Sep. 3, 2014:  Next Monday, September 8, the Bronxville Board of Trustees at its monthly meeting will consider whether or not to pave the yellow brick road on Park Avenue running downhill and eastward from Wellington Circle to Tanglewylde Avenue. 

The short road, which has a 400-foot incline, was paved with yellow hillside brick in 1916. After nearly 100 years of use, the street has become "high-centered" between deep tire-track grooves. In addition, a chronic unexplained underground water seepage creates icy conditions in winter and generally weakens the roadbed. Many of the bricks have cracked and cannot be salvaged.

The Bronxville Department of Public Works estimates the basic cost of rebuilding the Park Avenue roadbed and controlling the water condition to be $253,799 before any paving or bricklaying is done. Installing an asphalt surface brings the total to $304,339, while installing brick brings the total to $369,649 (plus the cost of brick).

In an effort to reduce the costs to the community, The Bronxville Historical Conservancy, which strongly opposes paving the street, has committed $67,500 to buy the bricks to replace the worn-out ones. Conservancy Co-Chair Bill Dowling urges the trustees to base their decision not on the extra upfront expense, but rather on the long-term cost benefits of brick, as well as the importance of "maintaining an historic aspect of the quality of life in this village."

According to Anderson Kenney, an architect who serves on the Conservancy board, "a properly installed brick road can last for 100 years" without significant maintenance. It would have substantially lower ongoing costs than asphalt, which requires frequent maintenance and resurfacing.

The yellow brick roads in the village, according to local lore, were built throughout the Lawrence Park Hilltop by William Lawrence in the 1890s. Research by Eloise L. Morgan, village historian, however, found that the brick was installed in 1916 and 1922 and only on a few of the steepest slopes on the Hilltop. All of the bricked roadways are part of Bronxville’s National Historic District.

The Conservancy found in the process of investigating where to buy replacement bricks that communities around the country are increasingly recognizing the value of preserving their original brick streets both from the historical perspective and the demonstrated savings in maintenance costs. Municipalities that have ordinances against paving over brick roads or have programs to restore their brick streets include Boston, Nantucket, Charleston, Savannah, and Orlando, Florida. Wilmette, Illinois, has an active program of uncovering and restoring brick roads that have been overlaid with asphalt. 

Pictured here:  The yellow brick road in question—Park Avenue.

Photo by Bill Dowling