NEWPORT, R.I. – Paving began today on the small stretch of road behind the Florence K. Murray Judicial Complex where the historic red brick roadway is being replaced with a new layer of asphalt.
According to the city, the surface is being replaced for practical purposes: the brick roadway was subject to swelling and settling due to its proximity to the underground spring that runs along Spring Street and filters downhill toward Broadway.
And while the new treatment is expected to save the city in maintenance costs, not everyone is happy about the switch. Several members of the city’s historic preservation community have expressed their concern that the project never went before the city’s Historic District Commission and that the public was not involved in the decision making process.
The brick roadway had been one of two heavily trafficked streets in the city’s downtown core to feature the historic, but bumpy, surface. Thames Street, with its gray stone pavers, is the other.
Note: An earlier version of this post mis-identified the Florence K. Murray Judicial Complex. We apologize for the error.
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Newport, RI
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
While definitely bumpy along that stretch, I’d prefer it stay in tact vs. pedestrian asphalt.
Sorry to see the bricks go. Among other things, they were effective traffic-calmers. Anyway, asphalt swells and buckles, too.
City Hall should not have altered this historic corner with out citizens notice and public comment. I suggest the bricks be re set as they were,
Sorry excuse for such a small section of road and such a sensitive area. And it looks like the skirted the process to get it done. Who’s responsible?
Good riddance! They were out of place to begin with…nothing else around there was paved in brick…why that one haphazard stretch. If they ever consider the bricks again, just do the stamped pavement….like the entrance to the Hotel Viking.
Not everything old is worth preserving. That said, why bother even having a Historic District Commission if the City council is going to go around them? I think an argument could have been made to the Historic District Commission that the bricks should go.
I too prefered the bricks but that area was brutal.Some cars went left, some cars went right…I like Mike’s idea of the stamped bricks!
It really should have been brought to the commission.
I had a feeling something was up. Admittedly, the bricks were never maintained very well, but they did lend a certain charm and distinctiveness to that area that asphalt simply does not.
As a compromise, they really should have considered stamped concrete, which can be colored and shaped to look just like brick. The other option would be to actually use real cobblestones, such as what exists on Thames Street.
ridiculous – what else can the City possibly cut corners on? i didn’t mind the bumpy bricks – were they really causing that much harm?
I agree with Will, that some compromise should have been sought. Why couldn’t the same application have been applied similar to the rest of Washington Square? Brick along both edges would have kept some of the charm of the old fashioned roadway and shown congruity with the street scape design literally around the corner.
I remember a couple of months back, residents from the Point also voiced their displeasure about similar pave-overs in their neighborhood. Maybe historic street maintenance should come under the Historic District Commission’s watchful eye. (And, make the City jump through hoops like they do individual home owners.)
I hope the irony of this discussion isn’t lost on folks! The citizenry has been carping for decades about the city’s inability to keep the roads paved and, when the powers-that-be finally move forward and get one, short and horrendous stretch of pavement repaired, the majority sounds insulted that none of them were consulted first. I guess that’s why the roads never get fixed, huh?
Why not hire the consultants, now, at 2009 prices, to study a plan to return that road back to brick, just in time for the invention of the family hovercraft, so that 4-wheeled auto suspensions will no longer factor into the historic vs. contemporary argument!