Alyson Perry: Brick Sidewalks Cruelly Limit Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness

Posted by Alyson Perry

Editor's Note:
This is the second in our series of "We Hate Bricks," by disabled people. Alyson Perry is a disabilities rights activist and teacher. She is also on the Board of Directors of BCIL and a leading member of Boston Not Dead Yet.

Brick sidewalks cruelly limit freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

The construction of brick sidewalks on Huntington Avenue near Symphony Towers is an aesthetically distasteful plan, which cruelly limits the freedom and well being of the citizens of Boston and the surrounding areas. I make this assertion as a visually-impaired person, an experienced (white) cane user, and a citizen of Massachusetts, living in and near Boston for the last nine years.

My travels on brick sidewalks have often resulted in discomfort, uncertainty, and pain. Constantly (traveling with a white cane or with my trusted, guide dog), I am forced to do a little dance on brick sidewalks, hopping as I trip on broken and uneven bricks. Yet, this annoying routine is nothing compared to the pain I have experienced on several occasions as a careful cane user when my cane has become stuck in the gaps and cracks of brick sidewalks, and I have fallen, injuring myself.

On one occasion, when I was a student at Harvard, delivering a paper to a professor, my cane became wedged in one of the abundant cracks found in the brick sidewalks of Cambridge. I fell and hit my face. I was sore, but continued my journey. Due to the numbing, cold weather, I did not realize, until I returned home, that I had been traveling since my fall with blood streaming from my forehead.

On another occasion, I tripped and fell when my cane found a crack on a brick sidewalk in Boston. My cane flew out of my hand as I stumbled, and I had to rely on a passerby to return my cane to me. I have heard other cane users tell of falls and injuries to themselves and to their pride resulting from travel on brick sidewalks. An acquaintance has even nicknamed her cane “crack finder.” In fact, it was stumbling and falling on the bricks somewhere in the heart of Boston that led me to frustration, which resulted in my applying for a guide dog.

Good Boston architecture needs to endure as a statement of pride about our heritage. Boston is so much more than brick sidewalks. Here, our ancestors took great strides towards our American concept of freedom.

Among our many monuments to liberty, several of the philosophies and practices of the Independent Living Movement (of people with disabilities) were born here and have spread around the country. Brick sidewalks, which limit the freedom and the pursuit of happiness among cane users, wheelchair users, and others, are not fitting symbols of our heritage of liberty. We should not keep a city, proud of its innovative history, bound by faulty structures of its past.

Finally, brick sidewalks simply will not endure. Bricks crack and break easily with the ordinary foot traffic of the city. The New England weather also does its part to warp and crumble brick sidewalks. As a result, brick sidewalks soon become shabby even to nondisabled people. They will always be a source and sign of pain, embarrassment, and restricted liberty to this visually-impaired person.

Please be creative and build a truly beautiful, functional sidewalk, which will endure as a source of pride and free travel for all people in Boston.

Below, an image of a gap in bricks on Huntingdon Ave:



Click for larger image of gap between bricks on Huntingdon Ave.

Neither the ADA nor the MAAB has issued regulations regarding cracks between bricks. Therefore, this sidewalk could be technically brought into "compliance," while continuing to torture significant portions of the local population. Such cracks are very dangerous for any cane user, anyone unsteady on their feet (which sometimes means everyone!), and contributes to the sickening vibration that wheelchair users experience.