Willimantic, Connecticut
Still haven't gotten a good answer about the connection between Willimantic and frogs, but I wonder if the graffiti face—which is all over the walls there while I'm not sure I've seen exactly the same repeating form elsewhere—can read as a frog, maybe, though duck seems just as likely. The various utilities on the rear wall of this Main Street building look very old indeed. I wonder if the AC units actually work—no way to tell this time of year. There was a sound of rushing gas at the central gray pipe and feeder fittings, probably sending natural gas from buried supply lines to heating systems for the building's storefronts, most of which are occupied. The yellow not-graffiti in the lower right corner of the shot probably marks the route of the buried gas supply line.
2 comments:
Carl--here you go . . .
http://www.kurumi.com/roads/ct/br-frog.html
"Willimantic is well-known as the Thread City.... but whassup with the Frog Bridge? This harks back to the legend of the Frog Fight, a harrowing night in 1754 when townspeople rushed outside with their muskets to defend themselves from an unseen screeching menace. The next morning, they discovered scores of dead frogs, who had fought for the last remaining puddles of water in a drought-stricken lake. "
Edd, that's one of the stories I've found, but, being Wiki, it's less than definitive. Other sources point out that screeching frogs are hardly unique, and the incident reputedly took place well out of the town center. This frog story doesn't seem to have the, er...legs..to last 250 years as an urban myth. Still looking into it.
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