ABOUT THAT CLOCK-ON-A-POLE...A LETTER FROM PAUL STEINBERG

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ABOUT THAT CLOCK-ON-A-POLE...A LETTER FROM PAUL STEINBERG

To the Editor:

Croton residents know Pete Seeger from his involvement in cleaning up the Hudson River. Seeger was also an opponent of the conformism reflected in the tacky suburban sprawl which began in the 1950s, which he sung about in 1963’s Little Boxes.

Fortunately for today’s Croton residents, we managed to avoid the miles of “ticky-tacky” tract housing which inundated other suburbs such as Long Island. But from the 1990s onward, the people running Croton have been advocates of building dense multi-family cheap housing. That goal was achieved with the opening of the “Maple Commons” apartment complex.

Oversized and shabby, Maple Commons is a harbinger of Croton’s future. A solid wall of ugliness running against the street, the apartment has a cheesy oversized sign which is as tacky as possible while still being bland. The visual focus is drawn to the centerpiece of the development: a dumpster shed. Making matters worse, there is often garbage outside the dumpsters and despite having a live-in manager, the doors to the dumpster shed are usually left wide open. Keep it classy, folks!

It would not have cost much to do a nice sign—maybe even less than that current one cost. And it does not require any expense to keep the dumpster door shed closed, only some good manners.

Now the village is putting up one of those clocks-on-a-pole. These were a fad a few decades ago; the municipal equivalent of the “Live, Laugh, Love” kitchen kitsch they sold at Bed Bath Beyond back in the day. There is nothing inherently wrong with a clock-on-a-pole, as tens of thousands of villages across the country can attest. Welcome to the new Croton.

We can still be sad about the Croton which was: a place where there were so many famous artists that Cornelia Cotton wrote a booklet about them. A place where Jan Johnsen literally wrote the book (two of them, in fact) on how outdoor landscaping can create public spaces which inspire. A place where Dillon O’Keefe has painted several one-of-a-kind murals in public spaces.

Ah, but that was then. Now we get a clock-on-a-pole with the village name affixed and the Planning Board tells us it will celebrate our past and be an “icon we can take pride in.”

It is true that the clock will serve as a reminder of the artistic Croton of bygone days, when Croton’s artists would have mutinied at the purchase of such dreck. As to the “icon” part—if you are buying a mass-produced factory item, it doesn’t merit being called an icon. An original O’Keefe on the walls of Franki’s Grill is an icon. A cheap generic clock-on-a-pole next to a cheap generic apartment building is just sad.

Instead of spending $16,706 to beautify a ticky-tacky building, maybe we could try putting our trash in the dumpster and closing the dumpster shed doors. Then again, our Board of Trustees never misses a chance to move forward in remaking Croton into the next Long Island.

--Paul Steinberg, Croton-on-Hudson

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