Uniform Color Code Honors Alice Walker With The Color Purple

The Queens Gazette decodes asphalt graffiti:

Most native New Yorkers know the scrawls mean their streets or sidewalks are about to be torn up by some municipal agency or by the cable company, but few know which agency the colors represent.

Before the first shovel goes into the ground in any repair or development project, city homeowners, architects and developers are required to perform a survey to determine the location of “underground facilities.”

The surveys are performed by workers dubbed “locaters”, who measure and mark the distance of water, gas, electric and cable lines that lie precariously close to projects requiring excavation, a representative of the City Department of Design and Construction said.

A red mark denotes an electric project dealing with power lines, cables, conduit and lighting cables, Tony DeRoma, a manager at NY 1 Underground, a private firm hired by the city to provide project markings using New York’s Uniform Color Code, said. Yellow refers to gas, natural gas, oil and steam utilities. Orange markings refer to alarm and cable systems. Blue markings mean the job is related to water mains and other potable water systems. Pink paint is used to mark for temporary surveys-a “preliminary mark”, DeRoma said.

Markings in green paint mean a street is in line for new sewers or a new drainage system, and white paint indicates an “imminent excavation” near the marking.

Interesting, but what’s new here? In short, purple:

The city recently added a new color to the spectrum of its Uniform Color Code, DeRoma said. Purple markings refer to reclaimed water systems, irrigation and slurry lines, which could mean that work is about to begin on lines connected to a nearby car wash.

The color purple indicates water rated a degree below drinkable, but usable by a private business through a “holding tank.” The water, though “non-drinkable,” can be used in irrigation systems or in a filtered system that takes out suds, making it perfect for use by a car wash, DeRoma said. Such systems must be drained and maintained on a scheduled basis-a process that requires excavation.

Court Finds That A Citizen’s Right To Criticize The Police Stops At “Go Fuck Yourself”

Telling a cop to go fuck him or herself is not necessarily protected free speech:

Screaming an anatomically impossible obscene suggestion at a police officer is against the law, a Manhattan judge has decided.

The quirky ruling, made public yesterday, concerns the case of Brooklynite Ramon Morena, who is charged with creating a public disturbance by shouting “Go f – – – yourself” at a cop in the Theater District in March.

Morena’s lawyer had tried to convince the judge that civilians enjoy a First Amendment right to criticize and verbally challenge police officers. The charges, he argued, should therefore be thrown out of court.

But Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Richard Weinberg didn’t buy it. If you’re disorderly, you’re disorderly, the judge wrote — and there is no “police officer exemption” to the rule.

Morena now faces up to 15 days jail if found guilty of disorderly conduct.

. . .

. . . [A]ny alleged screaming would be merely “a private annoyance” limited to the cop, the defense lawyer argued — and as such should have rolled off the officer’s back.

The judge countered, “To adopt defendant’s arguments would be to effectively carve out a police-officer exception from the disorderly conduct statute and to condone the heaping of verbal abuse upon a police officer regardless of the circumstances. This the court will not do.”

I Believe I Can Fly

Don’t tell the kids — alcohol really does turn you into Superman:

A 60-year-old man, apparently drunken, jumped five stories off the roof of his Hell’s Kitchen apartment at about 10:30 last night and was barely injured, cops said.

The first thing Alexander Mikhailov asked cops for when he got up: a drink.

“I don’t know how he survived it,” said a police source at the scene of the fall from the top of 527 W. 47th St.

It was broken by some “potted plants” on an elevated level of a building behind Mikhailov’s, the source said. He was taken to St. Vincent’s hospital in stable condition, officials said.

It Has Hot Pink, Angry-Looking Nipples

Hubba hubba:

It has hot pink, angry-looking nipples and eyes. Its fang-like teeth match menacing claws. It’s a 30-foot-tall inflatable rat and it’s been seen recently at a Starbucks, the New York Stock Exchange and elsewhere.

A union protest fixture in the city, the rat has become a symbol of labor tension. Two even made an appearance on The Sopranos.

“The labor movement needs to get creative and colorful, and the rat is a creative, colorful way to highlight the behavior of an employer,” said Daniel Gross, an IWW Starbucks Union organizer. “The rat conveys a message.”

“We’ve done cockroaches, skunks, bulldogs, even a corporate fat cat wearing a striped suit, smoking a cigar and choking a union worker,” said Mike O’Connor, owner of Big Sky Balloons & Searchlights, the Plainfield, Ill. company that designed and sells the rat.

O’Connor designed the rabid pest back in 1990, when a Chicago union man called asking for something his members could picket with, suggesting a “dirty rat kind of thing.”

The first rat O’Connor designed was “basically a cutesy rat, but he wanted something mean, with fangs. So I went back to the drawing board and made the rat how he looks today.”

Unions all over the country order the rats — and recently an order came in from Nova Scotia — but New York, New Jersey and other northeastern states are O’Connor’s biggest clients. Big Sky sells about 100 of the inflatable rodents every year.

. . .

Some employers respond in kind. Last October, musicians in Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Extravaganza went on strike. Their employer placed an inflatable cougar over the marquee, baring its teeth at the protesters and any rats they might have brought with them.

Rat:

See also: Sir, Step Away From The Rat*, which seemed to indicate that the rat was on its way out.

*I think this upheld the judge’s decision in that case — so what gives? Labor specialists, let us know where the rat stands!

Please Explain: Why Is That Manhole Cover Flying At My Head?

New York Magazine explains once and for all what happens when manhole covers explode:

The copper electrical wiring running beneath the streets is hung on the manhole walls and sheathed in insulation, which can crack and warp owing to age (many are 60 years old), chemical corrosion (a major culprit is road salt, which is carried down with rain), or hungry rats.

Cables carry an average of 13,000 volts. With demand up, the cables have to carry more power and begin to heat up. This heat, coupled with the electricity leaking through the cracks in the wiring, starts to burn the insulation.

Carbon monoxide, an extremely flammable gas, is released from the smoldering insulation and collects in the empty chamber; the cover is pushed up like a lid on a pot of boiling water.

An electrical spark can ignite the gas. This is surprisingly common: In one 24-hour period in July, the Fire Department reported 25 manhole explosions in Astoria. Not all result in the covers being shot into the air: That depends on how much gas and electricity is involved. But some covers have been flung over 50 feet.