Nine Mile Run Viewfinder, Whitney Park

40.435735, -79.889725 From the parking lot off of Wilkins Avenue, head south through the park Pass the playground slides and swings, and find your way through the ball field Continue through the field of dandelion, clover and plantain toward the treeline When you are near the gap in the fence, look for two manholes

One is to access the sanitary sewer, and the other is the storm sewer The storm sewer is part of the stream known as Nine Mile Run It carries water from the headwaters and stormwater collected along the way down to Frick Park

This manhole shaft is concrete.
When I first saw it, I thought of Lee Bontecou’s sculptures, specifically the untitled wall reliefs that protrude into spaces, but create an experience of looking/ in, or interiority, Portals to spaces we can only imagine

but really this manhole shaft has more in common with another artwork, Duchamp’s urinal ‘Fountain’— the readymade that proclaimed that just about anything can be art.

And as that artist, I’m saying, “Look here in this hole.” The hole is art, and being here with the hole is art.

The hole— a portal to a system our ancestors built underground— It may be flawed, but we can still learn from it.