Eyesore of the Beholder

Yesterday I was drawn to my back window by the horrific shriek of metal on metal. My neighbor in the back was sawing down his clothes line ladder/tower with the help of his teenage son and I was transfixed by the sight for two reasons. Mainly because it looked like a highly dangerous endeavor that should be performed by professionals but, secondly, it was another reminder of what once was. These towers, easily 30 to 40 (or more) feet high, were put up at the rear of urban backyards many moons ago to be the anchor for clothes lines that stretched from several apartment stories, mostly outside the windows of a backroom which included wash tubs and basins. The usage of these clotheslines and towers started to become obsolete with the widespread ownership of indoor washers and dryers but hundreds and hundreds still exist and are pretty much a blight on the landscape since they were normally made of iron (the wooden ones are gone) which, unless maintained properly, rusted into a sculpture of foundry-art for some, and an eyesore to many. Mostly they were/are not thought of at all because, well, they’ve always been there and present generations just don’t notice.

When I first moved to NYC they were a phenomenon to me and highly intrusive and fairly annoying to the esthetic eye because they were 1) ugly and 2) not used. I must confess it was my influence back then that got my landlord to remove his and then that removal prompted the neighbor to the right to remove theirs. The neighbor to my left still uses hers once in a while even though she has functioning washer/dryers in her house.

This photo is taken from my bedroom window showing hers and the smaller one behind her (with the live-saver ring hanging from it). Sorry, gang, they are eyesores and serve no purpose. Hanging something from one of them just emphasizes this fact.

These towers were installed by digging very deep holes and encasing the legs in a ton of poured concrete. The rungs on the tower were climbed to install the clothes lines themselves and, early in my sojourn in New York, I was called upon several times to perform steeplejack duties in replacing old and frayed ropes and reels. Being a daredevil in those days I rather enjoyed the task but they were even more ugly close up and dangerously rusty even then. Getting rid of these towers is, I know, an extreme pain-in-the-butt but they are an urban phenomenon that no one should try to save. As they slowly disappear from the landscape they should not be mourned or missed but celebrated as a utilitarian relic of the past in photos and memories. The reality has got to go!

Oh, yeah, yesterday the neighbors were successful in taking down theirs even though it got kind of dicey in the last couple of seconds when it crashed to the ground, not quite at the angle planned, narrowly missing the back fence (and the teen-aged son). A round of applause greeted the success and it became obvious I wasn’t the only one watching out the window. Personally I had my cellphone clutched in my hand, 911 on my mind. Today the neighbor is serenading us with the steady thump and clank of a pick and shovel as he tries to rid himself of that huge chunk of concrete buried deep in his yard. Good luck with that. Just now I heard his son say, “No way.” Agreed.