This picture is NOT a Christo installation. It’s a snow
fence – or rather a snow-ice-salt-sludge fence to keep the toxic by-products of
a Central New York winter off the bushes and trees along the side of the road.
This is Genesee Street, in DeWitt, not far from our house, near Butternut
Creek, near the canal towpath.
Genesee Street is older than the Erie Canal. Genesee Street
was a trail used by the Haudenosaunee as they travelled from the Mohawk
villages in the east, through Oneida Castle, to here in Onondaga, and on to
Cayuga and Seneca. Genesee Street runs the length of the state, from the Hudson
River to Lake Erie. It follows a ridge above the wetlands and swamps.
A year ago, I hear, Central New York had six feet of snow by
this time. People take preparation seriously. The fences are ready.
