Endangered monument list: Machu Picchu, church in Barcelona, monastary and now...

October 13, 5:06 PMHartford Conservative ExaminerJohn Talleos

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  A Connecticut structure was labeled a "worldwide landmark" then put on a list of being "significantly endangered" by an organization called World Monuments Fund. The landmark, if it can be called that, was put on a list that includes Machu Picchu in Peru, Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona and the monastery Phajoding in Bhutan.

  What is the Connecticut landmark? A highway. That's right a highway, or to put it more accurately, a parkway. The road is the Merritt Parkway. So find it on your GPS and put it on your bucket list because this isn't just any highway, of course, this is a depression-era built highway and it has trees! It really is something to see. Silly isn't it? 

  So what makes it endangered. Why, there's only 1 Merritt Parkway left and when that's gone, they're not making anymore of them. Actually this isn't the reason. To make it on the list a monument has to be threatened by neglect, vandalism, war or natural disaster. We like to include global warming as another element that threatens the highway because it's more trendy and every bit as far fetched as the other absurd threats.

  But no one is scheduling any war battles on the highway. Connecticut doesn't have any natural disasters other than Jodi Rell, the governor, whom we learned is an interstate highway kind of gal, and vandals are really at a lost as to what there is to vandalize...it's a highway.

  The really good news here is that federal stimulus money is going to be spent to renovate some of the more decorative bridges.  So if you're lost for a reason as to why a Nobel Prize was awarded to our peace making-wartime president  just say he has saved one of America's endangered monuments.