Dear Diary

Wednesday, August 30, 2023 -- I decided to buy the newspaper at Citgo yesterday.  The NY Times is so expensive now ($4) that I only buy it once a week.  It was such a pleasant early evening that I thought I'd stop by the park and read a bit of the gloom and doom before returning home.  What a mistake that was, I should have headed straight back home!  

You Can Lead A Horse To Water...

The most (and perhaps only) recent improvement in the City of Hudson to allow pedestrians to more safely cross some busy downtown streets appeared a few years ago in the form of 5 pedestrian crossing signals.  This idea had been talked about at meetings for years, and it finally happened, thanks mostly, or entirely, to alderman Dominic Merante.  Perhaps the most important of those signals was installed at both ends of the crosswalk connecting the sidewalk along the north side of the 7th Street Park and the so-called sidewalk in front of the Citgo gas station and convenience store in the 700 block of Columbia Street, along our lovely truck route.  This signal is particularly helpful for park patrons desperate for a beer and some smokes.  When it is working, of course.

True Story

Yesterday morning in the 300 block of Warren Street, I noticed a very young HPD officer with a parking ticket machine in hand, his police bicycle and a parked car nearby, while talking to someone about a ticket that the machine had just printed.  At first, I thought the ununiformed person was the owner of the vehicle getting the ticket, but he was not.  That person turned out to be the newest HPD parking enforcer, in training.  I thought it was really odd (and potentially interesting) that the new hire was not being trained by a HPD parking enforcer, but rather a police officer, so I stood nearby and listened.

Trying to Understand The DPW Water Department's Approach To Their Work

As I reported at the time, there was a water main break below South 4th Street at Cherry Alley on July 9th -- precisely 51 days ago.  During July 10th's Common Council meeting, DPW Superintendent Robert Perry told us that the pipe had been temporarily patched and that the permanent fix would have to wait for a special pipe saw from the Village of Catskill.  Apparently, that pipe saw has still not made it to this side of the river for use below South 4th Street.  At the subsequent meeting one month later, Mr. Perry failed to mention anything about the situation regarding the main break or the much needed saw.  When the pipe repair work does finally begin, it will be the Water Department performing the task.  The mysterious DPW Water Department.

The Sure Sign Of A Slob: Instead Of Fixing Something Broken And/Or Dangerous, ....

This cone showed up on the sidewalk 
of the 700 block of Warren Street 
in March, 5 months ago

... just cover it with something else (preferably made of plastic) and forget about it!  Or just ignore the problem altogether by doing nothing at all.

Once Again, Words Fail Me

 

Why Bother Informing Any Businesses That Their Customers Will Be Without Parking Spaces For Two Weeks?

 

As a follow up to a recent Hudseen article, I thought I should report what a business owner along the 700 block of Columbia might have to say about the National Grid gas line replacement work there, what with all the machinery, dump trucks, noise, dust, slow traffic, cones, off-limit parking spaces, and what not.  Today, I walked into a longtime business (with no available parking spaces out front anywhere in sight) and spoke with the owner.  Let's just say that the owner was a bit disappointed in how the roll out of the project was (not) handled.  Most of what the owner told me did not surprise me one bit.  This is, after all, National Grid we're dealing with here!