It's Those Little Things
I have walked past this corner hundreds of times, but not until I was thinking about the new welcome signs did I realize the unsightliness of this apparently abandoned news box.Park & Seventh is slated to receive a sign welcoming people to this portion of the Special Improvement District. I don't know which of the four corners will get the sign, but surely this battered metal hulk needs to be removed from the northeast corner.
A search online did not come up with any clue that this newspaper is still publishing. It was the successor to a weekly, Plainfield Today, where I worked back in the early 1980s as a writer, editor and person of all work at its North Avenue offices. City News served the African-American community in several counties and moved its base to Newark some time ago.
Anyway, I don't know whether there are any rules about news boxes, but this one seems to outlived its usefulness and needs to be removed.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of the mayor, I must say the sight of the banner on the front of City Hall is equally annoying. This banner was put up with City Council permission in 2009, for a period from April 1 to September 1. It is now March 2010. Workers removed Christmas wreaths last month after blogger Jackie noted their lingering appearance, but the banner remains.
One might ask what else to expect from a mayor who voted in Piscataway while living in Plainfield or North Plainfield, according to court documents from 2006. Technicalities, schmecknicalities. Maybe the same goes for letting a guy from Rahway solicit merchants for a directory with checks made out to him personally, without any input from the Plainfield SID.
So what are the little things that set you off? Let us know.
--Bernice
posted by Bernice at 5:55 PM
8 Comments:
Bernice,
How much space do you want to devote to "those little things"?
But on the same corner, Park and 7th, the equally wrecked bus stop! I asked Public Works about two years ago what stopped the city from either asking NJTransit to remove it, or to remove it themselves. The answer? Lack of directives and the need to budget possibly 7-8 thousand dollars for its replacement. But who says they need to replace it? A bench would do! My list is long, but thanks for offering your space for this "little things".
The bus shelter on the northwest corner was smashed by perhaps one of our hostile street people who frequent Park & Seventh. There are many other ruined bus shelters around the city. It does get to become a back-and-forth between authorities over who will fix it. As long as you have the overlay of deranged street people, civic pride will suffer. Sorry to say so.
The banner is embarrassing at this point, Bernice. In addition, the way it is affixed is problematic. We paid so much for the restoration. The banner is unsightly, and frankly should never have been put up in the first place.
Well Bernice, I for one do not care if I would have to hear or see the "Assistant Mayor's" Wrath. The blatant zoning violations throughout the city as a whole and a mayor and city council who sit there with an absolute shrug of the shoulders and expression of shock on their faces of " what are we supposed to do "?
--- YOUR JOB!
1) Zoning Violations not being addressed AGGRESSIVELY
2) Donnelley Apartment Buildings with empty parking lots and streets that are barely passable by their buildings ( again...city council and the Cheshire cat...what are we supposed to do?? -- IT'S CALLED SPOT ZONING, USE IT)
3) Broken Bus shelters -- repair them or remove them
4) The traffic triangle on 9th announcing "ALL THAT THE MAYOR IS GOING TO DO" and having nothing done...if that little piece of concrete doesn't spell out Assistant Mayor Sharon's lack of effort..nothing does...AND she is foolish enough to have a glory monger sign attributing her greatness to NOTHING being done at the spot -- PATHETIC
5) A downtown that looks like "who did it and ran" instead of a place that has hope and a chance of succeeding -- Clean it up or it never will be something
6) Park Madison office building issues unresolved and no one in authority willing to speak about them
-- I meant to only write one or 2...but once you get started about the "lack of..." in PLainfield, it's like falling down, way to easy.
If you got that banner removed from City Hall, it'd be a fantastic thing. It's wrong on so many levels. PLEASE SOMEONE TAKE CARE OF THIS!
To Anonymous 3/15, your comment is very funny but I don't think I should post it.
Where do I start?
1- Remove the banner of the mayor down from City Hall, and while we're at it, remove the mayor
2- Get some smart people in office. Bibi is a start - let's keep going.
3- Stop thinking that reaching for the gutter is the best Plainfield can do. I would take a curb at this point
Can someone please take down the sign at the triangle by the library? Not only has nothing been done, but I would be interested in knowing if there is something illegal about not using the grant money for fixing up the triangle.
I am sick of seeing the mayor's name out there for years. The concrete triangle looks better and is a better representation of Plainfield.
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