Is This Windsor Art

Remember the brouhaha over the work of art that the Americans might not have liked? I thought that we had some kind of a new Art Commitee set up to deal with art in public places. Aren't we going to have a Cultural group set up to develop a cultural policy for the City? I may have a job for them right away.

I was really heartened by a story in today's Windsor Star:

• "New mural
  Just in time for Super Bowl XL, the city has unveiled a new mural depicting the downtown skylines of Windsor and Detroit.
  
  Mayor Eddie Francis said the painting, on the wall of the E.C. Row Expressway underpass on Dougall Avenue, is a vast improvement over what had been "an ugly" bit of infrastructure."
  
  

Now I happen to travel down Dougall to get home from downtown so imagine how excited I was. BUT that area is also dangerous with the stoplights and the entrance to E C Row and all of that. I wanted to help out myself to be direct and not get rear-ended by someone looking at the magnificent work of art. Accordingly, I went out this morning and took a picture of it for you, dear Reader, to see first.

Yup, that's it...at the top of the BLOG. I swear that this is true. I did not drink too much last night. I did not make this up. I took the picture with my digital camera this morning (I am NOT a good photographer and I needed a wide-angle camera to get a proper shot).

This is art according to Eddie Francis

It is nothing more than a bloody billboard advertising the Tunnel! It is NOT a painting! Don't we have a sign by-law in this City? I better check it out.

What a disgrace! How it cheapens the area especially after all of those nice trees were planted there so Eddie could get a checkmark on his report card!

Now in case you don't know the area, there is a billboard telling people to go to the Tunnel nearby and big one for the Ambassador Bridge. Now we have a third billboard called "art." The problem is, for a tourist coming to town, the last billboard is for the bridge so most tourists would probably make the left turn to EC Row thinking that is how they would get to the Tunnel.

But you know what this really is don't you..it is part of a fight by the Chair of the Windsor Tunnel Commission, Mayor Eddie Francis, against the Bridge Company, chaired by Matty Moroun over the border.

Here is what my spies tell me that the Bridge Co. Chair does for art---he holds a fundraiser during Super Bowl NOT in Detroit but at the WINDSOR Art Gallery to help their operations. All the Tunnel Chair can do is put up a billboard and dare to call it art!

It's a pathetic game of oneupsmanship by a Mayor who has failed us on the border. Perhaps if he stopped running the Tunnel and started running the City, we would all be better off!