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14 responses to “15 brick streets”
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An amazing amount of brick roads left in your “weather zone”. Have to say, the rain / snow / freeze / thaw cycle eliminated the brick roads around me multiple decades ago. I always thought it was interesting to run into them when I lived in Indiana.
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Interesting – South Bend’s weather is heavy with rain/snow/freeze/thaw and their brick streets are in remarkable shape. I wonder what kind of brick SB used compared to where you are or whether there is some other factor that made those bricks survive so well. The photo of Cushing St. above is a typical SB brick street scene.
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Milwaukee is known as the “Cream City”,not for the dairy reference, but for the fact that a lot of the buildings are built with “cream colored” brick as opposed to red brick, a standard of the brick trade around here. While, when well made, cream colored bricks can be strong, they are also far more porous than red brick, which when used horizontally may have made them more subseptible to retaining water, and then freezing and cracking. The cream bricks are certainly more prone to getting dirty and staining, and remember back in highschool and collge, the stories in the paper about finding some way to clean them without causing erosion and failure, like sand-blasting would do. Anyone interested:
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Oh how interesting. I didn’t know about the cream brick. Here in Indiana we have a lot of clay and a lot of our paver bricks were made here. The pavers were tempered somehow so that they were less susceptible to moisture and freeze/thaw cycles.
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Hi Jim, The last time I saw a brick road or street was over 25 years ago. Back Street in Kingstown, St. Vincent (where I was born), is a brick street dating back to colonial times.
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If you search, you’ll find some brick and cobblestone streets/roads left over in New Jersey. Jersey City famously has a few 19th-century cobblestone streets left. I gather that there are a few brick streets in Trenton and Newark.
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Great stuff! In Rome (Italy)my wife was amazed by young women in spike heels navigating cobblestone streets without hesitation
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That’s amazing! I’m sure that with enough practice people can do nearly anything.
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If you ever find yourself in the southern part of the state, hop on over into Louisville and check out Peterson Avenue (https://www.google.com/maps/@38.249359,-85.6971093,3a,75y,351.35h,78.92t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1sAbAh1RVxIBlENj_UjmPQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D1sAbAh1RVxIBlENj_UjmPQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D86.73058%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192). Not only is it brick but it’s on a pretty steep hill.
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Oh cool! It would be interesting to know the story of how those bricks never got paved over.
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It has its own Wikipedia page with a little bit of info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterson_Avenue_Hill . It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
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Thanks for the link! I didn’t realize that the angled placement would provide better wet traction. That must be why my hometown of South Bend laid their brick streets that way. Those are the rumbliest brick streets I’ve ever driven on, probably because of that arrangement.
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Fowler In. Has a 5-6 block brick street. Several old homes along it.
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Nice. The old brick streets do lurk here and there.
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