It has been a few weeks since I last updated the “scene” photos on the right. It isn’t always easy to find the right shots in two separate locales. Alas, even I was getting tired of the two that have been up since August 4th, so yesterday I set out to find replacements.
With Tropical Storm Hanna upon us today and flash flood warnings throughout the region, I thought this snapshot of a flood water gauge would be appropriate for the Scene This Week in Columbia. This particular gauge is located by the old Cedar Lane bridge near Route 32. When this portion of Cedar Lane was widened years ago, a new bridge bypassed and replaced the old one lane bridge over the river. The old bridge still stands and can be accessed via Harriet Tubman Drive. I sure hope the waters don’t get anywhere near that 26 foot mark today!
After snapping the flood water gauge I drove over to Ellicott City. In a recent post on his blog, Hayduke posted a picture and asked if anyone could identify the location. When I saw this picture it immediately brought back memories of when I lived on Oak West Drive in Ellicott City. Back then, when my Labrador retriever was just a puppy, I used to take her for long walks into woods that eventually ended up on Park Drive where Hayduke took his picture. On one of our many walks in that area we came across this relic from the 1930’s. The WPA was the abbreviation for the Works Progress Administration, a federal program created to build roads and other infrastructure in rural areas. It is safe to say that in the thirties Ellicott City was pretty much a rural area.
On an identical monument just across the road from the WPA marker is this monument for Sylvan Lane. I'm guessing that a WPA work crew built or rebuilt Sylvan Lane many years ago. With Barak Obama talking about a new federal program to fix the nations aging infrastructure as a way to help bolster the economy, it seemed appropriate to highlight a remnant of a similar effort in another time when the US economy wasn’t so hot either.
