Saturday, July 30, 2011

Another Perspective

When this oval sticker, imitating European international abbreviation stickers, first appeared last month, some people had a problem with HUD as the abbreviation for Hudson. HUD is, after all, the acronym for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and some Hudsonians with longer memories of Hudson and greater historic perspective remember that HUD was the agency that provided the funding to demolish great parts of the city during Urban Renewal. The City's addiction to HUD money continued into the early years of the 21st century, inspiring Linda Mussmann to suggest the slogan, which she might deny today, "Let's get the HUD out of Hudson."

I have to confess that I am one of the people who have a problem with putting a HUD sticker on their car, although I readily admit that I think the concept is kind of cool. So I was amused this morning when I noticed the sticker displayed upside down on the bumper of a car parked in the 100 block of Warren Street. Upside down it looks like DUH written in Cyrillic.

3 comments:

  1. Mea culpa. I attributed the line "Get the HUD out of Hudson" to Linda Mussmann, but I have since been told that its creator is actually Joe Connelly, who has been using the line since 2000, when he and his partner moved here. I apologize for getting that wrong and thank Joe for correcting me.

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  2. My neighbor sliced out the D and the H and reversed them to create a proper DUH - now I want a sticker but can't find any!

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  3. I saw the proper 'DUH' one yesterday. Very cool.

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