New Providence Fuel Truck

The New Providence Fuel station has its own 1940s-1950s pickup truck to advertise!

I think that’s pretty cool.

Buick and fire escape

I dunno, I was strolling around Vauxhall, and the light was catching this fire escape just so, and I thought it was kind of pretty. But of course you are free to make your own judgements.

P.S. Happy Hanukkah!

Bloodhound

Just for context, there was another bloodhound on the other side of the car sticking ITS head out the window, too. It was pretty adorable.

Route 22

In preparation for writing this post, I just spent WAY too much time researching the entire highway system of the United States (HOURS, I kid you not. who needs a life? I do!), most of it not at all relevant to U.S. 22.

Here’s a brief history of the American highway system, as summarized from Wikipedia (and unless noted, all links below are to their respective Wikipedia articles):

Back in the day, everyone got around by foot or by horse’n'buggy, so the roads were dirt.

Then, in the early 1900s, suddenly everyone had automobiles, and they needed slightly better quality roads to roll around on. So some folks started setting up auto trails, which could’ve been awesomely maintained by organized organizations or badly maintained by some random dude who could make a sign. You didn’t know ’til you drove it.

In 1926, drivers were like “this sucks, we want real roads” and the U.S. Highway System was approved. Hooray for organized maintenance! (And a numbering system that supposedly made some sense.)

By 1956, President Eisenhower was like, “dude, the Autobahn is WAY better than this shyte, we gotta keep up with the Germans” and the Interstate Highway System was officially spurred into existence by some important bill that authorized $25 billion to construct lots of new highways. Why new highways? ‘Cos these fancy interstates would be limited-access freeways, so you’d hopefully minimize the number of old ladies pulling out from the bank at 3mph into 40mph traffic and thus ruining everyone’s day. (Alas, this still happens on the U.S. and state highways.)

October blizzard aftermath

It’s been over a week since the October blizzard that pillaged parts of the northeast United States. Around here, most people have their heat and electricity back (mine came back on Friday, about 6 days after it went off), but cleaning up the devastated trees is an ongoing process. That’s what these guys are doing!

I spoke to the gentleman on the far right of the photo. He told me that their crew had come up all the way from Maryland to help clean up the mess, and they’ve been doing it since last week!

Most streets are driveable now, although there are still a few roads with power lines draping onto the asphalt, and as of yesterday (7 days after the storm), there were still some nonworking traffic lights in my area. The curbings are piled high and deep with branches that have been cleaned up from everything.

Chemical Fire Engine No. 1

When I visited the Carter House, this lovely piece of machinery was parked out front.

“Cool! So… has it always belonged to Summit?” I asked the fire volunteer standing beside it.

“Yes, ever since it was built in 1927,” he answered.

“No buying it from some other town and saying ‘Hey, it’s ours now’ or something?”

“Nope! Ours from the start.”

“Cool,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s actually been housed in our own fire house since 1927. We’re trying to get it permanently moved over here, to the Carter House, because space is getting kind of tight in the fire house.”

“Ouch, I can imagine,” I replied. “This must take up a lot of valuable room!”

“It’s actually a lot smaller than a modern fire engine,” he said, “but… as you can see, it’s still not exactly tiny!”

“No,” I said.

“People just kind of hang their wet coats on it,” he continued, “like the exercise bicycle in your room that you never use.”

I laughed. “So aside from being a coat rack, nowadays it’s just used for, what, parades and stuff?”

“Well,” he said, “not now. Right now it doesn’t run.”

“Oh. So… you had to tow it here for today?”

“Yeah, we had to have it towed,” he said. “But we’ve got guys working hard on it, trying to get it to run again. Then hopefully we’ll be able to store it over here and take it out for… parades and stuff.”

“Cool,” I said. “Um… may I take a picture?”

 

(The conversation above has been paraphrased as closely to truth as memory will allow, and factually confirmed by an article by S. Duetsch and J. Gasso in the Autumn 2011 edition of the Historian, the Newsletter of the Summit Historical Society. Errors are possible, though.)

I want to ride my bicycle!

One more blizzard photo (for the time being), and then I’ll probably stop, I swear.

This bike was parked outside the New Providence train station; the photo was taken Saturday, October 29, after the trains had been shut down (around noon). As such, the owner of this poor bike, who had probably gone to New York or the Oranges in the morning, may very well have been stranded there for a few days, until the trains started running again yesterday (Tuesday, November 1).

As of last night [Patch.com article], most New Providence residents had not had their electricity restored yet, but we’re supposed to get it mostly back today. Here’s hoping!

Driver

‘Whatup,’ said the dog.

Dabbawalla

First, a nosy and irrelevant question: Did you, fearless reader, come here via Facebook? If so, via whom or what? I’ve been getting a lot of Facebook referrals lately, and they’re not from me, and I’m curious.

Moving on:

Dabbawalla is an Indian restaurant in downtown Summit.

A “dabbawalla,” the namesake of the place, is (from what I can tell) a person (in India) who delivers your lunch to your office for you, and returns the empty canister to your home at night, so you don’t have to carry it.

I have never been inside this restaurant, so I can’t comment on the food; I’m not much for eating out.

Here is what I do know:

This is not the front entrance.

Vespa

The way motorbikes are parked reminds me of the way a graceful lady in high heels would stand at a party while talking to someone. It’s very elegant.