D-O-T Can’t S-P-E-L-L

DOT's Spelling Flub a Sign of The Times; 

How Would You Spell Mosholu?

By David Greene

BRONX, NEW YORK, JUNE 19- Workers with the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) apparently reversed the last three letters of, "Mosholu," when they installed at least one new street sign in October, 2010-- and one eagle-eyed Norwood resident finally caught it.

During the Recent Bronx Day Parade, the annual culmination of Bronx Week along Mosholu Parkway, Linda Tino claimed, "The sign is wrong, it's spelled M-o-s-h-o-l-u and they have it spelled M-o-s-h-u-l-o and that's not the way you spell it."

Tino explained how she saw the incorrect sign a day earlier as she was riding in a taxi. "That's ridiculous," Tino fumed, "Somebody couldn't get it right? And nobody else saw it? Unless someone saw it and they just never changed it."

Sending out a challenge to find the incorrect street sign, Tino added, "Check it out, I swear to God."

Sure enough Tino was right as the now slightly dented road sign at the northeast corner of Southern Boulevard at E. Mosholu Parkway, just outside the of New York Botanical Gardens, has the error, a half dozen other signs in the immediate area do not.

After being forwarded a photo of the misspelled sign, a spokeswoman with DOT simply stated, "The agency has not received notice of this, however, we will inspect the location and take steps to address the sign as necessary.

The last street-sign snafu reported, also took place in October, 2010, when DOT unveiled the new $612 million Willis Avenue Bridge, when a sign was quickly and easily observed telling drivers they were driving on I-278, but the roadway was actually I-287.

Under federal mandate, the DOT began replacing the city's 250,900 street signs, switching from all capital letters to lowercase. The project is expected to be completed by 2018 at a cost of $26 million.

Mosholu Parkway is a 3.3 mile stretch of roadway that runs from Southern Boulevard to W. Gun Hill Road and was constructed between 1935 and 1937 and is also called New York State Route 908F.

Sounding more like a type of virus, according to Wikipedia, "Mosholu" is an Algonquin Indian word meaning, smooth stones. The Algonquin Indians were early settlers along the Atlantic coast, but migrated to Canada.