Death of DUMBO’s “Cobblestones” Means More than One Less Instagrammable Photo-op
By Hanna Park
Dumbo, Brooklyn — Dumbo’s quintessential photo-op area is located in front of the handsome Manhattan Bridge, and numerous visitors flock there each day. There is a backdrop of burgundy-colored buildings, sun-drenched sky if the day allows, and turtle-shell-like bed stones running along the street margins. At first glance, the blocks resemble these skeletal enclosures. But on a deeper level, they carry the backbone of a slow-moving history… that allowed the area to become the most iconic element of this Insta-worthy photo-op.
So what happens if these “cobblestones” disappear?
The DUMBO/Vinegar Hill Street and Plaza Reconstruction Project is a massive five-year, $20 million undertaking to replace the water and sewer lines from Main Street to Jay Street and Front Street to Water Street. The streets will be torn to repair the age-old pipes and sewers, then patched again along with a granite bike lane. With Phase 2 of 3 beginning last June, preservationists voice concern over the hand-cut Belgian blocks placed in specific locations — also mistakenly known as cobblestones — that the project would largely remove in those streets.
(Legend has it that the term “Belgian block” stems from the European ships that sailed to the United States from Antwerp, and left behind the large blocks of stones initially used as ballast to be used as street paving in U.S. port cities. Despite the name, the Historic Districts Council reports, “It remains unclear to what extent and era the paving stones were imported from Belgium.” However, the myth has been well-established among masonry experts, and the paving material is widespread in New York City — particularly in neighborhoods like the Meatpacking District, Tribeca, Soho, et al.)
“There’s something significant about our immigrant history… of built stones that laid undisturbed from the 1800s,” Doreen Gallo, the president of the civic group DUMBO Neighborhood Alliance, said. “Who do you think made them? There are patterns for each individual street. Somebody actually made them. You can’t really replace them.”
According to DUMBO’s Designation Report, the Belgian blocks span more than 90 buildings that lie within the neighborhood’s Historic District, which the Landmark Preservation Commission designated in 2007. In their words, the 19th-century “original granite Belgian paving… provides a dramatic backdrop for the neighborhood’s industrial architecture and sense of place.” In theory, the designation protects the area from any changes that might alter its vintage feel. Yet, Gallo said the neighborhood lost 70% of its streetscape since the 2007 landmarking.
With untamed auburn hair and dark-rimmed glasses perpetually askew, 63-year old Gallo zealously expressed her concern over the Belgian block’s demise. Her suspicion issued from past experiences, in which utility contractors failed to replace the blocks they removed. She said, “They do this filling-in, where they come and put asphalt over. They keep doing that until most of [the blocks] are gone and one day it’s just paved over. That’s how it has all happened here.”
“It’s not rocket science,” Ms. Gallo scoffed, referring to the method of reinstalling the blocks. “Pretend [Dumbo is] Pompei and they’re doing an excavation. Hire a real archaeologist. You’re taking a street. So you have 25 rows. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Put the blocks back in order. It’s not hard. It’s numbers. It’s math. We just have the wrong people in charge of this.”
Her solution? To wrest the project free from the New York Department of Transportation and Department of Design & Construction, and have the Landmark Preservation Commission in charge of holding the blocks. While Landmark had consistently approved all of the DOT’s plans, subcontractors currently remove the blocks and store them at the New York Paving Warehouse topped with concrete walls, metal fences, and 24/7 security cameras.
Yet, Gallo remained unimpressed. “They’re having somebody watch the warehouse,” She said, rolling her eyes. “Ooh, it’s ‘under surveillance.’ That’s like missing the point. This is important infrastructure work, but you have to have a preservation plan. Why be in a historic district?”
In response, Alexandria Sica, the president of the DUMBO Improvement District — a group that had been an advocate of the project for the last ten years and is now a community partner with the DOT in its design — defended the infrastructure work as crucial safety upgrades. With her edgy short bob sleeked back, she cut right to the chase and said, “The Belgian blocks are beloved but beleaguered.”
While she understood the need to placate preservationists, she explained that the price of modernization far outweighed the cost of compromising history. “This neighborhood was not built for the modern uses we have today. There’s going to be changes to the streets to make it ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act 2010) accessible and safer, but all the Belgian blocks are going back to these streets. So this is both a win for preservationists and transportation safety advocates.”
Mallory Kusdon, 46, is the president of another civic group, DUMBO Action Committee, which has over 500 members. She had high hopes that the project would fix the underlying cause of the uneven and thus, unsafe conditions of the blocks that would make the streets more usable. “The current streets have waves and dips in them because the blocks were placed in sand, causing the streets to not be flat,” Kusdon said. “This leads to unsafe conditions and enormous puddles that last for days on end. With this project, they will be putting the blocks back in a mortar mixture.”
Although she admitted that previous contractors did not return the blocks in place, she dismissed it to be the root of the hazardous streets. “Safety issues are caused by years of decay,” Kusdon pointed out. “We need this project because the water and sewage infrastructure have to be updated. That’s not a preservationist discussion. To update these infrastructures, the streets have to be dug up. We can either let them repair [the streets] piecemeal or allow them to redo the streets after the infrastructure is replaced. The current project is the most holistic approach.”
Meanwhile, citizens and visitors of Dumbo voiced their split opinion about the blocks. Mark, a 27-year-old African-American Bedford-Stuyvesant resident who declined to give his full name, said, “I think aesthetically it looks good. But it’s not very practical. I bike a lot through here, but I usually hit the sidewalk because it’s going to mess up my bike frame.”
Fred Spinolli, a 29-year old Flatbush resident who was carrying his skateboard, quipped, “You can’t stop the wheels of change. It’s all going to go away eventually.”
As thrilled Instagrammers vie to get a snapshot in Dumbo’s renowned photo-op that flaunts the historical remnants of the neighborhood, it mimics the faint quibble over the arrangements of the blocks both preservationists and safety advocates alike have voiced. Yet, only time will tell if these subtle contentions to stand center stage is warranted if Dumbo is never the same again.
