#windgap – Run All The Streets

Snowy Run from a Month Gone By

(January to be exact)

https://www.strava.com/activities/4632494430 — Route of run #00356

Once again, I’m reaching back into last month’s runs. There were so many of them! Several of my posts delightedly spoke of ice-free streets and sunny days. This day, however, looked more like January. The wind was howling, the snow was blowing, the skies were gray. (Much like today, the February day I’m writing this.)

At any rate, I ran in the Corliss section of Sheraden; a sub-neighborhood, if you will. This is roughly between Chartiers Avenue and Middletown Road. Chartiers Avenue is rather urban. Middletown Road, on the other hand, has a wide-open, suburban feel. Like tectonic plates colliding, these two visions collide in Corliss, yielding steep streets and tortured steps; a land of broken steps.

Getting started right off the bat, I noticed these steps for “Jenkins Street”. I was surprised because Jenkins Street did not appear on my map. Turns out, Jenkins hasn’t been a real street for decades. Most of the “lots” along that papery street are owned by the City of Pittsburgh. I took a screenshot of the Allegheny County Real Estate Portal and added the red arrows where Jenkins is supposed to be. The steps there are in surprisingly good shape and the street sign for this nonexistent street is top-notch.

Moving on, I crossed Middletown and slogged up a long alley. The recent snowfall made everything more picturesque. It went all the way to Chartiers Avenue, where you can see the West End houses rising high towards the overlook.

This high-side of Chartiers has many nooks and crannies. Tybee Steps look pretty official, but when you get to the other side, you’re trekking on a grassy slope between houses. Those steps with the nice white picket fence could be part of Newcomer Street, or they could just be a poorly maintained walkway to someone’s house. Newcomer Street is another street destined to exist only on paper. The one section is a little used section off of Emporia. The other section is now a personal driveway, all fifty yards of it.

Newcomer Steps Maybe — Unpretentious End of Tybee Steps

While most of my pics are of steps here, there are a few houses. These two, in particular, struck me. The 1920’s red brick house, in particular, is very impressive. That balcony! That wrap-around porch! The octagonal tower! The creamy yellow house is more modest, but is a bright spot on a dead end below Fadette Street.

Speaking of Fadette, Fadette is split into several sections and shape-shifts into stairs for a bit. Unfortunately, the Fadette Steps are tattered and torn. I’m always critical of closed stairs. Are they closed for reason, or just because someone got annoyed with them? These are closed for good reason with missing treads and wonky wooden handrails. Hopefully they will get repaired before nature reduces them to urban artifacts.

These broken steps seriously messed with my planned route. I had to detour along Faronia Street to get to the bottom. Along the way, I came across another impressive, and closed, set of steps; Jeffers Steps. I went up a bit, but could not make it to the top in the swirling snow. Later, Fire Way, above, afforded me the view of the top. It was getting chilly and a fire didn’t sound bad.

I suppose there were enough steps to keep me warm. Pritchard Street and Mutual Street had step-assisted paths from Chartiers Avenue. There were steps down to Tuxedo Street, with its skate park, but they, too, were broken.

Not far from these last steps, I turned back toward my parking spot in Ingram, running back along Ladoga, continually looking for the other end of Jenkins Street.

Winding Thru Windgap

https://www.strava.com/activities/3890197520 — RATS #00277 in the Windgap neighborhood of Pittsburgh

Whew, another hot summer run! This time I sought out Windgap and Chartiers for a rather flat run in Pittsburgh’s western neighborhoods. I started from Chartiers Playground. As I waited there for my Garmin to synch to a satellite, I noticed an elderly man slowly walking a little fluffy white and brown dog up the street. I figured I would be long gone before he passed. As the satellites blinked overhead, refusing to connect, the man passed, chatting away on his cell phone, significantly younger than I had thought. While I stood there, getting old myself, he turned up the street and continued on. The effect was, that once Garmin did actually tune into the mothership, he was on the street I had originally intended to run. I felt awkward running by him now, so I decided to go around the block.

On this, my two-hundred and seventy-seventh run in Pittsburgh, I should have known you can’t just “go around the block” here. I dabbled a little on the other side of Chartiers Avenue, then found myself in the far end of Windgap, where large yards contain sprawling ranch houses or small two story homes. It’s rather remarkable how wide open this area is and I think it is on the Chartiers Creek floodplain.

At the upper edge of this plain, long streets such as Summerdale and Isolene provided some shade from the withering sun. Isolene has the distinction of being the first street you come to when hurtling down Middletown Road, which has about a quarter mile of nasty turns before hitting this flat area.

There wasn’t too much to see here. As it was garbage night, people were starting to bring out their trash. I seem to have a habit of running on garbage night, wherever I go. I liked the baby blue house below. Most houses were actually in better shape than that one. Large yards are the norm, many with large, flourishing gardens.

Approaching four miles, I finally made it around the block and called it a day. According to Strava, it was 88 degrees, but it felt hotter.

Sheraden Grid to Windgap

https://www.strava.com/activities/3351885713 — Taking RATS #00225 to Windgap

“Sheradenia est omnis divisa in partes tres” – to loosely copy Julius Ceasar. (No worries, legions of Romans aren’t set to invade it.) There is the generally flat plateau overlooking the Ohio River; the flat grid between Sheraden Park and Chartiers Avenue; and the hilly section south and west of Chartiers Avenue. Most of today’s run was in the second section, between Sheraden Park and Chartiers Avenue.

I parked near McGonigle Park and started the crisscrossing streets. Almost every yard had a dog. And every dog had something to say, starting with the large old black and brown dog who “woofed” at me vigorously, but didn’t bother to get up. Finishing up Universal Street, a young brown dog had lots to say as he breathlessly barked and leaped against his fence, trying to take a bite of a me. At least we both got our heart rates up.

But the people were nice, greeting me as they worked on their houses. Near the parks, the streets are pleasantly sheltered by tall trees. There’s supposed to be a set of steps which go from Moyer to Chartiers Avenue but the top is blocked by fencing. On the other end of the grid, Jean Street dissolves into broken steps descending to Adon Street.

Jean Street Becoming Broken Steps to Adon Street

The grid of streets, with a little duplication, covered six miles. Then I crossed Chartiers Avenue, planning to go up the Universal Street steps into the hillier section of Sheraden. However, the lower section of Universal is overgrown, so I went up the very steep Emporia Street. The top section of steps was OK, and I went all the way to Chetopas Street, where I got this broad view.

This hillier section Sheraden is riddled with steps, as streets cross Chartiers Avenue and run into a bluff. Huxley Street and Adon Street, for example, continue across Chartiers and meet as a step intersection.

Then I made my way to Middletown Avenue. I had done portions of Middletown before. This time, however, I was intent on following it to its bitter end. Turns out, it lands in a flat, wide-open suburban area.

I crossed the Windgap Bridge which briefly took me into McKees Rocks. That is out of the City of Pittsburgh, so I returned to explore more of the Windgap neighborhood.

McKees Rocks – Can’t Say They Didn’t Tell You

Traversing the big wide open streets of Windgap, I found the end of Chartiers Avenue. It just stops at the intersection with Mayfair Street, a residential, suburban street. I made my way back to Sheraden along Chartiers Avenue. I was a little short of my intended fifteen miles, so I wandered a bit in the center of Sheraden, where I saw this bold butterfly mural.