I read Saturday’s Gazette with the story about adding Ninja Turtle manhole covers for downtown (“Councilors defend Ninja Turtle project”) with great interest. Some Councilors expressed the belief that this would aid in driving downtown economic development. While I have serious doubts that manhole covers (personhole covers? Don’t want to express any microaggressions towards anyone) contribute to economic development, for the sake of argument, let’s say they do.
Why limit the covers to just Ninja Turtles? There are other notable characters associated with Northampton. Go ahead, put Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphael and Donatello together on a cover, but why stop there? Why not “art up” other covers with the likes of Mayor/Governor/Vice President/President Calvin Coolidge? How about Sylvester Graham of graham cracker and healthy diet fame? Perhaps Jonathan Edwards of fire and brimstone theology might be too staunchly religious for Northampton, but he is a nationally known historic character. Oh heck, let’s throw in Sojourner Truth, although perhaps she is too ubiquitous a character in our community already.
Hopefully “arting up” more covers with these or other Northampton associated characters won’t expand the cost of the project from $20,000 to $2.46 million.
Stephen Harding
Florence