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PLANK ROAD VILLAGE OCTOBER 2006
by Ham The town of North Syracuse, NY boasts the United States' first ever plank road and, boy, are they proud of it. The plank road was built on what is now known as Route 11 to more conveniently allow carts to transport salt (did someone say Salt? As in Salt Museum?) and other items without having to worry about getting stuck in the mud. It probably wasn't very long before people realized that wooden planks would have their own set of problems and someone developed asphalt roads. So, basically, the wooden plank was just used as a transitional road until something better came along. This didn't stop the folks at the Plank Road Historical Society from putting the term "Plank Road" on everything they could get their hands on though. The main road going thru town was given the name, Plank Road, after already being known as Main Street (and Route 11). The town has it's annual "Plank Road Days" with a parade and balloons and, I don't know, clowns or something. The town has also recently built it's own "Plank Road Village", built outdoors (I guess they couldn't find a building to put all of this stuff in) behind a bottle redemption center and next to the smallest park I've ever seen. The Plank Road Village consists of a couple of different buildings, tools and stuff that were around when people used to pull their salt around on planks.
In the picture above we see a waiting station where people would wait for trolleys to come down the plank road and pick them up. I have a feeling the people who waited at this station were probably just as excited as all the people who come to Plank Road Village to look at the waiting station. But wait, there's more! The picture below looks like your average wooden bench:
Upon closer examination we see it's actually a:
I think the people who made Plank Road Village were trying to compete with the Salt Museum to see who could get the least amount of visitors every year. To say both were a bit small and dull would be an understatement. At least the Salt Museum had a gift shop. But, then again, the Salt Museum didn't have one of these things:
Notice the world's smallest park in the background. I hope some of the kiddies playing on the slide don't wander over and start playing with this:
I have no idea why the stage in the next picture was there. It would be cool if they had a daft puppet show recreating the Plank Road Days or something. I'd even volunteer to be one of the puppeteers. Come on, Plank Road Historical Society, let's hook this up!
On the way out I noticed a Plank Road trolley that was fenced in so no one would vandalize it. However, they conveniently placed this red table so someone could use it to hop over the fence and do their vandal-type things to the trolley.
Speaking of trolleys, if you drive a couple of blocks south down Route 11 (sorry, Plank Road) after leaving Plank Road Village you'll find this trolley next to the Court House parking lot for seemingly no reason:
It's called the "Trolley Car Museum", but the first thought I had when seeing this is that they should have to allow people inside the trolley to be able to call it a "museum". Then, upon getting a closer look, I noticed that they had allowed people inside the trolley at some point. There were still a few poor souls stuck in the Trolley, possibly hoping to get to the Land Of Make Believe. I was shocked to see Sinead O'Connor looking out the window, giving her usual blank stare that she does so well:
Next I found this poor guy with his head on backwards and in desperate need of some lip balm:
I also found some squirrels who made the trolley their home. This one tried to trick me into thinking that he was a larger member of the canine family, but he didn't fool me!
Sinead, Backwards Head Guy, and the squirrels all had it pretty bad - being stuck on a stationary trolley and all. However, none of them had it quite as bad as Reggie, the trolley conductor:
No wonder he couldn't get that darn trolley moving! (Posted 1/2007) GO TO PROJECT ABSURD HOME PAGE
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