A sign of the past

It has been years since Walter Spivak trucked gravel, sand and other aggregates from this site. But two decades ago sections of the open space behind the Byron Somerset Public School were deep gravel pits which were coming to the end of their productive lives.

The aggregate business is an interesting way to earn money. You dig a hole in rocky land and make oodles of money selling the stones. You then charge folk to dump clean fill, dirt dug from other sites, and you make more money. With the land restored, you sell it and make another killing. And the really funny thing is that society benefited every step of the way. (At least, society benefited here. Spivak supplied a lot of important aggregate to a growing city and the reclaimed gravel pit has provided land that has been put to excellent use. For once, we are building on something that wasn't A1 farmland.)