Rant #3,350: Fountains

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How was your Mother's Day?

Ours was OK, pretty quiet, but it went well.

Today, I want to talk about something that kind of took me back to my younger days, although the subject, to me at least, is in the here and now.

I want to talk about ...

Fountains.

(No, not the water fountains that you drink from ... although, when you think about those type of fountains, isn't it incredible how we didn't get every disease known to man from drinking from these things?)

No, I want to talk about those huge, mainly decorative water fountains that dot the landscape here and there.

The reason that the types of fountains came up in my mind is that one such fountain in our new community was turned on the other day, and its presence brought me back to another time and place in my life.

We had seen workmen working on the fountain earlier last week, and we figured they were prepping it to start up again after a couple of months of cold weather hiatus, but instead of starting up again later this month on Memorial Day, it began its warm weather sprouts right now, as you can see in the photo.

This brought me back to another, more simpler time in my life.

Growing up in the Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York, apartment complex at the very onset of this community in the early to mid-1960s, we had two such fountains, which started up right when the warm weather began and signified the youth, vitality and endless possibilities of this new community.

One was close to Building 9, where I lived, and during those early days, when it went on, you knew that the summer, and those warm days and all the fun that that produced, was right around the corner.

I can remember playing stickball games in the park that adjoined Buildings 9 and 12, and if the wind hit the fountains just right, you could feel a wisp of water kiss your skin during those hot days and nights.

It really was a nice touch to this burgeoning neighborhood.

But of course, as went the community, so went the fountains.

Those fountains ran every summer for the first couple of years of the development, and it became a great hangout place for the residents, young and old and everyone in between.

But some people abused the fountain, vandalized it, throwing things into it, and occasionally throwing themselves into it.

(If I remember correctly, I also went into it once, on a dare.)

Although the neighborhood was a young one, by about 1968 or so, it was showing the ravages of the world we lived in.

Lots of changes were happening in New York City, and the infestation of drugs and crime had entered our community.

The schools were terrible, and the community became unsafe--

And all of this seemed to be reflected in the fountains, both of which were turned off for good in about 1969 or so, and were never turned back on again.

I remember walking past those shuttered fountains many times, and wondering why they were shut down, but being 12 years old and using my brain, I kind of knew the answer.

The hope and endless possibilities were great while they lasted, but honestly, by 1968 or 1969 or so, those dreams were pretty much gone, replaced by a survival mode that had overtaken our collective naivete.

My family, like many of the development's families, moved out of the neighborhood to Long Island in 1971--during the summer, of course--and I have no idea what happened to those fountains in the ensuing years, but I do know that when they originally shut down, it was like the fountains of hope and possibility of our community were turned off, never to return.

Flash forward to 2024--

My family and I are in a new community after a nightmare that began many months ago and continues to haunt us today to a certain degree.

We were looking for a new start, and the community we chose just happens to have a fountain of its own, right when you enter the apartment development.

But now, our new community's fountains are on full blast, and once again, I look at those fountains as a symbol of hope, one of endless possibilities ...

More than 50 years after the fact of those original fountains in my old neighborhood.

The presence of the fountains mean the same thing to me today as they did way back when. 

And unlike those original fountains, I hope that these newer ones are never, ever turned off.