This morning, Freddy and I went down to Cross Street to check on the progress of the Second Street stairs. It appears the concrete stairs have now been poured. What remains to be done is the final landing at the bottom and the sidewalk down to Cross Street.
The staircase falls far short of the unrealistic fantasy presented early on in the process.
.jpg)
But it is longer and less steep than what was there before. A significant improvement.
I'll take any improvement that makes it safer. I miss those steps already and can't wait for them to reopen
ReplyDeleteNot for nothing, but who uses these stairs? When I leave my house to go to the train station I walk down to Front Street and across. Sorry, but I'm not sure what all the hype is about these stairs.
ReplyDeleteWhy was there no follow-thru on the original design?
ReplyDeleteBecause the "original design" is pretty much a fantasy. This same design was proposed nine years ago for the stairs that access Promenade Hill. https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2015/02/another-year-another-park-proposal.html. Everyone went gaga for the design, until it was determined that the change of elevation was too great for this to work and that ADA compliance required railings, which would make the design, which is appealing for its cleanness, super ugly. IMO this design is just something in urban designers' toolkit that they put out there to attract people's interest--a planner's "shiny object." To my knowledge, there is just one place in the world were it actually worked and exists.
DeleteThe 3 or 4 very short steps on either side of the entrance to Promenade were very poorly designed by the Starr Whitehouse architects. They should have known better and they should have made the entire entrance a ramp, not just in the middle. The unnecessary steps were almost impossible to notice as each side appeared to be a ramp if you weren't paying very close attention while headed out of the park. I stumbled, then a few weeks later I saw someone else stumble. That person said to me, "That's a lawsuit waiting to happen." A month or two later, well after I pointed this out to the Starr-Whithouse people (first they told me it wasn't a problem), white lines were put at the end of each step to make them conspicuous AND SAFE. Duh!
DeleteThen the very expensive stone steps began to get a nasty stain on them, likely from a poor grout job or material. The stains are still there and not going anywhere, nor does Rob Perry mention anything about the stains in his DPW reports. Why would he? He doesn't care what the steps look like or if someone falls on their chin trying to exit the park.
Poor planning, no oversight, poor work. Poor us!
Bill offers us a word salad of despair by going off topic with a red herring ...
ReplyDeleteEven the material in the rendering is different than what we now have. It appears to show flat stones, while we get lifeless grey concrete blah that is not at all easy to repair once it begins to come apart... which it will.
ReplyDelete