By Jack Clark
But I don’t remember ever seeing any of the other signs. They were probably gone long before I made it up to the north side in 1971.
Not surprisingly, there’s also no sign to tell you which branch to take if you want to follow that arrow you saw a block back.
But no matter how big your car is, standing on the roof on Ashland Avenue isn’t going to help you find the lake or the drive alongside it.
There were thousands of cars doing just that a few weeks ago. The Ontario feeder ramp to the Kennedy was closed for some reason. There were no signs pointing to alternate routes. Just figure it out for yourself, pal.
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Besides not putting up signs when they should, the city doesn’t always take them down when they’re no longer relevant. DETOUR and ROAD WORK AHEAD signs are often left in place years after the construction is done. That’s probably the story on those signs not pointing to Lake Shore Drive. I think they were part of an alternate route to the Drive during the rebuilding project a few years back. If I remember correctly, you were supposed to turn left on Lawrence Avenue. The sign telling you that is gone, of course.
As the city prepared for the Democratic convention the sign suddenly made complete sense, though it didn’t go quite far enough in describing the frenzy of street repairs around town. Instead of illuminating the sign with a couple of spotlights and bringing busloads of visiting politicians by to show them an example of true municipal foresight, the city instead chose that moment to take the sign down.
