Darkness on the Edge of Town, 6:20 p.m. Looking at S.E./S.W. 3rd Street FEC Railroad crossing from S.E. 1st Avenue. February 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier. South Florida Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ne
Hallandale Beach Boulevard to close at FEC tracks for 3 days
Crossing will be rebuilt from Feb. 6-9
By Michael Turnbell, Sun Sentinel
6:40 PM EST, February 2, 2011
HALLANDALE BEACH
Hallandale Beach Boulevard will be closed at the Florida East Coast Railway tracks east of Dixie Highway for three days starting Sunday.
The crossing will be reconstructed.
The closure will begin at 6 a.m. Sunday. The crossing will reopen at 6 a.m. Feb. 9.
There will be separate detours for cars and trucks.
Eastbound automobile traffic will be detoured south on Dixie Highway, east on Southeast Third Street and north on Southeast First Avenue. Westbound traffic will be directed north on Northeast First Avenue, west on Northwest Third Street and south on Dixie Highway.
Eastbound truck traffic will be detoured north on Northwest Eighth Avenue, east on Pembroke Road and south on Federal Highway. Westbound truck traffic will be directed north on Federal Highway, west on Pembroke Road and south on Dixie Highway.
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For those of you living in the S.E. Broward County area who need the above information to be placed into its proper perspective, and for the even larger number of you readers who want some added insight into how even small things in the city I live in can reveal deep Grand Canyon-like examples of longstanding incompetency on the parts of several parties and agencies,
pay attention.
The street described above as the temporary east-bound route, S.W. 3rd Street and S. Dixie Highway, is where the city's Fire-Rescue vehicles usually come screaming eastbound across the FEC Railroad tracks a few times a day -with ZERO firetruck warning signs on any of the nearby streets, including U.S.-1 -a longstanding problem throughout the city.
Hallandale Beach Fire/Rescue truck. February 4, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
That street is noteworthy for being near pitch-black at night, a longstanding fact well-known to not only many lower-level City of Hallandale Beach employees, for many, many months, but also to HB Fire Chief Daniel Sullivan and HB City Manager Mark Antonio.
In fact, the Fire Chief's office is less than two blocks away.
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?nid=24
As it happens, City Manager Antonio was reminded of this in December at a public meeting on the myriad problems experienced by business owners along Fashion Row, held at Dekka, just five blocks north of that intersection.
Dekka, 139 N.E. 1st Avenue, Hallandale Beach, FL February 4, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Absolutely Fabulous 20 N.E. 1st Avenue, Hallandale Beach, FL February 4, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
My friend Michele, who owns the popular boutique above, was given nothing but grief from HB City Hall and Code Compliance for the longest time about her desire to actually IMPROVE the appearance of her store, costing her un-necessary time and money. Why?
February 4, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
The graffiti-scarred parking lot sign for Nick's Restaurant, off Fashion Row, next to the FEC railroad tracks, the most obvious of several graffiti targets on Hallandale Beach Blvd. near the railroad tracks. In Hallandale Beach, as I've written here on the blog before -and will be doing again soon with lots and lots of photos- graffiti stays on surfaces large and small for months and years at a time, as if, somehow, customers don't notice it and it don't wonder if an area is sketchy.Where in the world is the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce and where are the HB police? Good questions!
February 4, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
I know that City Manager Antonio knows that area on 3rd Street and the FEC is pitch-black because the person who reminded him of this simple public safety fact at that meeting was me.
What's happened since?
NOTHING.
Their patented specialty.
In fact, the block east of Dixie Highway there -adjoins the former City Hall complex as it comes to the city's Fire/Rescue HQ- is as dark as a black hole, and has been an accident waiting to happen for MANY, MANY YEARS.
Considering what drives by there everyday, should a road that crosses a railroad track really continue to be one of THE unsafest streets in all of S.E. Broward instead of one the best lit?
Yes, it seems counter-intuitive to logic based on other places I've lived, but that's how HB City Hall rolls!
No detail is TOO obvious or TOO large to be... noticed.
It would be a shame if someone got injured or killed there this weekend because of the added traffic there and longstanding negligence, which would be a slam-dunk for any attorney suing the city and the county and the...
Just feet away, in fact, on south-bound Dixie Highway, there's a speed limit sign -on a pole with a street light that's been out since March- that has been completely obstructed for nearly a year.
The public safety negligence in the city and that area in particular is so well-known that it was memorialized forever a few years ago when Google's Street View came by and caught it on film, a fact I've already highlighted on my blog a few times.
See for yourself!
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=
The Broward County Transit bus stop there, hidden by a hedge, is so dark and grim at night that it might as well just be a stop on the way to the morgue in a Friday the Thirteenth film.
Just saying... be careful.
The three photos on this page were taken within ten minutes Thursday night, and you can see the complete lack of appropriate road lighting.
In fact, the only light that you see in the photos, besides that emanating from auto headlights, are from signs and reflecting material caused by my camera's flash.
If I hadn't used the flash, you wouldn't even see that.
Trust me, when you're there, it's even darker than these photos depict.
And it has been like this for a long, long time.
In the upside-down world of Joy Cooper/Mike Good/Mark Antonio, it's yet another success story!
Darkness on the Edge of Town, 6:25 p.m. Looking at S.E./S.W. 3rd Street FEC Railroad crossing from S.E. 1st Avenue. February 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Darkness on the Edge of Town, 6:30 p.m. Looking at S.E./S.W. 3rd Street FEC Railroad crossing from S.E. 1st Avenue. February 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Live 1978) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqGld8_HpOQ
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Candy's Room
Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ. 1978 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oTFJhhWW8g
http://www.youtube.com/user/BruceSpringsteen
