The Furgary Shacks Are So Much More Than Just Ugly

Ever wonder what the inside of a
Furgary shack looks like? That's a fallen
roof in the back room!

As long as the Furgary shacks are around, there will always be debate about what to do with them.  Either you love them, or you can't wait for them to be sent to a landfill.  Although it's been a while since I've heard any earnest discussion at City Hall about the Furgary area, one thing is certain: Just ignoring the shacks isn't helping matters.

Actually, the city isn't ignoring the lovely shacks altogether.  As best as I can tell, the only attention they are getting is from DPW when another window is smashed in, a door busted open, a wall broken down, roof caved in, or a porch collapsed.  DPW spends time and money (lots of plywood, screws and locks) when there is vandalization of the shacks, which is quite often.  Screwing sheets of plywood to rotted wood is an exercise in futility.

Take the shack nearest the unwelcoming boat launch, whose door is regularly being "secured" by DPW.  About two months ago, I included a picture of the shack with the wide-open door in an article about the Furgary area (read here: welcome).  Within a week, DPW had once again secured the door with a new clasp and lock, and possibly other means.  Today, once again and unsurprisingly, the door was wide open.  I can only guess that someone wanted to get in there to sleep, or possibly to relive their good old days.  DPW has probably lost count of how often they have had to resecure this door.

Once again, and just 2 months later

This is so friggin' ridiculous.  At what point will someone with a level head at City Hall (is that even possible?) step in and stop this nonsense without the fear of offending the few old timer Furgary supporters, and to once and for all decide that the shacks are no longer welcome, they are a dangerous liability to the city, they are expensive and ugly, that their time came and went a long, long time ago and that they must be completely off limits while plans are made to remove each and every one of them?  There can be no justification to spend one more penny or one more minute of DPW's time on any of these shacks, especially those whose roofs are caved in.  What the city is doing now (nothing, essentially) is simply not working anymore, if it ever did.

Next to the newly accessible shack is dilapidated shack #12, with a large, second-floor porch.  Long ago, someone removed the lower halves of two of the three supports, so the outer edge of the porch is supported by one old 4x4 post. ONE!  Anyone can grab that post and shake the entire porch back and forth a few inches.  The porch has got to weigh at least 800 pounds, attached to a rotted shack that should have been razed long ago.  Can't you easily see some kids playing on the porch with their friends messing around underneath?  In an instant: 1 child dead, 3 in the hospital, one of them in a coma and not expected to make it out alive.  Stupider, more regrettable dumb ass shit has happened all over the world because people in charge who should be paying attention were not.  Asleep at the wheel, once again, like we never learn.  A deadly hazard in plain sight for years.

DPW cuts the grass surrounding shack #12,
which still has its raised porch "intact"

Why should we be asking DPW Superintendent Robert Perry to be keeping his eyes on a bunch of old, rotten, worn out, falling-over shacks that serve no purpose other than to get someone killed or put in the hospital?  Mr. Perry doesn't want to deal with the shacks (he might even want them gone, too!), his department doesn't have the time to, and we shouldn't expect it of them.  But if that porch falls on someone or a few people, it's going to look really bad for DPW since they were the ones putting the plywood over the holes in the walls and the broken windows and repairing the busted down doors.  And still, you left the porch up with just one supporting post for how many years?

Beyond that, the lawsuit from the family of the victim(s) would be a huge, regrettable and ignominious headache for City Hall.  You twittled your thumbs and talked and talked about the shacks.  You said you had no money to remove the shacks, but you repaired and secured them as best you could while you did nothing for years about an unsecured 800-pound wooden porch 10 feet off the ground that fell on two children and killed them.  How does the City of Hudson plead to the two charges of wrongful death, Attorney Howard?  Guilty or not guilty?  Please tell the jury and the families of the victims whose fault it was that those two children died?  (Of course, a trial would never take place since the city would settle out of court to avoid a trial they would surely lose).

Until a year or two ago, Shack #16 had a porch similar to the one barely attached to shack #12, only this one had shaky stairs to the top that anyone could access.  There was also a roof, either above the porch or next to it.  Both the porch and roof came down on their own or were brought down by someone, possibly DPW, and just left on the ground.  Over a year ago.

A few years ago while down at the shacks, I called the Hudson Police Department to let them know that at least 3 children were playing on the roof of one of the Furgary shacks.  There were plenty of means for those kids to get on that roof, as well as others.  It was the kind of activity that my friends and I sought out when I was the same age. Just out exploring and having fun, with little regard (or even understanding) of the dangers at hand. Just being a child, you know?

Give a boy a chance to enter an old shack, to climb onto a roof, or play on a porch with a single supporting post in a mysterious, alluring place full of options to explore near the water and where no one can see him and his friends?  Now there's an invitation to an out of court settlement for wrongful death if I've ever heard of one!  Says the judge: How does a 10 million dollars settlement suit you, Attorney Howard and Mayor Johnson? Going forward, what have you done, and what will you be doing, to prevent any further wrongful deaths at the shacks?