Danger Hollow Sidewalk
05.12.09
Because I am a slave to my fast food overlords, I've recently taken to walking 12 minutes to the Wendy's on Broadway for lunch. Yes, this is the rare case when walking more is actually bad for you.
I walk down Prince Street to get there, where I recently discovered the Kidrobot store. (The website verges on pretentious, but the storefront is unapologetically nifty.)
I also discovered a peculiar series of signs labeled "DANGER HOLLOW SIDEWALK." Ha ha ha! Isn't that cute? "DANGER HOLL--" Wait? WHAT???
Where these signs are placed the sidewalk is half-metal, with trapdoors leading down to building basements (or possibly to the sewer). So I'm totally on board with identifying these areas as both "SIDEWALK" and "HOLLOW." The part that's still murky for me is the whole "DANGER" part.
And, in my experience, "DANGER" is a not-good thing to be murky about.
Now, despite the signs, plenty of people were walking on the metal part of the sidewalk, and they seemed to be doing so relatively untroubled. And thanks to some cautious testing, I can tell you that these hollow sidewalks felt plenty sturdy to me. I certainly didn't feel en"DANGER"ed.
Don't get me wrong. I can certainly envision some potential "DANGER"s of hollow sidewalks:
- Pianos dropped from a great height would be more likely to break through them.
- Sonic disrupter weapons might have an enhanced "echo effect" if targeted in their direction.
- Weepy poets might use the sidewalks as a ham-fisted metaphor to express the bitter soullessness of a world no longer capable of excepting honesty or beauty without cynicism.
All terrible. But what are the odds of any of these things actually happening? (Okay, aside from the poets. That's probably happened already.)
In other words, "Sign-schmign! I want to know what sort of DANGER I'm actually in!!!"
And I'm forced to conclude: None. Because if there was any real danger (and not just "DANGER"), then it would be spelled out:
- "DANGER DON'T JUMP UP AND DOWN ON THE HOLLOW SIDEWALK."
- "DANGER DON'T WEAR HIGH-STRENGTH ELECTROMAGNETS WHILE WALKING OVER METAL."
- "DANGER STEER CLEAR OF POETS."
In reality, the sign isn't so much pointing out a serious danger as it's pointing out a situation that, combined with a finite number of other situations that may or may not ever occur, might or might not result in some danger to someone, someday, maybe.
In the pantheon of signs, this one doesn't even rise to the level of "DANGER SLIPPERY WHEN WET." Rather, it's the sidewalk equivalent of a roadside sign that warns passing drivers:
- "DANGER EVENTS INVOLVING CARS."
(Unless I fall through a hollow sidewalk and die tomorrow, in which case, fair enough, I totally had that coming.)