Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Lawrence Getting Resurfaced From Ashland To Broadway

Notice that Lawrence Avenue has been particularly treacherous lately?  We know the holes and ditches are intentional, but that sure didn't make the owner of the car that had to be towed out of one last week feel any better.  According to the latest newsletter from Uptown Business Partners, it's all part of a resurfacing project that started last week.  Although it says the south side of the street will be worked on first, we've noticed that the north side of the street is one big gutter.  Hope this goes quickly!

"A resurfacing project for Lawrence Avenue, from Broadway to Ashland began last week.  Work will begin on the south side of the street.  There will be demolition and reconstruction of concrete curbs/sidewalks.  Then street milling will occur along with repairing and patching subbase of the street. Final top asphalt will be applied about four weeks from now.  The last step will be restriping street marking. The general working hours are inbound 9am-4pm and outbound 7am-3pm.  Work and schedule are weather dependent."

We hope once the work is completely, that the poor pockmarked walls of St. Boniface Cemetery get some TLC.  They're looking pretty scary.

11 comments:

  1. This is the wall I think would rock as a community project for bricolage.. why not become known for that in the city.. my friends that come in from out of town really like all of ti around here..

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  2. Guap, I think the bricolage is a fine idea, but it's always been done on publicly owned properties in Uptown. The cemetery is owned by Catholic Charities. Don't know if the Chicago Public Art Group is allowed to do work on a church-owned property, but I'd love to see it happen.

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  3. This construction is such a racket. They tore up the street last week Thursday and today is the first day anybody has been back to do anything else on it. This is just 6 months after they had Lawrence torn up well over a month to put in those useless crosswalks on Beacon and fix a few curbs. The order in which they do this stuff makes no sense, with no sense of urgency to get anything done quickly, and it's nothing but an inconvenience to the residents due to constant traffic and lack of parking.

    Can't wait to see how long they will drag this project out.

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  4. i think bricolage would be great idea for this wall (and many others like it). it doesn't matter if it's public or privately owned ... whoever owns it just has to be willing to pay for the work (or find a group to donate the labor/material)

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  5. Our alderman-elect mentioned how silly it is for crews to tear up something to make a repair, only to tear it up again a few months later. I agree. Do it all at once and get it over with. This is so wasteful to piecemeal everything. Hopefully James can end these shennanigans when he takes office.

    The handicapped accessible sidewalks they put in along Lawrence last fall, although needed, could have been engineered a little better. The street water collects and forms a huge pool at a new cutout near the SE corner of Magnolia and Lawrence. Its on Lawrence just east of Magnolia and was seemingly put in so that someone could cross over to the other side of Magnolia going North (which is in a likelihood seldomly used). Its a real treat to walk in/around during the winter when it is a foot deep in water/ice.

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  6. As far as bricolage, wouldn't you want to apply that to something that will actually be standing for a long period of time? By the looks of that fence, it needs to be demolished and rebuilt.

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  7. Miss Kitty, the Catholic Church is broke.. trust me, that wall is going to be up for a LOOOONG time... the CC has way too many other things to worry about than a cemetery wall in Uptown.. may as well make a negative into a positive... and bricolage it... but with donations cause the archdiocese probably wont do a thing for this neighborhood...

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  8. I know I'm gonna catch hell for this, but the bricolages look SO ghetto! Can we come up with a more contemporary solution to urban blight than the same old graffiti art with newer materials?

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  9. The wall of the cemetery would be such a major project to tear down and rebuild because the ground of the cemetery is about 6 feet above the street level. You can't tell that from the street side but is one of the surprises of wandering in the cemetery..... but that wall is in terrible shape. I imagine it will start to collapse in huge sections soon....

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  10. They did a piss-poor job of planning and marking off this project. They've closed both sidewalks for a small stretch just west of Broadway--where the heck am I supposed to walk? And you can't just take a 12-foot stretch of curb dug to 1 ft deep and plunk a road cone in the center--you have to block that crap off so no one can step or trip in it. How many lawsuits do you think the city is going to fall prey to because the subcontractor couldn't do his job and properly protect t he pedestrian hazard areas?

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