potholes

Pothole of the day: A triumph for the ages

Filed under: potholes

Tired of reading about the Strib's financial tribulations? Sorry about that. Ready for some frivolity flecked with good news? You know we've got you.

You may remember Foucault's Pothole on North 17th St. and Washington. Hold that memory in your heart, because that's all it is now.

Filled:

Paul Demko left just as we were starting to make an impact. How could the guy leave to write about inconsequential things like political contests when Pothole Haiku was touching lives?

Am I taking credit for getting this pothole fixed? Sure, I'll take the credit. Blame? That's for suckers.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at May 8, 2008 10:51 AM | Comments (0)

 

Pothole of the day: Haiku version

Filed under: potholes

Perspective is everything. A little seasonal shift alters moods, sways perceptions, gently nudges the very reality around us.

This includes our friend the pothole. Because two images of a particular road crater just hours apart afford the viewer entirely divergent experiences -- and because there ought to be more poems about potholes -- I am moved to create verse.

In the first image, spring precipitation collects in this masterpiece of decay from 44th and Wentworth. The resultant reflection fuses nature (the water, the overlooking pine) with that most urban of creations, broken asphalt.

To capture the totality of its existential pothole-ness, we turn to the haiku form. The ancient Asian art celebrates human interactions with nature: mountain hikes, drinking fermented grapes, and now, looking at potholes.

The crack collects rain,
sheltering a tree's image.
In leaps Basho's frog.

I'm all deep and shit. No, wait, it's the pothole that's deep.

With a bit of afternoon heat, Kingfield's tiny lake evaporated. Absent the April showers that promise May flowers, the hole was a bit more stark.

From limpid pool to barren gash in 120 minutes or so. The latter image is less about human-environment interaction and more about a gaping trench in my neighborhood. Hence, the haiku looks more like this:

Hey, it's spring -- bump! Hiss!
Oh, son-of-a-goddamn bitch,
time to change that tire.

If the spirit moves you, leave your own haiku efforts in the comments.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 22, 2008 8:54 AM | Comments (4)

 

Pothole of the day: Discipline and punish

Filed under: potholes

True genius is measured in both depth and breadth. The great works -- Melville's Moby Dick, Joyce's Ulysses, Flair-Steamboat from Clash of the Champions 6 -- impress not just with length, but the fullness and richness of experience.

So it was with this now-filled pothole. Wide it was, but deep, too. Its like will be seen again, to be sure, but in the meantime we're forced to choose from among its lessers. Hence, this gem from North 17th St. and Washington Avenue.

If you're going to choose depth or breadth, you choose depth every time. Reading one 450-page book in depth is better than reading the first page of 450 books, unless those 450 books each have really, really good pictures on the splash page.

It is with this principle in mind that we celebrate this pothole, which is not so wide, but as deep as a William Stafford poem:

When one of my tires nestled deep in its manful embrace, it cried out in pain -- but it was the type of pain one is almost honored to endure from such a worthy foe. It is what the bondage partners of Michel Foucault must have felt, or Michael Spinks.

It is not like the Mississippi River, which flows from stem to stern of this great land. It is, in fact, just a fucking pothole. But it is a deep fucking pothole. You have to to give it that.

Also, it has friends nearby. Acolytes, even, apprentice potholes that hope one day to achieve their sensei's depth.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 14, 2008 11:45 AM | Comments (1)

 

POTD: this is dedicated to Mayor Rybak

Filed under: potholes

Panic has set in at City Hall. Our relentless (i.e. highly sporadic and rather lackluster) expose on the distressed streets of Minneapolis finally elicited a response yesterday from the city's communications department. Here's the rather tepid acknowlegment of the city's burgeoning pothole crisis:

April 10, 2008 (MINNEAPOLIS) While potholes are a problem every spring in Minneapolis, we're seeing a bumper crop this season. High numbers of potholes are popping up throughout town, often in clusters. City maintenance workers are now busy patching up our streets and smoothing out the ride for drivers.

Crews have already been out putting temporary patches on major potholes
for the past several weeks. Now that warmer weather is here, these crews
can focus on more permanent repairs. These repairs take longer to
complete, so drivers need to have some patience while crews make their
rounds.

Reporting problem potholes

The best way to report problem potholes on Minneapolis streets is to
call 311. Having a single point of reporting helps ensure that the
information gets to the right crews in a timely manner, and helps them
prioritize and manage repairs in the most efficient and effective way.

Calls to 311 are answered 7 a.m. to 1 1 p.m., Monday through Friday. For
those who prefer online reporting, reports can also be made by going to
www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us and
selecting "potholes" on the drop-down menu under "report issues &
complaints."

Meanwhile reader Kelly Neisen sent in some photos of this god forsaken stretch of Penn Avenue South (near Highway 62):

Posted by Paul Demko at April 11, 2008 12:36 PM | Comments (2)

 

POTD: Let's hear it for the 651

Filed under: potholes

I've discovered one absolute truth during the last two weeks of (admittedly sporadic) pothole-ology: Minneapolis has a lot more craters in its streets than St. Paul. My efforts to find suitably impressive potholes in the 651 have largely been unsuccessful, while the 612 offers an abundant array of distressed streets to choose from. But in the name of diversity, here's a reasonably formidable swath of destruction discovered on Pascal Street near the Midway Shopping Center.

Posted by Paul Demko at April 8, 2008 6:23 PM | Comments (3)

 

I am a powerful man in this town

Filed under: potholes

Yesterday.

Today:

I would like to say that this was me, David Brauer, a wheelbarrow and two shovels. But that would be untruthful, and I want to use my powers for good rather than evil.

Commuters: you're welcome. Next, I would like the ramps at 46th to be re-opened, tap water to stop smelling like fish, and a pony.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 8, 2008 9:12 AM | Comments (4)

 

Pothole of the day: 4/7

Filed under: potholes

Look at this fucking monster. When I drove my car toward it, I didn't anticipate a bump -- I anticipated a visit to Land of the Lost.

Watch out for Sleestaks, Rick Marshall. We're going in!

When the 46th Street ramps were closed until 2010, I was mildly nonplussed. Little did I know that driving an additional 10 blocks might send me to my subterranean demise, pothole style.

This beauty at 38th and Nicollet is a hole like the Grand Canyon is a hole. The scope, scale and majesty of the crater is so much more. It looks like Paul Bunyan formed it while skipping a rock, likely a meteor. Also, it is in Kingfield, so I'm sure it is somehow Neighborhood Association President David Brauer's fault. But sabotage will not keep me from my appointed rounds. No sir.

Look at the expanse of it! The breadth! While I was taking this picture I saw three small children, a Roosevelt elk and an endangered Minnesota lynx disappear into its surly clutches. I probably should have helped out, but I figured I'd just call Geist instead. So I just drove on, having missed my opportunity to spelunk with the Sleestaks.

Send us your worst potholes. If I get enough, I'll Google Map 'em.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 7, 2008 1:13 PM | Comments (3)

 

POTD: North Side edition

Filed under: potholes

I wandered around North Minneapolis this afternoon in search of desecrated roadways. The main thoroughfares of Broadway and Plymouth avenues are in surprisingly decent shape. But once you get on the side streets it's another story. Hands down today's winner was found on the 1700 block of Upton Ave. N. The magnitude of this roughly 30-foot string of craters is difficult to capture with just one photograph. But here goes:

Posted by Paul Demko at April 1, 2008 4:29 PM | Comments (1)

 

Pothole of the day

Filed under: potholes

I discovered a fine specimen this morning while driving down SE 4th Street in Minneapolis. But by the time I'd parked my car and doubled back on foot, some intrepid city employees had already filled the damn hole. They were just taking off down the road as I arrived. Here's their handiwork:

Luckily I discovered another redoubtable pothole not far away. This crater on Central Avenue was apparently missed by the three-person pothole crew:

Posted by Paul Demko at March 27, 2008 2:28 PM | Comments (0)

 

Pothole of the day

Filed under: potholes

Many years ago when I was a college student studying in Lagos, Nigeria, I attempted to take a cab back to the residence where I was staying. It was a miserable, stinking, brutally hot day--as are pretty much all days in Lagos. To make matters worse, I was sick with malaria and had a boil roughly the size of a golf ball protruding from my neck.

Weaving through the city's notorious go-slow traffic, the cabbie came upon an opening in the road. Calling this lack of pavement a pothole would be highly inadequate. It was more like a small mine shaft. The intrepid cab driver, rather than be dissuaded by this lack of navigable surface, plunged straight into the ravine. Unfortunately we did not emerge on the other side. The cab became hopelessly lodged in the abyss.

After roughly ten minutes of futilely gunning the engine, it became apparent that we weren't going anywhere. At this point the cab driver implored me to get out of the vehicle and push. For some reason I heeded his instructions. Luckily I was soon joined by several other men--no doubt amused by the sight of some little, sweaty white dude with a giant, grotesque boil on his neck attempting to push a vehicle out of a giant pothole. Eventually we were able to free the cab and I arrived safely back at my homestay family's compound. Unfortunately the boil stuck around for another month.

The Twin Cities, as far as I know, does not posses potholes of quite this awe-inspiring magnitude. But as anyone who's driven the streets in recent weeks knows, the roads are quite treacherous. Months of dumping corrosive materials on the roads, in order to keep them free of ice and snow, has left some huge holes in Twin Cities roads.

The street in front of the CP offices, N. 5th Ave., is a notoriously dodgy surface. In fact it was utilized in the 2005 film Factotum to display the bone rattling shocks on Lili Taylor's vehicle. Associate A List editor Ben Palosaari recently did nearly $900 of damage to the underside of his car while attempting to navigate the "road." Here's a photograph:

But we're looking for other marvels of inadequate roadway in the Twin Cities. Have you noticed a particularly large pothole in your neighborhood? A street conspicuously lacking in navigable paved surface? Post the locale in the comments section (or shoot me an email) and we'll consider it for the honor of pothole of the day.

Posted by Paul Demko at March 26, 2008 1:26 PM | Comments (2)