That was two weeks ago (and for the past several months).
This was yesterday (and for the following several months)....
HUDseen is a mostly pictorial blog dedicated to exposing all things dangerous, ugly, hypocritical, and inexplicable in Hudson, NY that go unseen or ignored by Hudson City Hall. As well as other random, curious, concerning, and interesting things seen and tripped over in Hudson.
That was two weeks ago (and for the past several months).
This was yesterday (and for the following several months)....
Eight days ago, on Saturday the 4th, I noticed that all but a tiny sliver of the scannable paid parking was missing from the meter pole on Columbia Street nearest to Park Place. What remained secured to the bracket showed that the sign had broken off; it had not been removed intentionally by anyone from the city. I took my pictures and included two of them on a textless HUDseen post on Monday. Within 24 hours, a new $29 double-sided sign was secured to the bracket atop the old meter pole in front of the tavern known as The Hereafter.
First, what the hell is the problem the Islamic Center people are trying to solve by installing the PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING signs on their property?
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By Wednesday afternoon, 2 days ago, less than 36 hours after the MINI on South Front Street had been BOOTed by HPD, the orange BOOT was no longer secured to the driver's side front wheel. In fact, it was nowhere in sight. As was the bright orange warning ticket that every BOOTed vehicle gets, telling drivers not to try to move their car and to pay their fines to get the BOOT removed. Typically, that means that the owner has paid all their overdue parking tickets and the $150 BOOT administrative fee ticket that comes with the BOOT. That appears not to be the case with the black MINI that seems to have been parked unmoved for a few months. That's because the two WRONG SIDE PARKING tickets -- with three weeks between them -- and the $150 BOOT ADMIN FEE ticket were still on the windshield.
A day or two ago, three large, 3-color, 51-word signs appeared in and alongside the County-owned parking lot at 6th & Columbia. The one facing the sidewalk is obscene. Who is its target audience? Could it be drivers stopped in the street with a pair of binoculars when no parked car is in the way of the view of the sign? Could it be drivers stopped on the sidewalk? Pedestrians? Nearby residents? Local Italians?
It's no coincidence that less than 48 hours after HUDseen pointed out the long-term parked black Mini Cooper on South Front Street with just one three-week-old ticket on it that it was BOOTed by HPD. They had obviously let this one slip through one of the many cracks that are prevalent in HPD's enforcement of overnight parking.
Had this car instead originally been parked, say, on January 1st in the 500 block of State Street, it would have been ticketed every other night so often and so regularly that it would have been considered abandoned by Captain David Miller and likely towed and impounded within two or three weeks. Probably in January! But because it was parked on Front Street, it evaded the grasp and eyes of HPD. It didn't look like an abandoned vehicle (so new and shiny!), so they ignored it. For months. That is, until HUDseen pointed out the flaw and inconsistency that car represented. And the general incoherence and mess that overnight parking enforcement clearly is.
** I couldn't pass up using the title -- ripping off Gil Scott-Heron's wonderful poem Whitey On The Moon -- even though it isn't 100% accurate. Victor Glover, a Black astronaut, is up there on Artemis II along with three White astronauts zipping around the moon. And why exactly are they up there, and why do we care? To forget our troubles down here?
That was two weeks ago (and for the past several months). This was yesterday (and for the following several months)....