http://www.tothepointnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3114&Itemid=76
rockin russkies
"marika" <marika5000@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message news:...
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "marika" <marika5000@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Newsgroups:
alt.rmgroup.this.jay-denebeim,alt.usenet.legends.lester-mosley
> Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 9:31 PM
> Subject: let it the sky
>
>
>> This is my favorite poet of all
>>
>> How Taras Shevchenko got on an expressway (it wasn't in a car)
>> HARDWARE CITY HISTORY: How Taras Shevchenko got on an expressway (it
>> wasn't in a car)
>> By BART FISHER, Special to The Herald
>>
>> This isn't a mystery in the traditional sense, or even in the "TV
>> sense." Solving it doesn't require the hard-bitten, bludgeoning bravado
>> of Andy Sipowicz of "NYPD Blue," nor the forensic fireworks of Horatio
>> Caine of "CSI: Miami." But that doesn't mean there aren't some
questions
>> to be answered and interesting observations to be made regarding the
>> reasons why (and where) the city of New Britain and state of
Connecticut
>> has chosen to pay homage to a man who was never here. And why it
>> happened long before similar honors and memorials were erected in his
>> faraway homeland and around the world.
>>
>> The man was Taras Shevchenko, the great Ukrainian poet, artist,
>> philosopher and freedom fighter who died at 47 in 1861. The road from
>> Route 72 in New Britain to Route 175 in Newington and vice-versa, all
>> part of the Route 9 connector, is known as the Taras Shevchenko
>> Expressway.
>>
>> At the foot of what was Wells Street, on East Street, there is a
>> southbound entrance ramp featuring a stone or masonry marker with a
>> large bronze plaque attesting to the name of the roadway. It lists the
>> name of the various state and local officials in office at the time -
>> Bill McNamara, mayor of New Britain; Bill O'Neill, governor of
>> Connecticut, J. William Burns, commissioner of trans****tation - in
>> addition to Shevchenko's. But that's all it lists, except for the date
>> in July 1986 when the monument was dedicated and the road was opened.
>>
>> So how did it come to be there? What did it replace and who gets the
>> credit for making it all happen? To hear most people tell the tale, a
>> (now deceased) former Newington mailman named Mike Mowchan came up with
>> idea of naming that stretch of road for the iconic Ukrainian writer.
>> Others in the local Ukrainian community apparently agreed, and
>> wholeheartedly. But it was Mowchan, according to those in the know, who
>> wrote the letters, buttonholed the politicians and convincingly
advanced
>> the case for honoring the man who was so im****tant to Ukrainians
>> everywhere.
>> Advertisement
>>
>> Former longtime New Britain alderman Tom Moore, a retired and respected
>> ex-police officer, sponsored the enabling legislation in the Common
>> Council. Also having met with the passionate postman, state Sen. Joe
>> Harper brought the proposition to the legislature and used his
>> considerable clout to see it was enacted.
>>
>> It is estimated that more than 50,000 cars and trucks per day use this
>> particular stretch of road, once known as SR (or State Road) 506. But
>> all state routes above 400 are actually "phantoms," and the designation
>> actually exists only on paper. The Kurumi.com Web site about
Connecticut
>> roads has a compendium of such "un-signposted" routes, including
SR-500,
>> which leads north from the Hartford "Mixmaster" interchange with
>> Interstate 84 at Route 2 to Governor Street in East Hartford.
>>
>> Then there's SR-571, which is actually closer to home. You won't find
>> any signs for it, but it's a section of Route 72 running through Berlin
>> and New Britain that goes west at the Route 9 curve and exits facing
>> Willow Brook Park to service Memorial Stadium, where New Britain High
>> football games are played in the fall, and New Britain Stadium, where
>> Rock Cats baseball games take place each in spring and summer.
>>
>> But let's get back to the Taras Shevchenko Expressway. Remember, it was
>> dedicated in 1986.
>>
>> Although a few statues and other memorials to Shevchenko date back to
>> the World War I era, most monuments, even in Ukraine, were erected, or
>> at least renamed in the poet's honor, after the fall of the Soviet
Union
>> in 1991.
>>
>> Several Ukrainian cities replaced their once-obligatory statues of
Lenin
>> with the nationalist figure in the 1990s. There are also monuments now
>> in several U.S. cities, including Wa****ngton, D.C., Syracuse and New
>> York City, as well as in Paris and Manitoba and Winnipeg, in Canada.
>>
>> But thanks to the late Mr. Mowchan and others, local Ukrainians can
>> point with pride (and point their automobiles to) one of the earliest
>> U.S. honors for their national literary hero, the Taras Shevchenko
>> Expressway.
>>
>> Bart Fisher is a Herald columnist and former s****ts editor with a
>> lifelong interest in history.
>>
>>
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