CURSE OF THE PANHANDLERS IN PUBLIC SQUARE

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Thu, 03/06/2008 - 17:38.

         
DON’T GIVE WHERE IT CAN’T HELP

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I haven’t felt right about Public Square since the curfew against the homeless was put into place there late last year.    I posted about Cleveland, Ohio being the Grinch City before the Holidays.   Norm Roulet even changed this site's name for a few days to Steal Neo

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So this morning when I saw the mud flowing down Ontario to Lakeside (plugging every stormdrain right to the top) , and I observed the holiday atmosphere among the hundreds of public workers talking in small groups in the warming sunshine  – I couldn’t help but have a little smile inside…

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HERE IS THE RESULT OF THE BAD KARMA IN PUBLIC SQUARE – Right smack dab in the middle of Public Square a huge hole, as if the square had been targeted by a higher power.

        CLEVELAND REPENT!

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All the new Euclid Corridor concrete collapsed, cracked, being chewed up by hydraulic hammers.  Just when it seemed to be finished - instead there will be more construction right in the face of Terminal Tower.  And the Tower City tenants are already thinning out.  

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What a Mess.  

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On a more technical note, the break in the 30 inch cast iron main took place directly under a concrete man hole structure.  The structure appeared to be new, I would guess it was replaced recently as part of the Euclid Corridor work. 

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Was the main damaged during the excavation for the new structure?  It appeared there had been about a foot of clearance between the bottom of the structure and the top of the main.  Pehaps too close.   I asked around among the water officials, but no one had any forensic news.

Did the new concrete structure transmit heavy road imposed loads and vibrations directly down onto the top of the old water main?  Sure.  Maybe that's what made the main fail.

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 I have seen mains broken because of freezing which enters into the ground adjacent to mains thought the structure.  This main itself would not have frozen due to the volume of moving water in it, but the soil between the bottom of the structure and the main may have frozen and expanded, placing pressure on the main. 

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If nothing else, there will be lots of overtime allotted.  Only way there would be more overtime is if the break happened on a week end.

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Perk was  arriving with an excavator – sure to be on Time and Materials.  Those are the jobs contractors really make money on. 

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Remember:  don’t give where it can’t help! 

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tar pit in public square

In an earlier post, I mentioned that a friend in New York said that when talking to developers about the Ameritrust Complex and Cleveland in general they called it a tar pit.

Well, here you have the telling evidence. What the &*^%?!? Is this incompetence or what?

It was common practice years back that when a house was razed they did not take away the remains and put them in a landfill, they simply crushed the house into the hole of the basement. I know this because a close acquaintance, while trying to assemble land in Cleveland for building, reported that they first had to excavate the materials (including bathrooms fixtures, stair railings, floors and ceilings -- everything including roof shingles) from the "hole" before they could dig the basement. Dike 14 is also a large landfill site now being recovered by nature.

Now what or who might we toss into this gaping hole that has today presented itself in our public common? I can think of a few plans and a few people behind those plans who would fill this little gap nicely. What do you think?

And further, I wonder if by calling out these inopportunities, are we bre'er rabbit or br'er fox? Or are we the tarbabies? If you're not familiar with this Uncle Remus story, here it is. About the best thing Clevelanders could be saying about now would be, "born and bred in the briar patch!" Someday... someday...

Unfortunately, this symbolic but real "tarry" story of the caving in of the "public square" (the commons) is all too familiar in Cleveland.

reinforcing with bars or mesh

Jeff, I don't see any steel or wire in the break--usually there's stuff hanging. Is there re-bar or wire mesh here?

No rebar, no mesh - dowelled joints only

The Euclid Corridor pavement is unreinforced 10" thick concrete.  The only steel in it that I have seen (and in the water line break area) are epoxy coated dowel rods which connect the joints at pavement sections placed at separate times. 

Cleveland+Corruption ="Big-Dig-City"

Good observation and coverage, Jeff. In a corrupt place like NEO you know so much money has been stolen so many ways from every big, public project that by the time you add up what is spent on actual material and labor it is nothing, and that is the place where the crooks cut corners, giving us inferior infrastructure that will not last and at worst destroys important things around it, like sewers. Back when they first built Cleveland, there were quality people doing quality work. That has not been true for decades - half a century - everything since the early 1900s built in Cleveland is pretty much 2nd grade crap... and now our community leaders are rushing to tear down more first class quality buildings and infrastructure to build thrid rate crap... and within a few short years the crap like the Euclid Corridor falls apart... as the Green Line continues to serve well planned, well managed historic communities... from wikipedia

The Cleveland Interurban Railroad (CIRR), the predecessor of the Green Line, was extended 0.4 mile (0.6 km) from Courtland Boulevard to Warrensville Road in 1928 using track removed from the Coventry Road connection between Shaker Boulevard and Fairmount Boulevard.[1] University School had moved to its nearby 36-acre (15-hectare) campus two years earlier,[2] and CIRR had made a promise to school officials to extend the line.[3] The extension, which was originally a single track, was double-tracked in 1930. A turnaround loop was built just east of the Warrensville Center Road overpass.

Turnaround loop east of Warrensville Center Road in 1936 just after single-track extension to Green Road was constructed.

Turnaround loop east of Warrensville Center Road in 1936 just after single-track extension to Green Road was constructed.

Further extensions east of Warrensville Road were planned. The right-of-way continued in a broad median of Shaker Boulevard with room for four rapid transit tracks as well as a high speed automobile parkway. This right-of-way extended along Shaker Boulevard to Brainard Road and from there along Gates Mills Boulevard all the way to near Mayfield Road, where it ended in a large loop suitable for use as a streetcar yard.

In 1936 the line was further extended one mile (1.6 km) east to Green Road.[4] This extension was also originally a single track, and a second track was added to the extension in 1942 when increased ridership during World War II made single track operation no longer feasible.[5]

Warrensville station was rebuilt as part of the renovation of the entire Green Line in 1980. Covered concrete stairways from the Warrensville Center overpass replaced wooden stairways, and new platforms and parking lots were constructed. The renovated line opened on October 11, 1980[6]

Disrupt IT