Don't forget to move your clock forward an hour before you go to bed next Saturday night so you don't miss the Explore Exotic East End run. From Bakery Square we will visit some of the new restaurants popping up and also work in a trip across the new foot bridge to Ellsworth Ave.
It has been a while since the group has been reprimanded so it should not have been a surprise that the security guard at the Pennsylvanian Apartments (the old train station) told us to leave the rotunda area where we had been admiring the stonework because it was private property - but somehow it just does not seem right to limit access to one of the city's architectural gems... Still that did not take away from the rest of the run whose mysterious goal turned out to be a visit to the partly dismantled Civic Arena. Well, OK, that was not exactly uplifting but it was interesting. We also ran by a new (to me at least) public square across from Point Park on the Boulevard and Tom did not complain when we took a detour to see the Cell Phone Disco which we unfortunately could not activate since no one had their cell phone on them.. Thanks to Tom for the downtown tour.
PtB joined us for coffee and we were all glad to see she is healing up nicely from her running injury.
1 comment:
From Virginia
A possible addendum to your note: I think you were running a little behind us when Tom made this observation, but it's the first time the run has gone through a tunnel -- the Armstrong Tunnel, which takes folks from Second Avenue to Forbes. He even checked out the route the day before to make sure it had a safe pedestrian walkway.
According to some local websites, the Armstrong Tunnel is 1,320 feet long and opened in 1927. It features twin bores of horseshoe cross-section with a 45 degree bend part of the way through.
And it has a legend: That the bend in the tunnel was a mistake...and that the responsible party committed suicide in shame. The tunnel's chief engineer Vernon Covell, of course, lived on to build again. Although they didn't have GPS or laser guided measuring systems in those days, it's doubtful they would have been off by that much without being aware of it.
The bend probably had more to do with mines or other geological factors, property rights (including Duquesne University), alignments with existing or proposed roads (like the 10th St Bridge), according to pghbridges.com
Post a Comment