Abandoned in Hawthorne, NY

Here’s a few pictures of why I love my train station.

I took these pictures on August 26, 2010.

They are more evidence of why this corner of the Hawthorne, the area around the train station, needs more than a $50000 clock and a tiny flower bed to become attractive.

These trucks have been parked for several months without being moved. One has no license plates, the other has one, on the front, but hard to see.

It was inevitable that they would be vandalized - they are parked immediately adjoining an overpass with a path underneath that is used by some folk to just walk back and forth to the train station from a parking lot on the other side, but also by others who mark up the wall of the underpass, break bottles, and I don't know what else because I'm not there when they are. I only see the results.

At least one person I'm friendly, who parks in the Sunset Lot, told me that she is so nervous about walking back to her car at night alone that she has her husband pick her up. Is this what we want Hawthorne to be? It doesn't help that as you emerge into the parking lot from under the overpass, on the track side of the fence, there's a multi-year accumulation of plastic bottles and containers, nor that it took MetroNorth several months to get around to replacing the fence after it fell during a storm this winter.

Anyway, it was the unveiling of the clock that made me finally complain about these trucks and the other issues. If the Town of Mount Pleasant is serious about making the area around the station more attractive, this is an urgent action item, indeed.

Also in need of clean up is the lot behind 375 Elwood Ave., where the dumpster reeks during the summer and the weeds sometimes are allowed to grow rather high.

There are other eyesores along the way, but I don't want to be completely negative. The area behind the rooming house on Elwood, where a tree service parks its vehicles, isn't beautiful but it is kept tidy and clean bottles. Along the same lines, the new cab company's vehicles are nice and the drivers are friendly, polite and well dressed. The new bike rack is a good thing, though I would be happier if the person who locks a scooter to it made sure not to block part of the pedestrian walk. The liquor store on Elwood is attractive, and I hope the new businesses on the east side of Elwood succeed.