Manhole Sewer Art

May 14, 2005 7:12 PM

Manhole Cover Photography.Photos of manhole covers from around the world.
posted by greasy_skillet (23 comments total)

Art is where you find it. Nice post!
posted by mmahaffie at 7:21 PM on May 14, 2005

Too bad there's no pictures for Italy. When in Rome (and trying my hardest to do as the Romans were doing), I was rather amused to discover that the city's public works department had anachronistically stamped all the manholes and utility boxes with "SPQR"
posted by pieisexactlythree at 7:24 PM on May 14, 2005

There are some SPQR covers at Drainspotting (previously mentioned on MeFi a couple of years ago). Also, a bunch of links to other manhole cover sites.
posted by hades at 7:30 PM on May 14, 2005

I love this kind of thing.

*deletes rest of comment on previewing hades' comment*
posted by mediareport at 7:33 PM on May 14, 2005

In case you weren't a classics major, here's an explanation of SPQR
posted by warbaby at 7:51 PM on May 14, 2005

Very nice find greasy. Thanks for sharing.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 8:13 PM on May 14, 2005

There was a bar here in NYC here called "The Manhole", but it had surprisingly little to do with the city's water treatment system. I won't make that mistake twice.
posted by Gamblor at 8:15 PM on May 14, 2005

As a storm sewer designer, I will win double-plus points for this link when I share it at work. Danke!
posted by santiagogo at 8:33 PM on May 14, 2005

Japan has quite a variety of manhole covers, here is an extensive listing, the "best" are featured here. Via an old gmtplus9 post I read years ago.
posted by bobo123 at 8:38 PM on May 14, 2005

bobo123: Some of these are great! For instance I really liked the one that said 'all you need is Kobe', but my absolute favorite is this one which seems to be saying: Don't go down in the sewers or you will be mauled by a hippopotamus!

(Makes me think of Life of Pi)
posted by Kattullus at 9:01 PM on May 14, 2005

Glad this isn't the NSFW Manhole Covers webpage.
posted by papakwanz at 9:58 PM on May 14, 2005

why are they round?
posted by jeremy b at 11:21 PM on May 14, 2005

why are they round?

I can think of two reasons:

1. So you can roll them.

2. You can't drop a round manhole cover down the hole, but you can drop a square one. (And I note with surprise a square manhole cover on one of the linked pages!)
posted by Turtles all the way down at 11:38 PM on May 14, 2005

Ah but don't forget the Triangular ones.
posted by dhruva at 12:21 AM on May 15, 2005

They have "In Direct Line With Another & The Next" from NYC, but they disappointed me by not having the one from Astor place that has a mid-19th century date stamped on it, and is still covering whatever it covers even though I bet no one knows what's down there anymore.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:04 AM on May 15, 2005

why are they round?

Turtle's 2nd explanation is the one.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:59 AM on May 15, 2005

I wanted to see the manhole covers of India, but so far this site doesn't list any. However, doing a search turned up this interesting tidbit of information: The vast majority of manhole covers in New York City are from India.
posted by taz at 4:01 AM on May 15, 2005

Manhole covers in India are usually round, made of concrete and frequently tarred over by the road, so that when something goes wrong they have to dig up the road :)
posted by dhruva at 5:20 AM on May 15, 2005

dhruva. I grew up around Nashua. I had no idea it has such an amazing claim to fame. I didn't even notice the triangular manholes.
posted by bendybendy at 5:25 AM on May 15, 2005

I've done a lot of advertising and collateral work for a company in France that makes manhole covers. I'm amazed at the amount of work and technology that goes into designing one of these things - not to mention the variety. Good post.
posted by j.p. Hung at 6:55 AM on May 15, 2005

These animate well. A shamefully long time ago I was impressed by a very creative film at the Vancouver School of Art (anyone remember that?) that consisted of a few frames each of hundreds of manhole covers. The circular shape remained fairly constant, while the center danced with patterns.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:30 AM on May 15, 2005

A lot of the US's planer manhole covers are made in Neenah Wisconsin, and when ever I was far from home, for some reason seeing that on the manholes made me a little bit warmer inside.

And it's ironic because Neenah is pretty close to Wisconsin's manhole.
posted by drezdn at 9:52 AM on May 15, 2005

lol at Gamblor...glad things turned out ok!
posted by PossumCowboy at 3:03 PM on May 15, 2005