Our secret stream (and phallic tower)

[asakiyume]

Two posts in one day? Why not!

Wakanomori took me to Holyoke's secret stream, which runs beneath Interstate 91. There's a park there, but these boys preferred the actual stream (so did a chipmunk and an oriole I saw).





At one end of the present-day park is a closed roadway that leads up into an overgrown, abandoned park. If you climb up and up, you reach this tower that looks like it took its design cues from rude graffiti:



You can climb up a literally falling-apart concrete spiral staircase on the inside of the, uh, shaft, and up top there is a glorious view of the surrounding countryside. Which I didn't take a picture of! I was too busy recovering from the hair-raising ascent. Fortunately, Wakanomori took a picture. He also obliged me by taking pictures of the words of wisdom inscribed there, and of some of the community-created artwork at the base of the tower.

View of Mt. Tom in nearby Easthampton



Wisdom



Art

Comments

[queenoftheskies]

That is so cool!

[asakiyume]

It was! A hidden-away park behind a hidden-away park.

[amaebi]

Thank you.

[asakiyume]

Any time <3

[cmcmck]

What was the tower's function or is it just a folly?

[asakiyume]

I don't know for sure, but my guess would be that it was a lookout tower. (I meant to look this up before answering your question but somehow haven't done it yet!)

[asakiyume]

Found a really interesting article about the tower and the park from nine years ago. It was built as part of a Works Progress Administration project in the 1930s. The park that it was in dates to 1923. The tower was known (is known) as the Walter Scott Memorial Tower.

[cmcmck]

It's rather nicer that the Walter Scott memorial in Edinburgh!

[missroserose]

"The issues we face are what create the great things we become."

That's beautiful. I may have to work it into a yoga class.

[asakiyume]

^_^ I like that idea. Sometimes graffiti is the best. I have a poem on my wall that I found as a graffito on a beach boardwalk.

[missroserose]

I agree! One of my favorite pieces I've ever seen (I may have quoted this to you before): "If you settle for less than you deserve, you will get less than you settled for." Made all the better by the response, clearly written later and in a different hand: "GIRL!" Unfortunately, when I saw it it was pretty faded and in a bathroom with poor light, and I couldn't get it to come out in a picture, but I still treasure the memory.

[asakiyume]

You never did share that with me before! That's excellent; I'll have to write that down, myself.

[zyzyly]

I like that tower. I would have climbed up too if I had come across it. It reminds me a bit of the Astoria Column in Oregon, where you can climb to the top and get a good view of the area, and, they sell little wooden airplanes that you can throw off and watch them glide down.

[asakiyume]

We were trying to imagine the location in its heyday, when it was all well-kept-up. I like the idea of a concession selling little wooden airplanes; I'm going to incorporate it into my heyday imagining.