We Reap What They Sow

It seems to me like a no-brainer that if a city is going to make the effort to paint a fire hydrant, then the equally old, rusty and unattractive stanchions surrounding the hydrant ought to get painted at the same time.  That is, of course, if you want to create respectable looking sidewalks and a generally pleasant urban landscape where residents are proud of their surroundings, their neighbors, passers-by and their city.  Alas, this is not the case in Hudson, and not at a DPW with Robert Perry as Superintendent, where ugliness, sloppiness and little to no attention to detail seem to be the modus operandi.

It's pretty easy to draw a line between 3 ugly long-unpainted stanchions ignored by the city for years to a house that the city allows a property owner to remain a vacant, dangerous eyesore for years and years or even decades.  Neither of these things seem to matter to those people supposedly in charge of Hudson -- they're both part of the same indifferent "whatever" approach at City Hall.  It's not just strange and concerning, but kinda scary, too.

Why would DPW ignore the stanchions?

The city has a vacancy law, intended to force negligent property owners to get their properties up to code and in habitable condition, which the city (primarily the Code Enforcement Office) chooses not to enforce.  In a similar vein with unwelcome results, those stanchions, on a sidewalk along a major artery in and out of the city, could have easily been painted when the hydrant was painted this past summer, but our DPW chose not to bother. From a strictly objective perspective, it is as if the people at 520 Warren Street really don't care what Hudson looks like or how appearances impact people who live here.  Examples of this abound.

Galvan's eyesore for us too see.
City Hall doesn't give a crap.