New York Thruway

Thruway sign remnant 2.jpg, originally uploaded by carljohnson.

I noticed that this old sign for the Thruway, probably going back to the ’60s when I-890 was built a couple of miles away, was still surviving at the corner of Nott St. and Maxon Rd., even during the construction of the new Golub building, but I thought for certain it would disappear when the construction was complete. It had stood watch there, oddly far from any easy access to the Thruway and not really on a major access way, since the time when there was a Wetson’s hamburgers across the street, since the Big N existed. I thought for sure the redevelopment of the block, more than 30 years after the Big N went out of business, would finally mean that this sign’s time had come. But someone must have decided it belonged there still, even without any directional arrow, for they went to the effort of cutting off the top of the pole but leaving the rest for the sign’s perch.

The site has changed dramatically since Google Street View last visited, but two opposing views of this corner offer an interesting pair of perspectives:

Now you see it.

Now you don’t.