A Flagman Left Out in the Cold
City council blocks a permit for a shelter at the Great Northern tracks, leaving a worker to face the winter elements alone.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Down at the foot of Hewitt Avenue on Bayside, the Great Northern Railway has stationed a flagman, and there he stands, day and night, doing his part to minimize the danger to life and limb. Everyone having occasion to be at that crossing has noticed the fire of cross-ties and refuse the man keeps burning, and not a few have kicked at the smudge and smoke. It has been reported to the Journal that the railroad company is willing to erect a shelter, but that the necessary building permit cannot be obtained from the city council. The city should find some way to issue such a permit, for it is little short of inhuman to compel a flagman to brave the inclement weather prevalent at this time of year with no shelter over his head.
“It is little short of inhuman to compel a flagman to brave the inclement weather prevalent at this time of year with no shelter over his head.”
The intersection of Hewitt and the waterfront has seen immense change from the railroad-dominated industrial era to today's urban redevelopment, yet the tension between worker safety and bureaucratic 'red tape' remains a classic, small-scale civic conflict.
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