Paving

St. Paul’s worshipers were greeted by new and repaired sidewalks Sunday. The photos below illustrate the improvements. Our sidewalks are now in very good shape. The same cannot be said for our parking lot, however, which continues to deteriorate. (Click on the photos below for larger images.)

The sidewalk immediately adjacent to the parking lot and in front of our new automatic door was in very bad shape. This posed a serious problem for people in wheelchairs. The offending slab has been replaced.

The new sidewalk matches the existing paving quite nicely. The joint between new and existing paving is shown here. The new sidewalk is at the upper right.

New sidewalk has been laid to allow children to walk from the Nursery School to the playground without walking on the parking lot.

For many weeks, the sidewalk along Mayfair Drive was torn up for some water-related repair. The sidewalk has now been fixed. Again, the new sidewalk matches the existing sidewalk well. The sidewalk along the side of the church is still a bit uneven and cracked in places, however.

When I passed by the church on Thursday, I noticed that the sidewalk in front of the front steps of the church was torn up. This is how it looked Sunday morning. Again, the new sidewalk matches the existing paving quite well.

The front lawn was showing the effect of heavy equipment needed to replace the sidewalk in front of the church. We were told in church that this damage will be repaired soon. Under the circumstances, the damage to the lawn is minimal.

Unfortunately, the new sidewalk has not completely repaired the church’s front entrance. There are significant gaps between the limestone blocks that make up the front steps. Most obvious are the gaps between the lower steps and the sidewalk. Notice that the steps are level, but the sidewalk slopes. It is not clear how the steps are supported. Also, the limestone is cracked where railings are installed. (I assume that the railings are not original.) I do hope these problems do not provide an excuse somewhere down the line to replace our stone steps with concrete steps, as was done at the front Mayfair Drive entrance.