It did not all work out that way. I decided to go by the old Black Farm, a National Park Service property in our Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Yesterday, in a comment on Tom Stephenson's blog, I indulged my opinion of waste in my backyard by my federal government. I even called it evil. It's not fair to use another blog this way, so here it is again, on my blog.
This property is among the hundreds purchased by CVNP back in the seventies, to flesh out the park being established. The properties were purchased by eminent domain; some transactions friendly, many adversarial. As the director of the park told me, when I worked for my township from 2003 until a year ago, the pleasure of a family's outing to the park will not be increased by knowing more than 450 families lost their homes to the creation of this park.
I believe it's good to know, so I occasionally revisit it.
Here are current pictures of the Black Farm.
The horse barns. I am not ready to walk that field so here it is from the road. All the roof vents are broken. That is the most to be distinguished in this picture, so, moving on,
An outbuilding. The bottom door and the loading door above have stood open for two or three years.
The main barn. Boards have been off and downspouts on the ground for two or three years.
Another outbuildng and the pasture fence: When I stopped last, a year or so ago, the fence was intact and a lock hung in the gate. Now the rest of the gate in on the ground.
The home. The park's property manager has renamed this place Briar Rose, because of the unmanaged vegetation. In truth, I don't find that either amusing or truthful. It is the Black Farm, hundreds and hundreds of acres, spreading from this road it fronts back to the next township road behind it.
The park purchased this farm, and hundreds more, because they had the money. But not the money to maintain the properties, or return then properly to nature. Instead of saying, "Oh, Briar Rose. What a shame!", they should return upkeep money to this and to all the national parks.
The National Park infrastructure maintenance is more than eleven billion dollars in arrears. Parks are closing areas to the public for safety reasons. The administration is telling them to charge and use entrance fees for up keep.
In my PollyAnna mood on stepping into the sunshine this morning, here is a happy picture of blue skies and melting ice in the marsh.
Your pebble has been posted today and is winging its way toward you as we speak.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteI have to confess that it still surprises me to see snowless photos from places not so very far away. We lived in southwestern Ontario for three decades, and it shouldn't surprise me, but it does.
ReplyDeleteRemember, you had the snow and we had the rain, last week.
DeleteGovernment priorities are screwed up.
ReplyDeleteAfter visiting my old hometown, i almost cried. All those places, farms, just pieces of what they had been.
ReplyDeleteYour case is criminal. Grrr.
It must be very hard - maybe even impossible - for some of the owners of those properties to come back and see them in such a sorry state. What a waste indeed.
ReplyDeleteHiss and spit. And repeat. Loudly.
ReplyDeleteWow. Black Farm looks very unloved, indeed. There have been scenic areas in my hometown taken over by either the state or the feds. One must now pay to park in these areas. Presumably, monies collected go toward grounds upkeep.
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteTragedy of the monumental kind. YAM xx
Homes taken by eminent domain then falling into disrepair because of neglect. It should be a crime.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe your snow has gone!
ReplyDeleteSad to see the state that Black Farms has not been very loved over the the past few years.
ReplyDeleteSuch a shameful tragedy that people lost their homes just so they could fall into ruin like this.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Black Farms but we have issue here about parks and such.
ReplyDeleteA sad story, here in a small country like ours there are no such places, simply because there is no place for parks that no one will go to.
ReplyDeleteThis is how Shenandoah National Park in Virginia was created as well.
ReplyDeleteYes, and the Delaware Water Gap, too. EXCEPT, in those two cases, they took it all. In the CVP, they stripped away our taxable farm land (which is the income source for most of Ohio). My township, Boston, fared the worst. 93% of our land is now non-taxable. But we provide police and EMS service for millions of park visitors, and plow and repair the roads they drive on. No park ranger drives a bobcat ambulance down a park trail to rescue a fool who decided to climb down a cliff or dive into the river. If you look in the history part of bostontownship.org, you should find what I posted there, plus a very old video of how the federal government took the Delaware Water Gap.
DeleteI'm all for national lands but I fail to see the point of forcing people out of their homes and off their farms destroying the only source of taxable income for the area and then letting it all fall to ruin.
ReplyDeleteIt began like Shenandoah, intended to be an "in and out" park. But the first park director had a vision, he found a pork barrel congress willing, Gerald Ford was tracked down at Vail and given the excess appropriation bill to sign and so forth and so on. American law makers at their worst. Wikipedia makes a fine read on this too, if you have a spare day or two.
DeleteI agree with what Ellen said. I really don't understand this.
ReplyDeleteEllen says it all. Our government is broken, most of the things they do makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry the funding is so badly done, or not done. I was not aware of how this affected places like Boston Township.... But I am glad the park exists so that this land will not be developed. I think it would have been.
ReplyDeleteI agree the park is good. It's implementation, though, is an example of our evil underbelly. John Siberling was able to dispose of all that property and leave his heirs even more well off. But only they were accommodated. Boston Township twists in the wind, literally. No surrounding municipality will annex it because they cannot take on the expense of maintaining roads, providing police and EMS. The government executed a mighty coup, taking all that property and leaving the expense and protection of it to the 300 remaining homeowners.
DeleteWhat a shame.
ReplyDeleteHow appalling that over 450 families lost their homes to create the park. And also appalling that the properties are being left to rot instead of being properly maintained (or actually lived in).
ReplyDeleteWhere did the ousted families go? Was other land made available to them?
ReplyDeleteThe environment is not a concern with this administration. Sad.
ReplyDelete