Steps We Take Troy Hill - To Heaven and Back

40.444585, -79.890060 From the corner of Penn Ave and West Street, Walk south toward the big brick building on the West side of West Street, Outside the entrance to Wilkinsburg’s Magisterial Court, Look for the Viewfinder in the sidewalk Can you see or hear water? You may be able to see the brick tunnel that holds the stream AKA a culvert a transverse drain 1 a drain or channel crossing under a road, sidewalk, sewer; conduit. 2 a tunnel carrying a stream, diverting it under a road or rail 3 Because of this culvert’s shallow depth, when the storms are big, Nine Mile Run will rise and flood the street Imagine this stream running Running through Wilkinsburg without being confined: Cutting through a yard, crossing an intersection, a street, a sidewalk. Water finding its way The stream was buried in the 1930s to create space and improve sanitation conditions: a single pipe system designed to carry away waste and stormwater to be diluted in streams and rivers Though the rivers became so polluted with raw human waste that a new system had to be created Let us honor the water, the storm that becomes stream, the stream a river As well as the waste our bodies produce and imagine even newer systems to honor both, as separate, necessary life givers

40.435735, -79.889725 From the parking lot off of Wilkins Avenue, head south through the park Pass the playground slides and swings, and find your way through the ball field Continue through the field of dandelion, clover and plantain toward the treeline When you are near the gap in the fence, look for two manholes One is to access the sanitary sewer, and the other is the storm sewer The storm sewer is part of the stream known as Nine Mile Run It carries water from the headwaters and stormwater collected along the way down to Frick Park This manhole shaft is concrete. When I first saw it, I thought of Lee Bontecou’s sculptures, specifically the untitled wall reliefs that protrude into spaces, but create an experience of looking/ in, or interiority, Portals to spaces we can only imagine but really this manhole shaft has more in common with another artwork, Duchamp’s urinal ‘Fountain’— the readymade that proclaimed that just about anything can be art. And as that artist, I’m saying, “Look here in this hole.” The hole is art, and being here with the hole is art. The hole— a portal to a system our ancestors built underground— It may be flawed, but we can still learn from it.

40.447933, -79.875735 From the corner of Hunter & James Walk up (North) on Hunter Street Passing the basketball court where ______________ grew up shooting hoops After the slope upward to the field, turn left, Walking between the bleachers and the backstop Follow the concrete path to approximately the center of the field Look for the Viewfinder here, in the ground What do you see / hear / smell? This is the headwaters of Nine Mile Run What is a Headwaters?, you might ask I too wondered I understand it as the source of the stream, which there are a few, for Nine Mile Run; It is also the farthest point from the confluence, where it meets the Monongahela River So, I ask the Source: What are you? Who are you? How do you produce water to become a stream? Are you a spring bubbling under this football field? What rocks are under there with you? And what happened here before this was made a field? What were the contours of the land? What plants grew here? What were the names of the people who walked here and had a relationship with you, and the buried stream? And do you miss the sun?

Ode to the relics of our age.

**For this walk start at the rock on campus** This is the story of a young woman named Anna Voiceover: Annmarie Lowerre Written and Created by: Elijah DuPonty

take a virtual tour on the ysu campus ! kinda ! ~~good vibes for finals szn~~ **** This bad boy has some intense ringing noises so if that's not your jam I'd head out