The Utica Tower Removal Just Proves We Love to Hate Stuff in Utica

The Utica Tower is coming down and the whole situation just proves that we get a perverse glee out of being ticked off.

Back when the Utica Tower was erected, there was a large contingent of people that hated it. It was stupid. They wanted to know who was going to pay to keep it lit. It was ugly. Now that the tower is coming down, some of those same people are even more upset. "I love seeing that tower." "Who couldn't predict this?" "This is why we can't have nice things."

This sort of reminds me of when I was 10 and my brother punched John Chisholm in the schoolyard because he was saying mean things about me. None of the names John called me were any worse than anything my brother had said about me, it's just that my brother felt he was the only one allowed to insult me.

Some of us appear to feel the same way: we can trash-talk where we live and the stuff in it, but don't go changing any of it. We love our tower that we hate.

In the end, the tower is coming down because the potential liability to the Towers's corporation is huge: a young man climbed it twice, and not in a great state of mind, and the ground the tower sits on is contaminated - further raising the stakes.

"Operational activities of all parties involved remained cooperative until the two-time entry of an individual who cut through the ten foot, barbed wire topped fence to climb to the top of the Tower in 2019. The incidents required first responders at considerable expense, as well as a costly crane. The crane disturbed the top layer of soil near the Tower, of which lower layers of the soil are considered contaminated," said the corporation.

Whether you loved it, or hated it, the tower will be gone by the end of the year. Then we'll have to find something else to love/hate.