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Have a nice trip in Tribeca.
The neighborhood’s iconic cobblestone streets, some of which have been around for more than 100 years, are pedestrian traps in desperate need of repair, residents said. Last week at a forum, they urged the city to take action.
“The whole right side of my body was black and bruised,” recalled Bonnie Ryan, who tripped on Harrison Street between the West Side Highway and Greenwich Street in 2007 after catching her foot on an upturned stone. “People thought I was a chemo patient or a physically traumatized wife.”
When John Croce, 70, crossed Harrison in October 2018, he also tripped and busted his hip, which required replacement surgery.
Croce died four months later, and his wife, Lonni Levy, filed a lawsuit against the city in a personal injury case the next year, which is still pending. The suit says the fall caused Croce “severe, serious and permanent personal injuries.”
“I’ll never get over losing John to an accident that was so preventable. I have just gotten used to it,” Levy said at a Community Board 1 Quality of Life Committee meeting Wednesday, where the perilous stone streets were discussed.
The Post surveyed hardscrabble Harrison Street between Hudson Street and the West Side Highway last week and found it uneven in spots, riddled with holes and large gaps between stones. Some stones were so loose, you could pick them up and take them home.
“I’ve tripped every day on my way to work, nothing bad, but little tumbles,” said Alex Verbovetski, who works at nearby clothing store Jenni Kayne.
“If you are walking in any sort of shoes that do not have a thick sole, you find yourself tripping consistently,” added co-worker Margaritia Minopoli.
The stones — typically made of granite — appear no match for the neighborhood’s heavy vehicular traffic.
“There are buses and too much weight on the stones that just tear them up constantly, and it is a pain in the neck,” neighbor James Ryan said. “I like the cobblestone, but if [the city] could come up with a better solution that could withstand the traffic, that’d be great.”
And modern craftsmanship doesn’t seem to compare to Europe’s great stone masons; roads such as the Appian Way in Rome have remained intact for more than 1,000 years.
Harrison Street, along with pieces of Greenwich Street and Leonard Street, was re-stoned in the late 2000s as part of an $18-million city project to replace more than 2,000 feet of water mains and sewer lines in Tribeca. Problems started soon after.
Diane Lapson, who’s president of the tenant association of Independence Plaza on Harrison Street, said she noticed cracks and divots in the stones only a few months after they were installed.
“It’s very dangerous. It’s been very dangerous for quite a long time,” she said. “You can barely drive on these streets.”
“The situation on Harrison St. is a result of sinking conditions rather than a typical pothole-type issue. This does not allow for a quick patch job, but would require resetting the bricks after the underlying issue of what is causing the sinking issue is identified and repaired,” a representative from then-Mayor de Blasio’s office wrote in an email to Lapson and Levy.
“When they’re saying this doesn’t allow for a ‘quick patch job,’ how many years need to go by for a regular job?” Lapson said.
In an email statement, DOT spokesperson Vin Barone said, “The DOT carefully monitors the condition of New York City’s historic cobblestone streets and will make repairs to protect the safety of traveling public. The DOT also works closely with our sister agencies on full-scale reconstruction projects in the city’s capital program. We look forward to speaking further with Community Board 1 and local residents on these concerns.”
The city has only a handful of stone streets left, and they’re mostly located in downtown Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn neighborhoods including Soho, Red Hook and Dumbo.
Richard Gorman, 67, who lives at Independence Plaza, said it takes stones to live near Harrison.
“Get the hell out of the neighborhood if you don’t like the stones,” he said with a laugh.
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