This photo was sent in earlier this morning by a resident of South Portland Avenue alarmed by the sight she woke up to this morning: A crew from the city’s Department of Design and Construction tearing up of the landmarked bluestone sidewalk at the corner of Dekalb Avenue as part of the citywide effort to build out the traffic bumps on many corners. From her email:

Officially the city agency in charge of doing this work isn’t allowed to destroy what is considered landmarked material (bluestone), and I’ve confirmed with LPC that the city has an LPC-approved permit requiring them to pour a dark (slate colored) concrete where they are creating the new bump out. What I was NOT expecting was what I saw this morning: the cherished bluestone slabs broken and destroyed, in the ACTUAL sidewalk, as they dig up the sidewalk to match the new higher height of the bump out curb. If I’m not mistaken, they have to put back whatever bluestone slabs they are forced to remove. (Still waiting from confirmation of this from LPC). I can only imagine that carefully removing and resetting old stone slabs is a very expensive and time consuming process, so I supposed “accidentally” forcing them to be chopped up and trashed is an easier solution. Man this makes me mad.

The on-site supervisor she spoke to told her DDC would reset whatever pieces of bluestone were still intact when all was said and done. From the looks of this photo, that’s not a very encouraging prospect. What a botch! UPDATE: We’ve received word now that the FDNY is on the scene because of a gas leak relating to the removal of a lamp post on the corner yesterday. Developing…