The Sidewalks of New York

The time has come to fix the sidewalk in front of our house so people will not trip and injure themselves. New sidewalks are not cheap. The going rate is at least $8 a square foot. With sidewalks usually being 10 feet wide and frontage of 17-20 feet or more, the cost can easily reach $1500-2000 plus. People often wait for the City to do the work, which then sends the homeowner a bill for reimbursement.

Like many others, we don't want to wait years until a City-hired contractor gets to our block. My neighbor got a notice for a defective sidewalk from a City inspector around the year 2000. The repairs were never made until he hired a private contractor last year to get the job done.

This being NYC, nothing is easy. Tomorrow afternoon I have a third potential contractor coming to submit a bid. I not only have to compare bids, but I also need to judge the quality of his work by hopefully looking at other jobs that he's done recently. I don't know the first thing about sidewalks, but by the time this is over I will have learned a lot. Three or four of my neighbors also need to have new sidewalks in front of their houses. They have graciously delegated to me all of the investigation and decision-making involved on this project. Lucky me !!

As I said, nothing is easy here. In my case, a huge 80 foot tree in front of our house has roots that are pushing up the pavement. However, the City prohibits cutting roots, so this morning a tree expert from the Parks Dept arrived to examine and provide directives to our contractor. We got on a list and waited a month for this consultation to occur.

In my imagination, it was much easier in the old days, say in turn-of-the-century London, where prices were more or less standard, there was integrity, and one licensed contractor was as good as another. Now it's much harder. You pay when the job is "done", the quality of materials and workmanship can vary, and there is no automatic City inspection to approve the work. If the work is defective, your only recourse is costly and time-consuming litigation for damages.

To demonstrate my growing knowledge in this area, do you know if sidewalks are paved with concrete or cement? The correct answer is concrete, which is made from cement.