Roosevelt's Tree Army

CCC (4.00 / 3)

Yes, Fillmore Glen was CCC as well.  I think they also built the fake Millard Fillmore cabin there.

The stuff lasts so long, though, in part because of yearly maintenance.  I wonder what some of this CCC stonework would look like after a year or two neglect.

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by: NYCO @ Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 18:26:42 PM UTC

yearly maintenance is critical (4.00 / 3)

for just about everything.  As I approach 40, the main thing I've learned recently is that nothing lasts very long without regular upkeep.  (Of course, even with regular upkeep, not everything lasts.)

Compared to most post-WWII public works I've seen, though, this was definitely built with an eye toward solidity, fitting with its natural environment, and a sense of permanence.

It's not nearly as crazy as some of the National Parks work out west, but it's still impressive.

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by: simonstl @ Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 19:34:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's been a trend (4.00 / 3)

for almost three decades that maintenance is one of the areas that gets cut.   I do see the difference between what the CCC did - or even pre-1960 state work - on the various parks and campgrounds, and the more "modern" work.  Go into one of the older buildings and look at the foundations - they're solid.  The concrete often looks like it was cast yesterday.  The stone work and wood work show real craft.  Go into one of the more recent buildings, and the concrete is crumbling, it's often kit-built or with cheap lumber, and they're falling apart within a decade.  It's pretty sad, really.  

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by: Norbrook @ Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 19:50:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

....and occasional rebuilding (4.00 / 4)

The yearly repair is important, but much of the CCC stuff gets an occasional major rebuild from time to time, too.  I remember in specific visiting Fillmore Glen a couple of summers in a row back a ways, and having some pretty major rebuilding going on the entire time.  The old-fashioned way, with wheelbarrows and bagged mortar mix, because that's all that is practical down in the glen.

CCC work is worth preserving.  We should build more of our public built environment in ways that are worth loving enough to preserve.  And, we should fund the upkeep of our public treasures.

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by: robinia @ Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 19:35:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes, built to last by make-work nonsense that (0.00 / 0)

prolonged the Depression by years. Compare 1920 to 1929.  Learn something about economics.

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by: John Minehan @ Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 23:23:35 PM UTC

come on, John (4.00 / 5)

You can do better trolling than that.

Perhaps you have forgotten the minor inconvenience - some called it a Panic though Depression is the less panicky term - that came at the end of the Roaring Twenties, well before anyone had even thought of the New Deal.

Please, do learn something about economics - and definitely something about history.

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by: simonstl @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 01:36:38 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not to mentiont that (4.00 / 2)

he must never have used anything constructed with those awful make-work projects.  He never goes go state or federal parks, fishes the lakes, or hikes the trails that they made.  Pity.  But it would explain why he doesn't like them, since he doesn't personally benefit.  

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by: Norbrook @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 02:56:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Minehan and his Paulite ilk (4.00 / 5)

evidently hate public parks.

As the intense reaction to Paterson's proposal to close parks makes clear, such libertarian extremism is quite unpopular.

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by: devtob @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 02:59:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

That Hoover, an interventionist, caused to (0.00 / 0)

become the "Great Depression."  Why do you persist in having an 8th Grader's view of history?

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by: John Minehan @ Thu Jun 24, 2010 at 23:32:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I see - if we'd just listened to Andrew Mellon's "Liquidate..." (0.00 / 0)

everything would have been just dandy.  After all, Mellon had been Treasury Secretary for most of that 1920-29 period you cheer, and he obviously knew exactly what was right.

Hoover was a really dangerous radical socialist, apparently. I mean, hell, he was a Quaker, like that other dangerous lefty President, Richard Nixon, founder of the EPA.  They'd better take Hoover's name off the Hoover Institution before his interventionism contaminates their conservatism!

Why do you persist in having a view of history that doesn't begin to approach plausibility?  Do you enjoy the laughter that is inevitably your reward for promoting such nonsense?

Please, take some time and study history.  Preferably with historians, not deranged right-wing ideologues who regard attention to reality as some weird 8th grade mistake.

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by: simonstl @ Fri Jun 25, 2010 at 05:35:03 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

There is lots of conservation work (4.00 / 4)

that needs to be done, and lots of unemployed people.

A new CCC would make sense, and be politically popular, but AFAIK the Democrats running the country have not made it a priority.

I wish they would.

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by: devtob @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 02:53:45 AM UTC