The Ramones had some classics. “I’m Against It” was one. George Winter, Webster’s code enforcement officer, is quoted in this morning’s newspaper as saying “A few people called and said, ‘I’m not sure what it means, but I don’t like it.’ I think it’s something from a Bob Dylan song or something.”
He was talking about a sign that read “HOW MANY DEATHS WILL IT TAKE ‘TIL WE KNOW TOO MANY PEOPLE HAVE DIED?” The sign was put up on one of the seven empty lots where houses used to stand before the Christmas eve gunman set fire to the place. In fact he was standing up on the ridge pictured in this photo when he shot and killed the firemen who responded to the fire. We had seen the sign before and I thought about photographing it for my sign collection but it was ugly, all caps lettering, and the sign itself was already commentary. The sign is in violation of code so someone covered it with a tarp and then someone else sprayed “Censored” on the tarp. I photographed that and maybe that will work on my sign page.
The article prompted us to walk down there again. You go across a small seasonal bridge (it will swing open for fishing season in April) and you’re on a sliver of land barely wide enough to contain the road, an old railroad bed and some tiny houses. Lake Ontario is on the north and Irondequiot Bay on the south side. It’s a beautiful spot but the elements make it too rough for luxury homes. There’s an impromptu shrine to the firefighters and an historical marker from the 30s denoting the spot where the French army landed in 1687 before invading the Seneca Indian territory. Both of these displays are permissible.
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