Rogers Park
May. 13th, 2008 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
This Y of pavement is just the park's driveway now. The road that crosses the top of the Y is still used, but it hasn't been US-2 in half a century.
Seventy years ago the main highway from the west met US-2 here. They fancied the junction by buinding a Y intersection instead of a simple T. That left a triangle of land surrounded by main roads on all sides.
Here they built a pylon of field stone, the typical Michigan field stone, a mix of rounded rocks of all types, the size of your two fists up to the size of your head or more, all brought down from Canada by the glaciers; granite, gneiss, puddingstone, schist, anything you can imagine, almost. Atop the pylon they put a flagpole. There were picnic tables and a drinking well. They planted trees.
The trees are fine. The pylon stands. The well and picnic area are gone, although there's still the rotted remains of one table. The flagpole is a rusty, bent pipe with no halyard. It has been that way, flagless, for decades.
It was a proud day when they finished the road from the west and dedicated this park. The flag was bright, snapping in the wind atop its pole. The bronze plaque honoring Fred Rogers, engineer and Highway Commissioner, was bright and new then too.
Such a proud day. The great task was finished, the magnificent highways were done. But the task is never really finished, is it?
Sometimes, in these quiet, cold, starry nights, I think that every man's ghost must walk where his greatest monument stands. Perhaps the only ones who find peace are those who leave no monument at all. Would they be the happiest ones, or the saddest?
The moon shines down on the great freeway that passes a quarter mile to the west. Even at this hour on a frosty night, cars and trucks rush past from time to time. What speeds they travel! How bright their headlights are!
It's a pity the freeway killed old US-2. It's a pity, in a way, that when they reconnected the state route from the west they moved it a couple tenths of a mile north of its former route, so it doesn't even connect to the Y of dead road around Rogers Park any more. It's sad to be bypassed, and to see the roads you built with such pride bypassed. And what's worse, it was obvious from the start that it had to happen some day. Way back in '38 I told them that the Y intersection was a bad idea.
But that four-lane highway out there-- the cars, the trucks with their brilliant headlights passing even in the wee hours of the morning, the sound of the traffic always somewhere, near or far, in the night air: That is some piece of work. Just look at it!
I mean, I mean, just LOOK at it all! Damn!
Seventy years ago the main highway from the west met US-2 here. They fancied the junction by buinding a Y intersection instead of a simple T. That left a triangle of land surrounded by main roads on all sides.
Here they built a pylon of field stone, the typical Michigan field stone, a mix of rounded rocks of all types, the size of your two fists up to the size of your head or more, all brought down from Canada by the glaciers; granite, gneiss, puddingstone, schist, anything you can imagine, almost. Atop the pylon they put a flagpole. There were picnic tables and a drinking well. They planted trees.
The trees are fine. The pylon stands. The well and picnic area are gone, although there's still the rotted remains of one table. The flagpole is a rusty, bent pipe with no halyard. It has been that way, flagless, for decades.
It was a proud day when they finished the road from the west and dedicated this park. The flag was bright, snapping in the wind atop its pole. The bronze plaque honoring Fred Rogers, engineer and Highway Commissioner, was bright and new then too.
Such a proud day. The great task was finished, the magnificent highways were done. But the task is never really finished, is it?
Sometimes, in these quiet, cold, starry nights, I think that every man's ghost must walk where his greatest monument stands. Perhaps the only ones who find peace are those who leave no monument at all. Would they be the happiest ones, or the saddest?
The moon shines down on the great freeway that passes a quarter mile to the west. Even at this hour on a frosty night, cars and trucks rush past from time to time. What speeds they travel! How bright their headlights are!
It's a pity the freeway killed old US-2. It's a pity, in a way, that when they reconnected the state route from the west they moved it a couple tenths of a mile north of its former route, so it doesn't even connect to the Y of dead road around Rogers Park any more. It's sad to be bypassed, and to see the roads you built with such pride bypassed. And what's worse, it was obvious from the start that it had to happen some day. Way back in '38 I told them that the Y intersection was a bad idea.
But that four-lane highway out there-- the cars, the trucks with their brilliant headlights passing even in the wee hours of the morning, the sound of the traffic always somewhere, near or far, in the night air: That is some piece of work. Just look at it!
I mean, I mean, just LOOK at it all! Damn!
