Yet Another Sidewalk Narrowed In Half By A Plywood Box, The Latest Trend On Warren Street! Welcome To New York's Most Walkable and Friendly City!

 

For how many months or years will this new LOVELY PAINTED PLYWOOD PEDESTRIAN OBSTRUCTION stick around, do you suppose?  As long as the property owner wants it to remain?  And, like the nearly identical lovely plywood building extension sidewalk obstruction two blocks east, what is this one's purpose?   To cover the graffiti that got the city so much national attention?  Did this box get approval from the city?  Does it even need approval?  Does anyone need approval to block a portion of a sidewalk with a plywood box extending from a building? 

The box appears to be taking up half the width of the sidewalk, leaving five or six feet of width for those of us with two feet. 

Today.  Notice the trick-or-treater (one of a few)
trying to get past the gaggle of old folks.

How many pedestrians will be forced to walk around this obstruction today, a busy Saturday full of families gathering treats?  How about tomorrow?  How many hundreds of people will have to step aside to let others pass by where just one week ago there was plenty of room for people to pass one another while continuing to walk?  Where is our self-appointed Safety Tsar mayor when we need him most?  How about his aide and our supposed ADA Coordinator, Tiffy Martin?

Zigged and zagged, forced to walk
inches from the curb!  What's worse,
this or the lovely "ROTS" graffiti?

This is the scene every time the lovely garbage 
bag vending machine in front of City Hall
is being serviced by DPW.  

The force behind our shrinking sidewalks and less walkable city, though, is City Hall itself. They set the precedent; they started the trend. They allow what any self-respecting city would not. The message from 520 Warren is clear: a three, four, or five-foot-wide sidewalk is no different, no less acceptable, welcoming, or walkable, and no more dangerous than a ten-foot-wide sidewalk. It's all the same.

The width of the sidewalk was halved a few years
 ago to make room for a handicap space that is never used
for its intended purpose.  There was no need to do this.
Thank Dominic Merante for perhaps his greatest achievement.

\

Yesterday, two blocks away from City Hall and at the city's most dangerous intersection for pedestrians, there was a less subtle fuck you directed at all pedestrians.  Once again!

City Hall has no problem with this.  How do we know this to be true?  Because it continues to happen regularly.  If you support this business, you condone their total disregard and disrespect for pedestrians, as well as their blatant carelessness that could easily get someone hurt or killed at the city's most dangerous intersection for pedestrians.  They simply don't care if you are forced to walk (or fall) in the street and are hurt or killed, even if you aren't planning on heading inside.  Even if you live in Hudson.

Notice the tire tracks on the yellow curb. The ADA
safety mat has been damaged by passing trucks, too.

DPW Superintendent Rob Perry recently acknowledged that maintenance (and replacement) of ADA safety mats found on curb ramps is his department's responsibility.  He is the same city official who is doing his best to ensure our tap water is safe for us to drink, cook with, and bathe in.  

There can be no debate about the connection between the unnecessarily narrow sidewalk in front of City Hall and every concerning and unsafe thing at the very busy intersection of Warren & Park in the heart of downtown Hudson at a turn in the truck route.  (There are too many turning vehicles there for that intersection to ever be considered safe for pedestrians.)  The list includes the damaged ADA mat; the metal planters just three feet from the curb; the A-frame sign completely blocking the sidewalk (granted, it's not always left there); the obscene regularity of close calls for pedestrians using the two crosswalks, one which does not have a pedestrian crossing signal; the cars and trucks that regularly park in the two lengthy NO PARKING zones (one which is without a NO PARKING sign but had a temporary one last winter due to snow covering the yellow curb!); the mayor's new stop sign that keeps getting knocked over (soon enough, the third time will certainly be the charm); the more confusing traffic pattern resulting from the mayor's new stop sign; and, of course, the fact that within the span of just 40 hours last December, two city residents were struck by turning vehicles while in the crosswalk without a pedestrian crossing signal that spans the end of Park Place, and no mention was made of either incident at any council or committee meetings.  (Have there been any pedestrian-involved "accidents" there this year that we haven't been made aware of by HPD or the so-called SAFETY Committee?)  

All of this is brought to us by 520 Warren Street!  Businesses and property owners are just following City Hall's lead.  The carelessness is contagious.

HPD is well aware of the regularity of parked 
cars on the sidewalk in front of the laundromat.
Mishanda Franklin simply doesn't care!  Nor 
does our mayor!  What about Henry Haddad,
the head of the so-called SAFETY Committee?