Tourists toting stolen goods: city's
water meter covers
By Matt Scallan, The New Orleans
Times-Picayune
NEW ORLEANS — The distinctive cast-iron covers of New Orleans water meters have been turning up in unusual places lately: departing tourists' luggage. Transportation Security Administration workers at Louis Armstrong International Airport found six of the 9 1/2-pound discs in recent months when they set off alarms on baggage-screening equipment, airport spokeswoman Michelle Duffourc said. A passenger was pulled off a departing airplane on a Monday morning this month by security personnel after they discovered one in his luggage, but he was released when he told police he bought the cover at a French Quarter flea market, Duffourc said. The covers, which were designed in the early 1920s by Edwin Ford, founder of the Ford Meter Box Co. of Wabash, Ind., have an art deco design featuring a crescent moon and stars. The Sewerage & Water Board still buys its covers from the company. Theft of the covers is not as big a problem as it once was, Sewerage & Water Board spokesman Joe Puglia said. "There was a time when we were replacing the covers in the CBD with plain ones to cut down on theft, but it's not an overwhelming problem," he said.
Original New Orleans Water Meter Lid by
figstreetstudio
Click image to see and order.
I always thought those copies of the New Orleans Water Meter Covers on shirts and things were just that copies. Instead I tried to be original and came up with a design using the Mardi Gras colors and paying homage to the rusty iron cover in front of my old house. I made several different designs but that rusty old water meter seems to be the favorite. I have it in many colors and shapes on shirts, stickers,hats, clocks and more. See the Water Meter Design at :
http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio/1126148
Links to clocks of all sorts including pictures of the Original Water Meter Lid in the French Quarter with the lock.;
http://www.cafepress.com/figstreetstudio
Zazzle also has unique Christmas ornaments both plastic and porcelain, see them at my Zazzle Shop: http://www.zazzle.com/figstreetstudio*
The water meter cover ornament and tile is sold in New Orleans at Arius Gallery 504 St Peter St, on Jackson Square, French Quarter. Stop in and see and ask Peter for them.
Tourists toting stolen goods: city's
water meter covers
By Matt Scallan, The New Orleans
Times-Picayune
NEW ORLEANS — The distinctive cast-iron covers of New Orleans water meters have been turning up in unusual places lately: departing tourists' luggage. Transportation Security Administration workers at Louis Armstrong International Airport found six of the 9 1/2-pound discs in recent months when they set off alarms on baggage-screening equipment, airport spokeswoman Michelle Duffourc said. A passenger was pulled off a departing airplane on a Monday morning this month by security personnel after they discovered one in his luggage, but he was released when he told police he bought the cover at a French Quarter flea market, Duffourc said. The covers, which were designed in the early 1920s by Edwin Ford, founder of the Ford Meter Box Co. of Wabash, Ind., have an art deco design featuring a crescent moon and stars. The Sewerage & Water Board still buys its covers from the company. Theft of the covers is not as big a problem as it once was, Sewerage & Water Board spokesman Joe Puglia said. "There was a time when we were replacing the covers in the CBD with plain ones to cut down on theft, but it's not an overwhelming problem," he said.
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