Tribeca's Cobblestone Streets: More Treacherous Than Charming?

The Harrison Street crossing at the corner of Hudson Street, like several others in Tribeca, requires traversing uneven cobblestones. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

What’s to be done about Tribeca’s ankle-turning, fender-rattling, broken-down cobblestone streets?

After years of complaints, with multiple reports of injuries, and even a death, some community leaders have decided they are fed up with the neighborhood’s trademark yet treacherous stone roadbeds. If the city can’t get them right, they say, then pave them over. 

That was the consensus of Community Board 1’s Quality of Life Committee last month following a lengthy discussion of the streets’ dangers and the city’s inaction at fixing the worst of them.

“We feel that the cobblestones are not streets that everyone can use. If there’s no landmarking involved, we prefer to ask that they become asphalt streets,” said the committee’s chair, Pat Moore, summing up the group’s resolution when it was later discussed by the full board. (Though commonly referred to as cobblestones, a pre-Civil War-era paving material, most “cobblestone” streets in the city were paved in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with granite Belgium blocks.)

But the suggestion that Tribeca should lose its stone paving—and thus a major feature of its historic character—counters the board’s long-held support for protecting and repairing the stone-laid streets. The idea drew firm resistance from other board members, with one blasting it as “an abomination.”

Moore withdrew the resolution for now, but the debate has just begun. The issue is expected to be argued again at the April 20 Quality of Life Committee meeting.

“We’ve had this decades-long position of wanting cobblestone and wanting cobblestones repaired. All of a sudden it’s a complete reversal,” said Marc Ameruso. “That is a major, major change.” 

“I understand the safety issues. I would favor repairing the cobblestones up to standard, but I’m not prepared to eliminate cobblestone streets from our district,” Jeff Galloway said.

“Crazy,” said Bob Townley.

Laura Starr, a landscape architect and board member, said she has studied the issue and argued that “there are ways to keep the cobblestone aesthetic” and still make them safe for people with disabilities. “You can use stones that are flatter on top and that are set closely together which is the right way to do it anyway,” she said, “so that it’s not a tripping hazard and it’s not dangerous.” She said the board should call on the Department of Transportation to “properly supervise their contractors and should not accept shoddy work.”

“I don’t know how you hold them accountable,” Moore later responded. “It’s been over a decade.” 

In a statement, DOT spokesman Vin Barone said, “The DOT carefully monitors the condition of New York City’s historic cobblestone streets and will make necessary repairs to protect the safety of traveling public. We will continue to address complaints of defects and depressions of the cobblestone streets with asphalt repairs and work closely with the Department of Design and Construction on full-scale reconstruction projects.” Barone did not respond to specific questions about the agency’s assessment of Tribeca’s problem streets or its efforts to make those streets more transversable.

According to Department of Transportation regulations, the rectangular granite stones must be placed no more than one-half inch apart and the cement filler should be flush with the stone. Any irregularities exceeding the one-half inch separation “must be immediately corrected,” the rules say.

Paving over the cobblestones would need Landmarks Preservation Commission approval, LPC spokeswoman Zodet Negron said in an email. “In kind replacement and repair is routinely approved and replacement with asphalt would require review by the full Commission at a public hearing,” she wrote.

Back in early 2011, the city completed a huge water main project in Tribeca that included installing eight blocks of roadway with new Belgium blocks. A year-and-a-half later, CB1 even called for portions of two other Tribeca streets to be paved with the stones. But by 2016, conditions of some of the work had badly deteriorated, with dislodged stones, disintegrating concrete mortar, and sinking roadway, especially on Greenwich Street south of Canal. CB1 called for inspections and repairs by the city’s Department of Design and Construction (DDC) and Department of Transportation (DOT), the two agencies that had been in charge. That resolution, they say, led nowhere, as did a two-hour tour of the problem streets in 2018 with a de Blasio administration official.

(Ian Michaels, a DDC spokesman, did not respond to questions about the apparent poor workmanship when the stones were installed, noting that “we have not worked in that location in more than a decade.” In general, he wrote in an email, repairs are the responsibilitiy of DOT.)

“Even with us discussing this with the mayor’s office nothing has changed,” said Diane Lapson, president of the Independence Plaza Tenants Association who has been a leading voice in efforts to make the streets safer. “Sometimes you don’t get a traffic light until somebody dies,” she added, speaking at the first of two Quality of Life Committee discussions this year on the topic. “We’ve had somebody die and other people fracture their ribs and break their wrist. And those are only the people we know about.”

“It’s kind of unbelievable that this is continuing,” she added.

In October, 2018, John Croce, 70, was crossing Harrison Street near his home at 40 Harrison St. in Independence Plaza when he fell “because of the conditions of the cobblestones,” said Lonni Levy, Croce’s partner of 27 years. He died three months later following multiple surgeries for his injuries. Speaking to the Quality of Life Committee, Levy, who is suing the city on behalf of Croce’s estate, said she is speaking out “to try to avoid this kind of suffering from happening to someone else. Harrison Street and other streets in Tribeca are still extremely dangerous to walk on. Our streets should be safe.”

Comments? Write to carlg@tribecatrib.com.