Author: john-robinson

Hello Brickophiles. Today, Brickwatch celebrates its centennial, or…well, whatever a centennial would be for days instead of years. ("Centadial"?) We’re sure that brickheads everywhere are celebrating this momentous occasion, but we here at BW are still at it.

We’ve heard a few cries of foul about some cracked, out-of-place, or otherwise bedraggled bricks on the completed sections of the Mall. Indeed, we have seen some not-so-attractive bricks ourselves. (Enjoy that; it will be the last time you ever hear us call a brick "unattractive.") So we went straight to Barton Malow Project Manager Chris Weatherford for some answers.

"Yep, there are a few cracked bricks around," said Weatherford. "That’s going to be one of those last, punchless things we do. We’ll go through in one sweep and replace all of [the broken bricks]."

While on the Mall, we also noticed that the giant trench left over from the excavation of the "mystery manhole" at Third Street East is being filled.

"Filling in that hole and getting the slab poured is the biggest thing that’s happening this week," said Weatherford. He added that the work should be done in a few days.

Have a great centadial.

Good day, brick watchers. Yesterday, we told you how pedestrian-only zones experienced a major extinction during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s as developers and businesses favored the strip mall/drive-up model.

Today, however, the Downtown Mall seems a wild success. From the Pavilion to Central Place to the Omni (and maybe, someday, the Landmark), some well-placed development dollars have gone a long way to produce a centerpiece for our city.

And our Mall isn’t alone. The success of car-free zones like Burlington, Vermont’s Church Street Marketplace, or Boston’s Faneuil Hall—spots that pair urban planning influences from Europe with pushes for sustainability and a healthy lifestyle—is causing many U.S. cities to look at car-free zones, and car-free days for certain areas. (This May 2007 article from the Christian Science Monitor provides many reasons why well-planned, well-developed car-free zones are so successful on these fronts.)

Some cities, like Portland, Oregon have gone above and beyond to make their cities bike-friendly, while others, like San Francisco, have closed their major parks to automobiles on some days. (It’s a blast to watch the rollerskaters take over Golden Gate Park on Sundays.) New York is even tossing around some ideas for car-free zones, from closing the streets around Central Park to closing some parts of Broadway for pedestrian-only traffic.

Pedestrian zones provide a forum for communities to grow together, a space to be active, an attraction for some tourist dollars, and are once again at the cutting edge. What does our Mall mean to you?

We should count ourselves lucky, brickies. See you in the car-free zone.

Good morning bricksters. Hope you all had fun in New York. We did. (Bricktern was actually in the real NYC this past weekend, which we imagine was probably way better than the Downtown Business Association’s version. Probably.)

As rain finds us cooped in the office, and with little development occurring in the out of doors (not to mention coming off a weekend of walking the streets of Manhattan), we thought we would do a little research into the history of pedestrian malls.

The idea for "car-free zones" has been around since the early 1900s (right around the time the idea for cars came around), but the idea really gained ground amidst the urban renewal revolution of the 1960s. Apparently, the movement really caught on in Europe and South America—who doesn’t want to walk through the streets of the Cinque Terre?—but stumbled in the United States and Canada.

Canada we can understand; they prefer their underground malls when it’s -20 degrees and there’s 7′ of snow on the ground. And the states, well, we’re all just fat and lazy, right?

Wikipedia says there were originally about 200 pedestrian malls in the states and that, as of ’97, only about 30 remained, with our very own Downtown Mall being one of those proud few. Anyone who’s been around Charlottesville since the Mall was put in will tell you it wasn’t always as thriving as it is today. It took the Mudhouse and the Ice Park, along with a few other brave colonists (and, more recently, a few of Capshaw’s millions) to turn the Mall into the jewel it is.

The car-free movement is gaining stride in the states once again thanks to the green craze. Tune in tommorow for more on the rebirth of the car-free zone.

And in the meantime, get off your lazy American tush and walk around our lovely town.

Afternoon, brickeaters. Hope this rainy one finds you well. We gotcha good yesterday, didn’t we? Barton Malow Project Manager and fellow prankster Chris Weatherford stopped by Brick Watch headquarters yesterday to congratulate us on trickery (brickery?). Some of the folks at Barton Malow nearly fell to the floor at reading the news of the strike…until they saw our April Fool’s message.

In other new, some rumors have been floating around Charlottesville’s sizeable runnning community lately that the famous Charlottesville 10 Miler (C10M) was going to be rerouted to avoid the rebricking on the Downtown Mall.

Race Directors Dan and Alice Wiggins put out a release via e-mail yesterday to address this concern. "At the moment, there have been NO CHANGES to the course," read the e-mail. "We are working closely with the project foreman, who assures us there will be access for the race on the mall."

The annual C10M is this Saturday, April 4, at 7:45am, starting and ending at UHall. More info is available at the C10M website.

Before we split, some construction updates:

-New light fixtures are going in, as we type, on the 400 east block.

-They are repointing the edges of the 300 east block (right in front of the C-VILLE office, for now).

-Rebricking is nearing completion on the center section of the 100 east block.

Good evening, brickheads. We just got something in our in box that’s pretty exciting—the city’s Downtown Mall restoration bulletin. Now, normally this is a bit of a snoozer, especially to we here at Brick Watch who are way ahead of the City of Charlottesville when it comes to brick knowledge. However, this one has the words FINAL EDITION in big red print on it. The end is nigh folks!

For as long as we can remember, Brick Watch has been quoting April 25 as the end date for the rebricking on the Downtown Mall. We have written about it in business articles, in construction updates, in fashion related pieces, we have practically built a cult to worship the coming of April 25…but lately we’ve heard a few nasty whisperings that May 1 is the actual date of completion.

Well, we Brick Watchers can’t just sit around not knowing, so we turned to the prophet of rebricking, Chris Weatherford (if you don’t know by now, he’s Barton Malow’s Project Manager. We’ve only interviewed him a billion times. Keep up, brickies…), to find out if this myth holds any weight.

Much to our chagrin, it turns out May 1 is a significant date, indeed. "May 1st is the technical completion date," said Weatherford. "April 25 is the date when all the contractors are done, giving us a week to tidy up."

So basically, we were right, even though we were technically wrong. With all the ruckus now going on at the 2nd and 4th street crossings, the 25th can’t come soon enough. (And, well, neither can May 1.)

Morning bricks and brickettes! On this mucky day, it’s important to remember that without mud, there would be no bricks…so be thankful for a lil’ rain.

Speaking of being stuck in the mud, all Charlottesvillians know that moving slowly through traffic is one of the thorns in the rose bush of this town. Unfortunately, our lovely rebricking project may soon be adding to that traffic.

"As we hit the final stretch next month, the more intricate work begins on these cross streets to better handle the load of delivery trucks and buses," said city Director of Communication Ric Barrick in a press release.

The specifics for the closings were listed in the release as follows:

-On Sunday, March 29, vehicular crossings at Second Street W and Fourth Street E will be closed until May 1 (earlier if the job is completed).

-Traffic on Water Street will not be able to turn onto Second Street, and through traffic will not be allowed.

-Traffic on Market Street will temporarily turn onto Second Street to reach the parking lot behind Fellini’s.

-Traffic on Market Street will also be able to turn onto Fourth Street, but will have to loop through the alley to Fifth Street (east) back to Market.

-All traffic on Water or Market streets will have to loop around at Fifth Street (west) or 10th Street (east) to get to the other side of the Mall.

-A single sidewalk will be available at each street crossing for pedestrians.

In addition to car traffic, the free trolly will also be detoured. Instead of making a jaunt down Second Street it will instead use Ridge/McIntire as a way to get to Market.