City Ripping Up South Portland Bluestone
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…
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…
They did this same thing on MacDonough Street infront of our Lady of Victory.. I was thinking they are taking the bluestone to Manhattan or something
I don’t see why the informant is making such a big deal.. The sidewalk was in pretty poor shape to begin with. It was already half concrete, half bluestone. Does the resident expect them to replace the old cement sidewalk with bluestone?
Here’s a pic..
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=11205&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=56.899383,83.408203&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Brooklyn,+Kings,+New+York+11205&layer=c&cbll=40.689596,-73.975086&panoid=W7Ku3laPIBZ78B-mf0WEAQ&ll=40.689679,-73.974917&spn=0,359.996698&z=19&cbp=12,90.77,,0,19.58
I’m sure the entire corner will look much better than what was there.
i can see where the city might have to remove the bluestone and replace with the dyed concrete, but no need to damage the bluestone slabs. those are very expensive and the larger, the more valuable! they ought to be re-used or at the very least, sold to someone who will.
I came home once to find Time Warner poised with an airhammer at the edge of the bluestone right in front of my stoop. They blithely informed me they were installing a distribution point for the entire block in my cellar.
No one had ever informed me of this project. They stopped it, but there’s still a rectangle etched in the bluestone. Grrr.
That said, I am glad to see “bump outs” on S. Portland. Now if we can only get some on DeKalb near Washington, Waverly, Clinton and Hall St. we might be able to slow down some of this traffic.
This is one of the “traffic calming” nose outs that the DOT is putting in on random corners. An old-fashioned make-work boondoggle.
stoep2conquer has the right advise. I had a very similar situation about 4 years ago when the city wanted to put a curb cut in front of my house for a crosswalk and ended up destroying 75% of my slate sidewalk. We did not let them pour the new concrete and stopped all work till we got our slate replaced — a year later. It was quite a slog to get the city to do the right thing, put persistence will win out.
🙁
you know what, call the police.
No doubt union as well.