Garfield watertower and psychogeographic Pittsburgh
August 23, 2012
Looking out my front door, I see the N. Graham avenue which goes steeply up the hill in to Garfield. At the top of the hill is the Garfield water tower (picture at top of post). One summer, when I was at home recovering from some surgery, I found the walk up the hill, along the ridge, and down again was a good becnhmark for how my strength was returning. I would walk past the watertower, and often sit for a few minutes to regain my composure. The big water tank is supported by steel columns, a dozen or so that are themselves connected by a lattice structure to evenly disperse the weight across all points of the poles. In the early morning, I would try and remember Yeats, mumbling through the folk song setting by Britten:
- Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
- She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
- She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
- But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.
- In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
- And on my leaning shoulder she placed her snow-white hand.
- She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
- But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.
But it was easier instead to remember a nursery rhyme:
The Grand old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
Then he marched them down again.
The sense of enormous water suspended above me, the sunshine, the peace and quiet (there's a small farm just a few yards further down the road ), the melancholy of snow-white hands and feet. I could imagine the bright sunshine casting a shadow through the supporting lattice that rests over the full East Liberty plateau, maybe reaching down as far as the Point. From my office window downtown, 33rd floor, I could look past Oakland and see the Garfield water tower in line with the Herron Hill tower. I once walked East until Penn Ave ends at the foot of Penn Hills. I walked up and along the short ridge of Penn Hills, and came back down Frankstown road. There were only a few places blocked by buildings where I could not see the tower. It is the most singular object on the landscape around here. A good psychogeographic map of East Pittsburgh would start with the sight lines for the tower, and mark off those places where you cannot see. Identify those dead spots - the Garfield watertower transmits Quiddity across the area.
In a different summer, my friend Nick and I decided that it would be a good walk to start from the Garfield tower, and head as straight a line as possible to the watertower up on Herron Hill. That route takes us over the Bloomfield bridge and up a few miles to Oakland. When we went out to begin the walk - and you've seen the picture, that tower is big and present - we got up on the ridge, turned left expecting to see the tower, and no shit it wasn't there. We walked up and down, we thought perhaps our sense of distance was off and that we needed to walk a bit further North. But no, the damn thing wasn't there.
Later, we considered the option that the heavy tree growth in mid- August blocked our vision, and that we must have walked within feet of the tower footprint. I don't buy that for a minute. That watertower wasn't there. There are three salient factors at play: Time, Place and View. Were we in the right place? Most assuredly. A thousand pictures demonstrate that this is where the watertower is. Did we have the right View - meaning, were we looking for the right thing? Were we looking for a rabbit, when we meant to find a watertower? No - again, we had the perfect view in mind. In fact, it is all we wanted to do, was to find that tower. That leaves only time. We must have arrived at the wrong time, the time when the tower wasn't there.
And so now, because everything is swirling around a realisation of The Beleboke (all about The Beleboke...), I'm thinking this may be a good place to set up my Very Low Frequency receiver, pull out my didgeridoo, and record the results.