@dadpad,
I think your are making an assumption based upon the picture in the paper. It is a fair assumption to make but incorrect. You may notice that the sidewalk there by the flags is tarred and not bricked. Well I must intervene on Portland city works behalf. Long ago I asked myself why this section of the city is not bricked sidewalk. Well just to let you know that in the last 5 years nearly the entire city of Portland has been re bricked. So the city is pristine and perfect really at this point. On the telephone poles residents have stapled fliers to complain about Portland city council re bricking the city and not doing other projects instead with the money. So actually Portland is beautiful right now and 80% of the city is in perfect shape because of the re bricking. So the residents attempting to halt the re bricking have failed in their attempt and the city is nearly finished.
So again the question why is highly desired road right next to the city’s park and on a major artery into the city not bricked?
Well one day I was walking home from walk around a large bay in Portland and it started to rain. I saw the rain clouds coming across the bay and it looked like something from a Steven King book. The clouds else where in the sky were bright and sunny but this storm cloud raced across the bay and people on the walking path were standing still in fear and horrified to see it coming. It took only about a minute for this cloud to race across the bay and when it hit me I was on my bike. In less than a minute I was drenched soaked completely from head to toe within second. Like I was standing in an indoor shower, the rain had a pressure.
Well I walked through the rain to the supermarket and waited there for a bit and the rain did not let up that soon like it often does so I decided to head out in the rain from the supermarket and see if I could make it back to my apartment.
Well, I walked to that very spot where the picture was taken of me with the flags and the tarred sidewalks and I was dismayed at what I saw. The heavy steel manhole covers had been blown off their respective holes and there were fountains of water like huge plume gushers shooting out of the city drainage system in the road and that entire area of the city was underwater including much of that section of the park.
I was ankle deep in water and this water had a swift current which had flowed down from the hills in Portland to this low under sea level area of the city. When the water dissipated moments after the rain the sidewalk is still intact. Where when the sidewalks were made of bricks the bricks would loosen in the waters current and motorists would drive thought the water and encounter the bricks and become fetched up in the deluge and traffic would also back up.
All of the bricks sidewalks surrounding the entire park are brand new only a year old. But that part of the sidewalk will remain tarred. The tar stays through the rain but the bricks do not. That is really the only part of the city that experiences this huge surge due to the rain coming across the bay and putting a massive amount of pressure on the bay and the bay surges up into the city drainage system and causes this torrential flooding.
I might also add on a completely different note. Why would Portland have a festival of nations? People have this impression that Portland is a city of fuddy duddy white redneck backwoods Mainers. Other parts of Maine are like that. One third of the residents of the entire state of Maine live in the Portland area. We traveled out of these small towns to be together.
Well…, Portland Maine is an experiment in city design. After the fire the gutted ¾ of the city, Portland Maine was rebuilt from the ground up. This ethnic and socio mixing was preplanned and built into the very fiber of the city. Portland Maine is ethnically and racially very mixed in such a way that it creates a racial utopia of culture. We don’t have a china town, a Mexican or French quarters, nor Jewish or catholic section of the city, nor an affluent rich area of town and a depressed poor area where crime exists but everyone lives together. Yes there are a few areas where low income people live but they are only blocks from the most prized homes of the city. I would never dream of leaving Portland Maine to live elsewhere though I love to visit other places. Portland is a perfect place for this festival of Nations because the city is totally integrated. Portland enjoys the lowest crime rate of any city in the USA, Portland residents love the diversity and we take for granted this diversity assuming that is the way it is elsewhere in the world. I LOVE PORTLAND MAINE!
If you are looking for the very best place to raise a family in the United States look to Portland Maine and you will never regret your decision on moving here. The people are progressive and highly educated in the tradition of many of our famous elder states men of the past. They are super friendly, strangers greet you when walking down the street and we are all of one political mind view. Yes there are some trouble makers, your occasional drug addicts, the homeless and some random acts of violence but all in all this fair city is the very best the world has to offer in cultural harmony and fine living. Portland’s "Festival of Nations" is only one example of the fruition of this ideal of racial unity at its finest. Portland is clean, well cared for, friendly and a safe place to live.
This is the same park that Longfellow and even earlier, George Washington used to stroll through. So YES, I am a fan of this festival. 