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God bless the grass that grows thru the crack
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru
And God bless the grass
.
When plants can find a root-hold, a place they start to grow. Their detritis
offers better options for decay equals organic matter, moisture retention.
Though the paper mill started out with dozens of nearby houses for its employees, varying in size and architectural style, starting in the 1960s a few of them would be demolished. Between the late 1980s and early 1990s several more houses along Delaware Avenue were removed. This wave of demolition left only one brick Victorian house on that stretch of road.
Then there is the Crown Vantage Superfund site on Milford-Frenchtown Road.
Located near the Delaware River the 10-acre landfill, contaminated with semi-volatile organic compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other pollutants, had been used by the paper mill to dump hazardous waste from the 1930s to the 1970s. Fenced and posted with warning signs to keep trespassers from entering the site, on its website the Environmental Protection Agency warns against trespassers. In 2015, the Crown Vantage Landfill was removed from the Superfund sites list after remediation and cleanup had been completed.
Curtis Specialty Papers closed the mill in 2003, laying off 213 workers. It had been the fourth built in the area by the Riegel Paper Co., having opened in 1907 with 75 employees. At one point, some 700 people worked there. The paper mill buildings on the adjacent site are slowly being demolished.
And the green plants grow all around, all around,
the green plants grow all around.
OCTOBER UPDATE:
.
I knew this was coming so on Tuesday, 1 October I took the image on the left.
Friday morning, just before 8:00 a.m. we heard a thump, from 4 miles away
as the two towers were imploded. Excellent drone image by Bill Hamberger.
.
God bless the grass that grows thru the crack
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru
And God bless the grass
God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies over it and think that it is done.
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
And God bless the grass.
God bless the grass that grows through cement.
It's green and it's tender and it's easily bent.
But after a while it lifts up its head,
For the grass is living and the stone is dead,
And God bless the grass.
God bless the grass that's gentle and low,
Its roots they are deep and its will is to grow.
And God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the wild grass growing at the poor man's door,
And God bless the grass.
Words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1964 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1992. People often think of this as an ecology song, but Malvina wrote it after reading Mark Lane's comments about the John F. Kennedy assassination.
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