What you will see, especially this time of year, is a DPW crew of two in a green diesel-burning dump truck wandering around the city, even in the alleys and parking lots, occasionally stopping to fill potholes and cracks in the pavement with temporary asphalt patch (there is nothing permanent about it, especially if wheels roll over it).
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What you will not see -- at any time of the year -- is a DPW crew filling holes and cracks in the pavement on city property where people walk. Not in the parking lot access walkway between the 500 block of Warren Street and Prison Alley, not in our pocket parks, not on the sidewalk along the Columbia Street side of the 7th Street Park, and not along the sidewalk in front of the Union Street municipal parking lot (and where one of the worst tripping hazards in the entire city is located) to name a few. Go to any of these locations and you will find tripping hazards that have gone ignored by DPW for years and years, even decades. While cracks and holes in our streets are REGULARLY filled to make driving more pleasant, cracks and holes in our city-owned public walkways that can put someone in the hospital or morgue are ignored. Streets and alleys matter, walkways do not -- this is the message from Robert Perry.
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| Hudson, NY, in the year 2024 |
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| It appears to be filled but it is not. |
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| Sidewalk hazard along the 7th Street Park |
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| One of the worst tripping hazards in the entire city, on city property. Think Robert Perry cares? Think the mayor cares? |
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| City-owned walkway, a minefield of hazards |
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| This is how highly our DPW regards the public |
What you will not see is Robert Perry attempting to find any money from anywhere so that his DPW crew can fill cracks and holes and fix raised concrete on city property that could hurt or kill someone. What you will get from a Public Works Department that is so automobile-centric and automobile-addicted are walkways, public areas and hard-surface parks that resemble a pedestrian's (especially seniors' and the disabled's) worst nightmare. The message pedestrians essentially get from Robert Perry is a shrug of the shoulders and a "Whatever! We don't care about you. We care about cars and trucks, not people."
What DPW is apparently not able or willing to do is to get out of their trucks and walk where pedestrians walk -- even in our public pocket parks -- to see if something needs to be repaired or smoothed over so that pedestrians and park patrons are safe. Robert Perry does not instruct or train his employees to do this. He tells them to stick to the streets, alleys and parking lots, and not to venture anywhere else.
Filling cracks and holes on sidewalks or in pocket parks takes a little more effort than using a dump truck filled with ready-to-apply asphalt and shovels. Concrete needs to be mixed properly and applied quickly, often in places where a dump truck cannot access. This is the extra effort that our DPW Superintendent has no interest in making. Or maybe Mr. Perry simply can't find the funds to pay for this extra effort. Or perhaps the DPW ran out of concrete mix 10 years ago and decided just to stick with asphalt for our streets, alleys and parking lots and leave everything else alone. Or maybe Mr. Perry never spends any time in our pocket parks, walking our sidewalks or in the walkway to the City Hall municipal parking lot. Why would he do anything about something that doesn't affect him, that he doesn't see and will never put him in the hospital? What the fuck does he care if someone trips on a hole in the center of a pocket park or well-travelled pedestrian walkway and winds up in the hospital in a coma from slamming their head on the pavement?
What year is it?
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| Fix that parking space! |
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| Ignore that sidewalk in front of a city-owned vacant lot on Columbia Street. |
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