A Misplaced Fire Hydrant

I recently took a new job in downtown Durham, NC. Durham, once the Bull City and now the City of Medicine, is one of those once important North Carolina cities that has fallen on hard times but is always on the verge of a comeback.

Recently, something minor happened that gave me some insight into the bureaucracy of the city of Durham and suggested that maybe that comeback might not be just around the corner.

On my way to work one morning, as I was turning onto Foster street, I was greeted by an absolutely absurd site. Someone, I guess a city employee or two, had installed a fire hydrant right in the middle of the street. Well, it wasn't in the middle of the street, but it was in the path that a car would take. It was about 3 feet away from the curb. It was sticking up out of the asphalt just waiting to get slammed by a car. The more bizarre thing is that there was already a perfectly fine fire hydrant up on the sidwalk where they belong. To someone's credit, there was a traffic barrel in front of the hydrant to sugggests that you might not want to run over it.

Well, it lasted about a week before someone actually did run over the thing. The hydrant is just lying there in the street, next to the exposed flange, it's twisted bolts glistening in the midday sun. I think of it as a monument to the incompetance of city hall.

You might think that such a scenario would be an embarrassment to some town officials and the whole mess would get cleaned up. Not in Downtown Durham. It's still just sitting there. Has been for about three weeks now.

Last Friday, a coworker and I walked down to inspect it during lunch and I took the opportunity to take a few photos which I am happy to share with you today. I hope you enjoy them. Please notice how nicely the awning, in the photograph above, matches the traffic cones. You might also notice a building with Oprah in the window. I'll save that for a later post (as soon as I figure out what that's all about).

Bye for now!