{"id":9796,"date":"2008-08-22T15:47:11","date_gmt":"2008-08-22T20:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/?p=9796"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:53:22","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:53:22","slug":"my-hydrant-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2008\/08\/22\/my-hydrant-obsession\/","title":{"rendered":"my hydrant obsession (updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> A<\/strong><\/em> leisurely sunset walk around my Stockade<\/a> neighborhood two days ago left me in one of my really-gotta-know moods<\/em>. To wit: Who moved that fire hydrant?<\/em> It happened right alongside Arthur’s Public Market<\/a>, at the SW corner of N. Ferry St. and Front St. — the intersection where you’ll find the small traffic circle monument to Lawrence<\/a> the Indian. Strolling up toward Lawrence, on the Front St. side of Arthur’s, I ran across — well, almost walked into — this fire hydrant:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

There’s been a fire hydrant at that corner for as long as I’ve lived in the Stockade, along with a mail box and a telephone pole — but I just don’t remember that fireplug being almost dead center in the walkway at that busy Stockade corner (which is at the crossroads of neighborhood life). A sidewalk improvement project — which needlessly took down all of the mature shade trees on both sides of the N. Ferry St. block — recently replaced very old, cracked, uneven slabs on both sides of the Market with new ones, including a new curb, with a wheelchair-friendly curb-cut (causing the mail box to be moved).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Joyce and Artur Wachala, the proprietors of Arthur’s, each told me that the hydrant has always been where it is now. On the other hand, a Schenectady Police office on bicycle patrol through the neighborhood, says he thinks the hydrant must have been moved to make room for the cut-in. I’m left wanting to know whether our fair city has chosen a rather strange new placement for the hydrant, or whether it is in fact exactly where it always was, but I’ve simply got a different perspective after the installation of the new sidewalk.<\/p>\n

\"red<\/a> My urgent need to know has left me searching for a photographic record of what the corner looked like prior to the new sidewalk and curb arrangement. So far, all I can find are pictures like these, which give no clue of the hydrant’s pre-improvement location:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> . . . \"\"<\/a> . . . \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This very recent photo, found at the Arthur’s Public Market website, is similarly (and frustratingly) unhelpful:<\/p>\n

\"from<\/p>\n

Now, some observers (of my obsession) have suggested that the hydrant was most likely always there in that spot, and I probably just stayed on the old sidewalk and never paid attention to it — perhaps because the mailbox dominated the little tableau next to the unmoved telephone pole. My never having acquired a bruised shin from bumping into the hydrant over the past two decades suggests otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

However, this photo taken by me yesterday, at the same time as the first photo above, does show how perspectives can be easily altered:<\/p>\n

Of course, I’m making too much of this (that’s why I call it an obsession). This could be merely a procrastination ploy preventing the completion of a serious piece on parody and academic freedom. Whatever it is, it’s driving me nuts. I’ll do some more snooping to try to figure out Who Moved That Hydrant? — or, whether it was moved at all. If you have any useful information, please let me know. Come back to this post for updates, as I learn more.<\/p>\n

\"red<\/a> update <\/strong><\/em>(Aug. 25, 2008): Thanks to the Schenectady County Historical Society<\/a>, especially Librarian Katherine Chansky and the staff at its Grems-Doolittle Library<\/a>, I’ve located two views of the Arthur’s Market Hydrant, taken in 1962:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

– photos taken 1962, Courtesy of the Schenectady County Historical Society –<\/em><\/p>\n

The angles don’t allow me to make a definitive judgment about whether the hydrant has been moved (and my camera was malfunctioning today and wouldn’t let me take current pictures from comparable angles). Nonetheless, I must admit that the hydrant was located farther from the telephone pole and the curb in the 1962 photographs than I had expected. Here’s a side-by-side of the 2008 photo above, and the more revealing 1962 picture:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> . . . .\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m going to keep looking (and soliciting) more recent photos that would help settle the Great 2008 Hydrant Placement Question.<\/p>\n

\"\" afterwords<\/strong><\/em>: See our conclusion in the post “hydrant lowdown<\/a>” (Aug. 29, 2008) \"\"<\/p>\n

A<\/strong><\/em>s long as I have hydrants on my mind, I might as well post one of my favorite personal haiga:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

. . . \"HydrantSnowHaiga\"<\/a> . .<\/p>\n

Here’s another fireplug haiku, from my past:<\/p>\n

drift-covered hydrant \u2013
\nthe dog puts a halo
\non my snow angel<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.. by dagosan<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

And, a reminder of why we have a sidewalk improvement program<\/a> in the Stockade:<\/p>\n

historic district \u2013
\nan old sidewalk trips
\nthe blossom gazer<\/p>\n

. . . dagosan<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, that sunset walk ended along the Mohawk River, at the end of my block on Washington, Avenue, where I saw this scene — which made me momentarily forget all about fire hydrants:<\/p>\n

\"Washington<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

it\u2019s pink! it\u2019s purple!
\nsunset inspires
\nmore bickering<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

.. by David Giacalone – F<\/strong>rogpond<\/em><\/a> Vol. XXVIII, #2 (2005) – click to see a subsequent haiga<\/a> incorporating this poem
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A leisurely sunset walk around my Stockade neighborhood two days ago left me in one of my really-gotta-know moods. To wit: Who moved that fire hydrant? It happened right alongside Arthur’s Public Market, at the SW corner of N. Ferry St. and Front St. — the intersection where you’ll find the small traffic circle monument […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[555,2927],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haiku-or-senryu","category-schenectady-synecdoche"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-2y0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12201,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9796\/revisions\/12201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}