MOUNT VERNON — Mount Vernon Mayor Richard Mavis said city officials were looking at the Riverside Park drinking fountain which had recently been moved from its place along West High Street.
“We had moved it and were looking at how to reconstruct it,” he said. “We’ve known and felt for a long time that it was in its location for as long as anyone can remember, and we felt it was upside down. No one had done any research on it, but once we took it out of the ground and took a good look at it, we found this fountain was made by the same company that made the one on the square. It was probably made in the 1880s by the L.T. Mott Co. We contacted them and they sent us a picture of what it looked like originally.”
Mavis said the original fountain was probably taken out and cut below the large water bowl. A basin was fashioned, the fountain reinstalled upside down and the basin affixed to the inverted base. Mavis said city officials are looking into making a new bowl to put on top of the reinverted base.
Mavis said his office had been receiving numerous calls from residents on the north end of the city.
“They had completed the installation of the new water line in the area,” he said. “In order to get the we line activated, we had to cut the water off. We had press releases, we had it on our Web site and in the newspaper, and on the radio prior to that. Evidently a lot of people still didn’t get that information, so we got a lot of calls on that.”
Mavis said the hook-up went smoothly and the water was off about four hours.
“We certainly regret the inconvenience people experienced,” Mavis said.
The ongoing Gay Street improvement project has caused some traffic restrictions over and above what motorists had been experiencing up to now.
“We had some people call in about that,” said Mavis. “Some called anonymously and others identified themselves. People were saying it was taking 20 to 25 minutes to get from the viaduct to the North Main Street area. We are looking at what we can do to move the traffic better during busy times during the day. We hope to have some remedy to the situation, although it won’t be perfect until the project is completed.”
Mavis also noted there have been more and more reports of people driving the wrong way on Mulberry street.
“Fortunately, no one has been seriously hurt,” Mavis said referring to an accident between a car traveling the wrong way on Mulberry Street and a new fire department grass truck. “I just saw the accident report and there was $8,000 worth of damage to the truck.”
