Comments on: Beautiful not least because Mimi and Bob found art and design, found humanity and dignity, in a gritty and ignored urban artifact.

Beautiful not least because Mimi and Bob found art and design, found humanity and dignity, in a gritty and ignored urban artifact.

Lanark — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:08:33 -0800

The Japanese make beautiful manholes. Original idea by Mimi and Robert Melnick who started this obsession back in 1974. Also some early Sewer Designs & previous manhole thread.

By: selfnoise

selfnoise — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:12:44 -0800

Wow, those are beautiful. Thanks! It's really need to see pride of craftsmanship in something like that.

By: Tullius

Tullius — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:13:07 -0800

This is cool. Thanks alot, Lanark.

By: elpapacito

elpapacito — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:16:32 -0800

Very nice, certainly adding to urban decoration. I wonder how long till advertisers get the clue and ruin it.

By: jenii

jenii — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:51:21 -0800

I've always liked our local manhole covers. They're pretty, in a utilitarian sort of way. They're made in Michigan, just southwest (?) of Charlevoix, in a little ironworks in a town called East Jordan. I don't know what I'd do with it but I've always wanted to steal one. Now I'm curious -- do any of you remember seeing East Jordan Iron Works manhole covers where you live? I'm not sure if they supply them to the whole country or just Michigan or the Midwest or what.

By: stackmonster

stackmonster — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:52:30 -0800

wow. thats just beautiful.

By: jenii

jenii — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:52:37 -0800

(If I knew where the UBC cable for my camera is, I'd run outside and take a picture of one and post it here. But I don't.)

By: Protocols of the Elders of Awesome

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 11:15:58 -0800

Fantastic. I'm now ashamed of my nation's manholes.

By: amro

amro — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 11:51:18 -0800

Pretty!

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 12:13:27 -0800

Pretty or plain, manhole covers have a bad habit of disappearing, with nasty consequences. Are your city sewers secure? Lanark, thanks for the link to The History of Sanitary Sewers. It's an excellent site about an engineering marvel that we take far too much for granted:

Cesspools for human wastes were frequently placed under the floors (often made of wood) of castles. In 1183, when the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire held a Diet in the Palace of Efurt, the floor of the main hall broke; many of the dinner guests fell into the cesspool and drowned; luckily, the Emperor survived. A similar event occurred in England in 1326: Richard the Raker had just been seated for a meal when the wood floor gave way -- drowning him.

More about Medieval sewerage here.

By: Lanark

Lanark — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 12:51:24 -0800

Wow I had no idea such thefts are so common - thats even worse than all the bronze public artworks being stolen for scrap in the UK

By: -harlequin-

-harlequin- — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:17:42 -0800

Seattle manholes are like this, with the design a streetmap of the city, very nice.

By: stilgar

stilgar — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:38:53 -0800

east jordan man holes are all over, my last name is jordan so i always look for them wherever i go, i have fond them all over the country and even in canada...if anyone wanted to know.

By: c

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 14:55:13 -0800

those would make nice manhole burn tattoos.

By: craven_morhead

craven_morhead — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 17:35:27 -0800

this is the sort of thing i love metafilter for. thanks.

By: hades

hades — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 20:21:29 -0800

At Drainspotting (which I really need to overhaul one of these days) you can find East Jordan Ironworks, Japanese covers, some of my favorites, and more disorganized manhole links than you can shake a stick at. Also, there are some flickr groups (manhole, gullydeckel) and tags (manholecover, manhole).

By: Lanark

Lanark — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 03:49:12 -0800

It seems the world market for steel/iron peaked in late 2004/early 2005 and is now dropping back to normality - so hopefully the streets wont all turn into "Blackburn Lancashire"

By: Who_Am_I

Who_Am_I — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 07:44:22 -0800

Very nice. I always thought that manhole covers were round so that they couldn't fall into the holes, though, so it's odd that some of these are rectangular. Do they have some other mechanism to prevent that happening?

By: jenii

jenii — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 18:27:03 -0800

If you follow the links above (not sure which one, sorry; I think it was in the previous manhole cover thread, though) you'll find that there are also triangular manhole covers. Those can fall on your head, too. (Maybe if you're a sewer worker and your manhole covers aren't circular, you wear a better hardhat.) Also, hades, thanks for the links. And I wanted to know, so thanks, stilgar.