Friday, May 16, 2008

Beauty underfoot.

There are hundreds if not thousands of plain or embellished manhole covers in our cities, but few people think of them as art, thoughAmazon.com offers a book about them. Belgrade's sewer system is 103 years old, and was laid out by Serbian engineers with the help of German, Austrian, Hungarian, and French experts. On this cover you can see some of Belgrade's landmarks like the statue of The Victor shown in earlier posts. By the way, why are we still calling them "manhole" covers when we live in such a PC world? "Personhole?" I don't think so. I think PC can go too far sometimes!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

We still call them man hole covers. I am not sure what that implies but never stopped to think about it before today. Hum?

Pat - Arkansas said...

Blecch! The world has gone PC mad!! According to Wikipedia:

"In 1990, the city of Sacramento, California officially renamed all their manholes to "maintenance holes" out of concern for the equality of both genders. The name "maintenance hole" was selected because the term shares the same initials as the word "manhole," thereby eliminating the need to change the MH labels on the city's utility maps."

Again, I say: Blecch!

Pat - Arkansas said...

P.S. Nice shot of the manhole cover!

Chuck Pefley said...

I suspect they are still called man-hole covers because most women are too smart to enter that subterranean system :)

I've photographed a few of these in various places around the world, as well as other medallions and covers in pavement and cobbles. Wonderful stuff to be found above and below our noses :)

I see you got the fortune cookie figured out. Great. It tells me I'm going to be appointed to some post of honor and prestige. Hmmm ... we'll see...

Ken said...

I think they are a work of art. Nice photo.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

Beautiful.

My husband (and sometimes, I) photograph(s) them wherever we go. That ones a beaut!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful manhole cover! I generally like all of them and I also take pictures of them as Mary Stebbins taitt cuple does!

Louis la Vache said...

hehehe....Don't get "Louis" started on "PC"!

What an interesting photo! "Louis" likes this very much!

Igor Ursić Paja said...

I even have the t-shirt with one of those manholes where it says BELGRADE SEWAGE AND WATER SYSTEM.
I adore these manholes in Belgrade.
Especially the old ones!!!!

Nathalie H.D. said...

Maintenance hole seems a great word, even though I have no problem with using the word manhole. I'm not into PC stuff beyond the reasonable.

I've never seen such beautiful ones, whether it be in Paris, Avignon or Sydney (never really looked closely elsewhere).

Thérèse said...

Belgrade's charm is mostly because everything is intact, no? But I know that degradation is taking place...
Our youngest just lost his ID in one of them two days ago...

iBlowfish said...

I think that is very interesting man hole. And for ladies who wear high heels watch out these man hole, it would trap you in the middle of street. Person hole...I'll stick with man hole for now.

Petrea Burchard said...

Whatever you call it, what I like is that it's made more beautifully than it needs to be. Why shouldn't a manhole cover be beautiful? Art can be anywhere.

Thanks also for the historical information. I find that fascinating.

SPRING FASHION

 This is a post that would be better in color, but maybe not. These colors were soooo pale.