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| Waiting for the children to return |
The "fountain," or what remains of it, in the center of the 7th street park is a case study in civic mismanagement and WTF?
There was a time not too long ago that there was an actual fountain of water in the park, and I'm not referring to Venus. The pool had a pump in it that sprayed water high in the air, and colored lights at night even lit up the water. Instead of a fountain, we had a fountain of colorful water - at least it was something. It was kinda nice, too, maybe even classy. Romantic, you might say. Like someone cares! Life is good! On a hot summer night it was downright refreshing to sit nearby and hear, watch and feel the water. Don't they say that water has a calming effect on people?
Then the pump broke and the "fountain" was no more. At a meeting, DPW head honcho Rob Perry claimed that the old pump was shot and couldn't be replaced. Hmmm... Really? No one asked him if it was possible to perhaps replace the old pump with a new one.
Then the controversial tall fence surrounding the pumpless pool came down. No need for it any longer since the world had run out of water fountain pumps! Suddenly there was just an empty and not too unattractive blue pool. But you couldn't even drop a penny in it to wish for better things!
Last year, just when things looked bleakest in the park, the aptly named FOPS people or person, claiming to be friends of the park, quickly stepped in, promising improvements to the park (with dark paint and daffodil bulbs that amounted to nothing) and it appeared that DPW mostly walked away from the 7th Street park. "You want the keys to the parks?" Rob Perry exclaimed to the council at a meeting sometime last summer. "They're all yours." He has obviously had enough of our parks, including 7th Street.
As they do every January, DPW removed the Christmas tree from the stand in the pool just over a year ago. Even with the fence out of the way, though, apparently the stand had become too difficult for the DPW crew to remove, so they just left it for the next year's tree. So classy, so charming! I saw children climbing on it on at least three separate occasions this past summer. I guess that could be considered a park improvement, no?
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| Whatever! |
Last month DPW removed the Christmas tree, leaving a portion of the stump of the tree sticking out of the top of the stand. So DPW classy! Maybe they'll get to it this December. The stand in the pool is waiting to make more children happy this summer.
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| Central downtown Hudson, where it's always 11:09 or 1:05 |
Somewhere in the midst of all this, all 4 of the clocks in the corner of the park stopped ticking and Rob Perry told the council that it would be too expensive to fix (I believe he said it would cost close to $2,000 to hire a professional to get them running again). The Rotary Club donated the clocks decades ago but left the cost of maintenance to City Hall/the taxpayers. The Rotary's name is still on the clock. Thanks for the timeless gift.
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| Whatever! |
Finally, last summer the 7th Street Park took on a new, unfamiliar and unforeseen life. Most would definitely not call it an improvement. A certain undesirable and thirsty class of park "patron" took over portions of the park, especially in the southeast corner and in the center. Fortunately for Hudson's taxpayer residents, all 3 of the unsecured electrical outlets in the park were used daily to charge cel phones so that these "patrons" comfortably use the park all day as they saw fit. Talk about civic pride!
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| Semi- permanent public space charm |
Fortunately for anyone with a pair of functioning eyes, bright orange cones recently found their way over those outlets, adding a touch of class, futility and sense of abandonment to the park that only Rob Perry's DPW and FOPS could imagine and bring to life.
(The timeline of events may not be 100% accurate, but this all happened in the past 6 years or so)
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