 was especially interesting as it meant our perpetrator(s) may be, you know, “city-wide,” rather than concentrated purely in the Penn and Butler stretches of the East End. How many more would there be? We’d just have to hang back, wait, and see what else turned up.

golden baby hanging from electric line over brick building, Pittsburgh, PA

Golden baby, blue sky. Clement Baby

Well…the calendar turned from February to March, we ate a bunch of fried fish and mac & cheese, and now we’re half way into April and there’s been nary a peep from any more golden babies (or their spotters). The 1-800-ORBIT-ME hotline sits silent, phone bank operators idly twiddling their well-intentioned thumbs. We can’t get a grainy cell-phone baby photo tweeted at us to save our lives. Sigh.

Is this it? Is this the way it all goes down? If so, that’s O.K.–we had a good run. I’m tempted to say, like a famous minstrel–and heartbreaker–once did, don’t do me like that. But, you know, that ain’t how it is. No, Mr. or Ms. Golden Baby dangler, you did me pretty good. Yeah, you did The Orbit pretty darn good.

golden baby, electric lines, and sky, Pittsburgh, PA

Upside-down you’re turning me. Sampsonia Baby

More Golden Babies! [or] A Golden Baby Boom!

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Golden baby hanging from power lines, Pittsburgh, PA

Off-kilter: Golden Baby #3 (aka “Butler Baby”)

It started innocently enough. That is, if a baby doll, its flesh painted gold and wearing a white onesie, suspended by a wire on its ankle and dangling upside down from a set of power lines counts as “innocent.” A couple weeks ago The Orbit spotted golden baby #1 near the corner of Penn and Main Streets, roughly in front of Constellation Coffee in Lawrenceville. We wrote about our amused and bemused impressions of it in these very annals. It was a fun little piece of street art (?) or possibly a goofy prank (??)–maybe a little bit of both–but that seemed like the last we’d hear from the golden dangling baby.

Then the tips started rolling in. First, reader Meredith reported a second golden baby, strung in the same manner, farther up Penn Avenue, at the corner of Winebiddle Street–she even included a photo. Another golden baby? we thought–we hoped–we fantasized. Where there’s two, there’s got to be more! Everyone knows that golden babies don’t arrive in pairs!

Golden baby hanging from power line, Pittsburgh, PA

Look out below: Golden Baby #2 (aka “Winebiddle Baby”)

As a gloomy daylight broke over that first post-tip Saturday, this blogger took the bicycle on a chilly mission to cruise Penn Avenue in search of other babies–golden or otherwise. From 40th Street all the way to East Liberty we went–slowly, block-by-block, eyes in the wires–scanning for lofty abandoned newborns. Stop honking you jagoffs! I’m reporting here! We found the little lost soul Meredith had tipped us to and snapped some pictures, but that was it. Otherwise: bupkis.

This one had a marked difference from Constellation Baby, though. Not in appearance–the size, shape, gold paint, white onesie–heck, even the unclipped tag–were identical. No, Winebiddle Baby just looked a lot easier to install. First of all, he’s mere feet from the second-floor fire escape of the brick building on Penn. Anyone with access could easily hang this baby right off the landing. Second, the power line is much closer to the ground than Constellation Baby’s. The perpetrator didn’t even have to get up on the fire escape–he or she could have just stood on the roof of a car–or set up a stepladder–to reach the low wire.

Golden baby hanging from power line near brick building with fire escape, Pittsburgh, PA

Winebiddle Baby [note the easy access from the fire escape]

Two golden babies found, but the trail had gone cold. That is, until we happened to run into reader John one cold morning on the 93A heading to Oakland. Imagine this blogger’s eyeballs ka-boinging out of their sockets as John casually dropped the news “you know there’s another one of those golden babies down on Butler Street, right?”

No, John, we didn’t! And it’s lucky it snowed or my ass would have been on the shoe leather express frustrated that only two golden babies have been found instead of riding this bus talking to you! This is why tip lines exist!

Golden baby hanging from power lines, Pittsburgh, PA

Hang in there, Butler Baby!

John’s willingness to come forward with evidence may be suspect, but his information is spot-on. Right there, in the wires above the 5300 block of Butler, dangles golden baby #3–and what a beauty she is! Glistening in an impossibly perfect deep blue January sky, gracefully spinning in the softest of breezes, Butler Baby is at peace with the world. Content to let the afternoon sunlight illuminate her golden skin, impervious to the cold weather, she’s lifted, weightless, and totally blissed-out. If only she’d let us know if–and where–she has more golden siblings similarly drifting through the ether.

Golden Dangling Baby!

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dangling baby silhouette w wires

The vigilant blogger must learn to look for inspiration anywhere and everywhere. These stories don’t grow on trees! [Well, actually they might grow on trees.] Maybe Mayor Peduto has enough clout to order the D.P.W. into creating brilliant street art, but The Orbit has yet to wield that kind of influence. Until then, we’re at the mercy of fate, jonesing for goofballs, and always on the lookout for the next score.

And indeed it was fate–an extra cold morning (too cold for the bicycle), a missed bus, a re-routed walk to work–that led this blogger to receive what we’re considering a kind of divine inspiration. Yes, at the moment when we needed it most–mere hours (err…a couple days) before deadline–today’s story literally fell out of the sky at us in the form of one suspended baby doll, dangling by his right foot from the telephone wires along Penn Avenue.

We’ve seen a lot of things hanging from wires in our day–banners and debris, vines and living creatures, and of course the ubiquitous pairs of sneakers–laced, eulogized, and interred in the sky as a final loving tribute. But until now, Pittsburgh Orbit has never encountered a dangling (falling? flying?) baby doll high in the utility infrastructure. This one is new to us.

dangling baby vertical

Though not parents ourselves*, hanging the next generation from telephone wires may be understandable–hell, there might still be time to string up the Millennials! In any case, it’s a questionable form of child care for a newborn and likely not recommended by “real” parents.

How the baby doll got up on those wires is a mystery. Getting a laced pair of sneakers up there seems like a simple enough task–you stand on the sidewalk and keep throwing them over head until they catch. But this baby doesn’t have any counter-balance, no obvious hook to snare the electric line on the trip up. That, and these wires are a good twenty feet in the air and not terribly near any windows on the Penn Ave. buildings. How did it get here?

There is one more interesting tidbit. Though it is not at all apparent in these backlit morning light photographs, the baby has had its flesh painted gold (you’ll have to take The Orbit‘s word for this–or better yet, go see for yourself). This should allay any possible suspicions that the baby reached the overhead wires of natural causes. Uh-uh. Not buying it. This card-carrying amateur detective wanna-be knows the work of someone on the prankster-street art continuum when he’s standing under it…and he likes what he sees.

To you, Golden Baby Dangler (whoever you are), thank you for making one blogger’s day.

dangling baby w Penn Ave facades

* That we know of