Monday, March 4, 2013
Chutes and Ladders
Obsessing about conveyors and overpasses to the port, Gossips discovered this undated panoramic picture of the Hudson waterfront.
Note what appear to be a conveyors, of two different types, at the far right. In spite of their appearance, I'm not sure this picture takes in enough of the waterfront to the south to include the dock used then as now by the people mining Becraft Mountain--for coral and shell marble, for limestone, for the raw materials needed for cement, for aggregate.
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Yesterday I took a drive down to the waterfront in the early evening to catch the last light of the day, and was reminded of the mess Holcim has created in our community. Rusting metal junk everywhere, and a cement building that is a crumbling monstrosity, all of it smack in the middle of what could be a beautiful place. The City of Hudson has been working on its Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan for something like 26 years, and has spent nearly half a million bucks of taxpayer money in the process, and the outcome stinks. Looking at the degraded condition of our waterfront, it becomes clear that we have witnessed a public policy failure on an epic scale. And given the recent actions of our city government, there is no reason to be optimistic about the outlook for the future. Our Common Council now appears poised to roll over and hand the industrial interests a sweetheart deal that will insure the presence of this noxious activity on our waterfront for decades to come, without extracting any meaningful concessions from the company. Holcim executives in Switzerland have got to be slapping their knees and howling over the fact that they are dealing with a bunch of suckers who are willing to be exploited like a poor third world country.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't make sense - unless these govt officials and others have presonal private Holcim swiss bank accounts - otherwise they really are fools
DeletePlus, I kinda doubt anyone in Switzerland has ever heard of Hudson.
DeleteWe must be such small potatoes to them! which is not to say they don't maximize their advantages on all fronts.
But if we can't be direct with a giant multinational that doesn't even know we exist, why aren't residents discussing the illegality of the council's resolution to permit the mayor to negotiate with Holcim?
Neighbors, I will never understand you.
The vantage in the bottom photo is looking slightly downriver off of today's waterfront park. Both conveyors would have stood within today's park.
ReplyDeleteRight on, Gizmo.
But do citizens ever work together anymore to defeat anything? I mean, that "two square miles" business is really getting to be an embarrassment.
We've got so much of the law on our side that just by itself our combined outrage at the latest plan will deliver us a slam dunk. The Common Council must be made to rescind the illegal February 11 Resolution No. 1.
But where the hell is everybody? Everyone knows that I'll do all of the background work for free, but there's no sense in doing anything if nobody else cares.
It's never too late to try and heal any community. It takes just a little bit of momentum to start the process, and that begins with people's willingness to say "me too."
Way to go, Gizmo.