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.

Jack Grieco: No option but to despise the Huntington brick sidewalk

Posted by Jack Grieco

Editor's Note:
This begins a series of statements by people with disabilities of why we absolutely hate, loathe, despise, hold in complete contempt, abhor, and are none too pleased with all-brick sidewalks. Jack Grieco, longtime member and recent board chair of the Boston Center for Independent Living (BCIL), recently received the Marie Felton award for contributions to the disability community. Here with:

No option but to despise the Huntington brick sidewalk.

I have a spinal cord injury that results in my utilizing an electric wheelchair for mobility purposes. I live in Symphony Towers which is located on the corner of Massachusetts & Huntington Avenues. Due to the location of my home, I access Huntington Avenue frequently.

Since the first time that I heard the news of replacing the conventional sidewalks with bricks, I have despised the entire concept. Someone who has no knowledge of disabilities or access must have conjured up this bone-head idea.

Prior to the conversion to all-brick, the sidewalks for the first block of Huntington Ave. from Massachusetts Ave. were far from level. This situation was not addressed at all when the bricks were added. Now you have a sidewalk that is not flat at any point, a sidewalk that is designed to drain into the street. On top of this it now has bricks which are uneven, with some missing, which when they are wet and or frozen promote hydroplaning in electric wheelchairs with drifting towards the gutters. The inconsistency of the brick sidewalk triggers spasms every time that I travel the sidewalks. This situation is similar to being a kernel of corn in a corn-popper.

Needless to say, I can’t carry anything on my lap, or in my hands when I travel Huntington Ave. No more coffee or doughnuts from Dunkin’ Donuts!

This entire situation is much more that just a nuisance; it forces me to ask for assistance with daily activities/routines much more than I should have to. I also know that it is inevitable that I am going to fall off the sidewalk, sooner or later!

Below, a sample image of said bricks on Huntington Ave.:

Click for larger image of uneven bricks on Huntington Ave.

Both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board Regulations require that no change of level be greater than 1/4 inch without beveling. This violation exhibits a change of level of 3/8 inch, enough to visibly vibrate and jar a wheelchair, or throw a cane user to the ground.

Restaurant Review: Symphony Sushi

Posted by John B. Kelly

(No mention of Terri Schiavo!)

Symphony Sushi is on Gainsborough Street near Huntington Avenue, across from the Espresso Café. It has been there about two years or so.

Although the sidewalk near the restaurant is not in good shape (the intersection of Gainsborough Street and St. Stephen Street was promised to be repaired in 2002 by the Boston Department of Public Works, but, well, they never got around to it), but entrance to the restaurant is easy, with a small concrete ramp. An interior ramp brings you up to the restaurant level, where the seating is spacious and the tables are very wheelchair friendly -- single post in the middle of the table with enough height to get one's knees underneath.

As a severely disabled person, any public accommodation that is actively friendly to me instantly wins my heart. The hostess remembered that I like Harpoon IPA , and the waitress was completely friendly. I also appreciate it when wait staff comfortably puts plates and place settings right onto my lap tray. The really brave ones will even pour me a beer when my straw and straw clip are attached to the glass.

Like all Japanese restaurants, it is pretty easy to spend a lot of money, but the food is delicious. Tonight for appetizers we had the Seafood Pancake, quite delicious but of course a bit greasy because it is fried. It is a big pancake!

We also split one Seaweed Salad, which is usually delicious but tonight was just ordinary.

In the past, we have usually gotten Vegetable Gyoza, which is good, but tonight we got the last item on the appetizer list, a Spinach dish that I forget the name of. We asked them to heat it up a little bit because it came cold, and the cold kind of kills the taste. This is my favorite!

For dinner, I had the Chilean Sea Bass, which is very nice but quite expensive. I can't say that it was perfectly cooked (it is almost impossible to get a correctly -- i.e., not overcooked -- prepared piece of fish in Boston) , but it has a nice sauce and a bit of a crust from the boiler.

My friend got the Deluxe Sashimi Plate, the appeal of which I don't really understand.

Sorry, no information on whether the bathroom is accessible.

Along with Woody's Grill and Tap on Hemenway Street, this is my other neighborhood restaurant.

John Kelly to appear on WRKO 680 AM tonight 8 p.m.

Posted by John B. Kelly

This will be the Jay Diamond show, and I will probably be on from about 8:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m., or a little bit after.

Jay is the only liberal on the WRKO lineup.

Newsnight video of John Kelly and Alyson Perry available for viewing

Posted by John B. Kelly
(another post dealing exclusively with Terri Schiavo)

For a "unique" perspective on the Terri Schiavo case, please see this video segment (about seven minutes) from Jim Braude's NECN show Newsnight.

Our story is now first in queue.

"Not Dead Yet": Activists for Disabled Speak out
3/25/05 10:04 p.m.) John Kelly and Alyson Perry of the disability rights organization Not Dead Yet join Newsnight host Jim Braude to talk about their perspective on the Terri Schiavo case. Not Dead Yet opposes legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Note: I would just like to express a special thanks to the 3 people who made my participation in today's events possible.

NAG blog mentioned by Phoenix writer Dan Kennedy!

Posted by John B. Kelly

I wrote Boston Phoenix "Media Log" blogger Dan Kennedy a friendly note about this site, and he was interested enough to check it out and then give it a mention:

DISABILITY AND LIFE. John B. Kelly has some thoughts on the Terri Schiavo case from a disability-rights perspective. It's smart and worth reading, though he seems to be stuck where I was a few days ago, not realizing that people who claim to have interacted with Schiavo are almost certainly lying to advance their own agendas.

The courts have ruled that she made her wishes known years ago, and those wishes are finally being carried out. The US Supreme Court has now refused to intervene. Next: Judge George Greer has to fend off Florida governor Jeb Bush.

I am very grateful to Mr. Kennedy for mentioning me at all. (Awe Shucks). But I don't follow him when he says that I'm stuck believing lies from Terri's camp. I'm not paying attention to the public posturing at all. That's just the media circus. I'm paying attention to whether an innocent human being, a disabled woman who cannot speak for herself, gets killed in full view of the entire society.

NECN Debut Tomorrow Night 8:30 p.m.

Posted by John B. Kelly
MEDIA ALERT

Blog publisher John B. Kelly will appear along with Boston Not Dead Yet colleague Alyson Perry on Jim Braude's Newsnight on New England Cable News, Friday, March 25, at 8:30 p.m. In other words, tomorrow night.

I receive it on Comcast channel 14.

Watch! We've had enough of this savagery masquerading as compassion.

Propaganda

Posted by John B. Kelly
(This post deals exclusively with the Terri Schiavo case)

We are accustomed to reports that the media in another country, for example Russia under Vladimir Putin , is simply a propaganda organ. And we occasionally hear, such as after the American-led invasion of Iraq, that US media made mistakes or were "too trusting" of government sources. But in other matters, the American media is generally credited with objectivity.

Terri Schiavo is now starving to death, there is no question about that. But now that her demise is all but certain, people want to hear about what her experience of starvation/dehydration will be like. To learn about what we should expect for Terri's death experience, news broadcasts naturally turn to journalist doctors, such as Dr. Timothy Johnson on ABC or Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN. But these doctors only have one source regarding starvation, and that is hospice and palliative care professionals. So when Johnson or Gupta or any other TV doctor begins to speak about Terri Schiavo's death experience , they start by saying something like "In end-of-life situations..." or "hospice doctors tell us...." And what they go on to say is that after a feeding tube is removed, "cancer patients report a peaceful end," that endorphins are released into the body, that there is peace and even euphoria.

One problem. Terri Schiavo is not in "an end of life situation." Her organs have not already begun to fail because of cancer or heart disease. She is not on massive amounts of morphine to control unbearable pain -- amounts of morphine that accelerate the dying process. She did not, like most of those dying cancer patients, choose to remove her own feeding tube because she felt death was near from other causes. No. Terri Schiavo is dying of only one cause, and that is starvation/dehydration itself. But neither the doctors nor the journalists report on this simple distinction. Her death will not be peaceful or euphoric, except perhaps in the minds of certain people. Her starvation will be like any other healthy person's starvation, that is excruciatingly horrible.

To learn what her starvation would be like, journalists need to talk to people who have almost starved to death themselves and somehow survived. See if they say anything about "euphoria."

Another current media talking point is that Terri Schiavo cannot feel anything. So regardless of what is done to her, it is implied, she will not suffer. Sounds like more propaganda to me. Any living organism in a healthy state resists an imposed death and suffers as a result.

Believing that despised others "don't feel pain like we do" is an old psychological trick to avoid taking responsibility for dastardly actions. Seventy five, eighty years ago, "expert doctors" informed the public that the "feeble minded" (that era's grabbag term for intellectual disabilities) did not feel pain like "normal" people. Similar things were said about African-Americans.

Next I will talk about the new media definition of "husband."

Meanwhile, please also see the excellent essay by Harriet Johnson on Slate.

Thick as a Brick

Posted by John B. Kelly
(Local access discussion begins in paragraph 8 with bolded text)

If it is a mark of maturity to be able to listen respectfully to differing points of view and respond with sensitivity and wisdom, such mental flexibility becomes rarer the more valued interests feel threatened. So it is a stark political reality that when those views come from a group of people long marginalized and disrespected, they are typically disregarded.

For example, no new sports team at the college or professional level would now be named after Native Americans, because this group has made it clear that such monikers as "Redskins" or "Fighting Illini" are offensive. But few colleges or sports teams have changed their names, and those that have tried have run into intense opposition from alumni and fans, who easily rationalize their intransigence by insisting that it is Native Americans who need to adjust to the harmlessness of the names.

The latest example regards the life of Terri Schiavo, now at five days on the starve-o-meter. She is above all a disabled woman who cannot speak for herself, yet her membership in an oppressed group -- people with disabilities -- has been little noted. We have rather heard almost exclusively from able-bodied people, and the only interest that we have heard relating to Terri herself is what she "would have wanted" when she was able-bodied. Michael Schiavo testified in 2000 that Terri had said she would "not want to live like that," that is be hooked up to tubes or machines. This testimony was contradicted by Terri's friends and family, but the judge ruled for Michael and authorized the removal of her feeding tube.

That able-bodied statement of horror in the face of disability has dominated this case, just as it has dominated how able-bodied people have treated disabled people for the last 120 years. Able-bodied people say that they would rather die than live with all sorts of limitations, from blindness to paralysis, and yet we who have these conditions typically value our lives just as highly as anyone.

Why don't we get to speak? Because we can say nothing that able-bodied people want to hear, unless we are asking to be killed like the main characters in those recent supposed masterpieces "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Sea Inside." Michael Schiavo, as the guardian of the once-existing able-bodied Terri, maintains that she is asking for the same thing.

But we people with disabilities are living proof that preferences change. We are no longer able-bodied people fearing disability, but are disabled people with preferences and desires that emerge out of the context we live in.

But what about Terri, you might ask. She is different, she's brain-dead, you say. But even if we were, against a lot of conflicting evidence, to grant everything the starve-Terri side is saying (she would not want to live like that, and she is brain-dead), we know that preferences change with circumstances. Would Terri really want to destroy her family by having her body killed in such a situation, or would she be willing to have her body nursed and doted on by a loving family that continues to find meaning in her existence, however compromised?

I know that if I were brain-dead, by definition I would no longer be present in my body, and if my family really wanted to keep me alive -- if it meant the world to them, I would be glad to have my body provide such a wonderful benefit. After all, if people are willing to donate their bodies to science, the least they could do would be to donate it towards their own family. What we have here is a fetishization of able-bodied horror overwhelming every other interest at stake. The judge in this case has decided, and other judges have concurred, that the supposed interest of a once-able Terri (now supposedly a vegetable) should carry more weight than the real actual interest of a still living family. Isn't there something bizarre about this?

THIS brings me to my subject of the day, brick sidewalks. If you are mobility-impaired and use a wheelchair (manual or power) , ride a scooter, or walk with a cane, it is almost certain that you hate brick sidewalks. If you have a visual impairment and use a cane for navigation, you hate brick sidewalks. And you probably hate brick sidewalks if you are at all unsure on your feet (as is much of the elderly population) or like to walk in high heels.

Why is it then that brick sidewalks continue to be installed throughout Boston, which in typical hub-of-the-universe arrogance , bills itself as the most walkable city in the country? Why after years of advocacy by groups like WalkBoston, Adaptive Environments, and our own little NAG , does the city put unbearably uneven brick right next to the largest concentration of elderly and disabled people in the state? Because it can, of course, because it can.

Huntington Avenue, which runs sort of East-West past some major cultural institutions like Symphony Hall and the Museum of Fine Arts, and cuts through the middle of Northeastern University, Wentworth College, and the New England Conservatory of Music, has long had a sort of gritty, urban feel to it. Functional concrete sidewalks carried old-time residents, students, tourists, and beggars alike.

Enter an alliance between the Fenway Alliance, which represents the cultural and educational institutions, and the city of Boston. Working together, they seized upon the opportunity generated by the mandated improvement of the old Huntington Avenue Green "E" line to bring it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Fenway Alliance wanted a new, "beautified" Huntington Avenue (now known as "Avenue of the Arts"), which to them meant old-time brick sidewalks with prominent trees. The city allowed member institutions to pay for the installation of more expensive brick to have the desired look.

As Peter Scarpignato of the Boston Department of Public Works told the Northeastern News, "It's going to be a beautiful renovation and something that we'll all be very proud of." Without irony, he said that "The main goals of this program are to improve public safety issues."

Now the city knows that brick sidewalks are a hardship on all sorts of people, but it went ahead anyway. It met its legal obligations by holding hearings, but somehow never managed to hear what the people in Symphony Towers -- those huge buildings with all the disabled and elderly people -- had to say.

In September, 2003, NAG and the Boston Center for Independent Living organized a protest on Huntington Avenue, which was well covered in the media. We argued, in essence, that the aesthetic preferences of a few powerful people should never come at the expense of other people's physical safety.

The city ignored our complaints and continued installing the sidewalks. City councilor Michael Ross responded to our concerns by convening a City Council hearing on brick sidewalks, where story after story of bloodied faces and sickened bodies failed to move either of the Department of Public Works or the City Council.

Kelly Brilliant, Executive Director of the Fenway Alliance, who had met with us earlier and assured us that she was all for full access, came to the hearing and encouraged the council not to pick on this district when Harvard and Boston University were also laying down bricks.

Now she has mailed out a letter accompanying an appeal for money to the alliance membership:

Here at The Fenway Alliance, we are proud of our track record of tackling seemingly intractable urban issues—blight, town/gown relations, authentic community access to arts and culture, safety, protection of limited green spaces, and pedestrian friendliness and walk-ability.

Notice how "blight" is the first issue that she takes credit for. "Blight" of course, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Just as people with disabilities have long been considered a blight upon the body politic , so as the only kind of sidewalk -- concrete -- that ensures our physical safety. By "pedestrian friendliness and walk-ability," she actively pretends that the hundreds of people with disabilities who live in the neighborhood don't even exist.

The Fenway Alliance, she says, wants to create an "urban space that is vibrant, safe, and inviting to all." And now she really begins to pile it on.

We place people—the citizens who live, work, and play here—at the very top of our agenda, before design, development, and implementation. Through forging unique partnerships and creating real working collaborations, the Alliance moves mountains: the reconstruction and beautification of Huntington Avenue/Avenue of the Arts...

This is what the disability rights movement is up against all across the country. More to come.

Street-level access and disability rights

Posted by John B. Kelly

Street-level access, the goal of Neighborhood Access Group, is but a means to an end. That is to participate fully in the community, to make of disabled people an irresistible force which will change society forever. Our goal is to ensure that people with disabilities are taken matter-of-factly as full human beings, and to convince the nondisabled majority that by welcoming us they also come closer to accepting themselves. In other words, access is for everyone.

Right now we are in the midst of a killing season on people with disabilities, starting in the fictional Oscar-winning realm of "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Sea Inside" and moving without pause into the killing of a real defenseless woman, Terri Schiavo. This issue is dominating my time right now, but street-level access is often necessary for what I am trying to do about it.

Our first post concerns yesterday's drive to the Common, to badger the "progressives" who flocked to the Iraq war protest sponsored by Boston Mobilization. I think the disability rights movement cannot take off until it mobilizes a significant slice of able-bodied progressives to take up our cause. The analogy being that black civil rights only became fully legitimized (not to be confused with "legitimate," which of course they always were) when northern white elites no longer could tolerate the brutal racist oppression being televised worldwide.

My helper Thom and I left my Fenway apartment at 12:40 PM, jumped in "Bluebird," my van of 15 years, and took Storrow Drive to Cambridge St. downtown, around to Tremont St., and then finally, the golden destination, Park St., heading back toward the State House.

For a raised van rider like myself, who cannot park in any underground facility,. I depend on surface parking spots. Now that the handicapped parking spots at the side of the State House were removed a few years ago, Park Street is the only reliable parking location downtown for me.

The handicapped spots were all taken, probably by protesters; even the ramp in front of the Paulist Center was blocked by some knucklehead without a plate or placard. But luckily enough, we found a spot on the severely pitched end of Park St. near Beacon St., just above my nemesis, an alleyway that bisects the Park St. sidewalks without any curb ramps.

It may seem ironic or coincidental or somehow meaningful that the only street with handicapped parking within half a mile of the State House lacks curb ramps, but I can make it over them, or so I thought.

So Thom let me out and had to pull me off the ramp because of the dangerous pitch. I slowly bumped down one curb and up the other, and off we went down Park St.

After picking up the flyers made for by friend Jackie, we headed to the protest against the Iraq war.

My thinking was to hand out leaflets arguing that Terri Schiavo is the perfect progressive cause: a woman whose life and body are being controlled by men (estranged husband + prejudicial judge), and a member of a vulnerable population lacking habeas corpus rights on her way to an agonizing execution.

So after putting signs on the front and back of my wheelchair like some sandwich board, we headed off to a nice junction of walkways near the bandstand on the Boston Common. I thought there were about 500 people there, but Thom, emphasizing the smallness of humans, thought the figure closer to 1000-1500. We had the rather daunting task of being the two people at the protest handing out 200 flyers that strongly supported something conservative Republicans are brandishing with glee - the preservation of the life of Terri Schiavo (and others like her).

Things started off a little awkwardly when I saw two old-time disabilities rights activists sitting nearby. I thought we could use a little cheerleading, so we headed over there first.

"I don't think I agree with you," said the woman.
"Why not?" I asked.
"We should talk about it sometime - it would take a whole forum," she said.

The man was more on the ambivalent side.

We stumbled off and began hitting people up.

The key of any sales exchange is to not give your customer the chance to say "no." So I went up to people and said, "You support disability rights, right." But this was unsatisfactory for more than a few minutes. So I switched to a self-sustaining chatter of "Open mind? Open mind? Have an open mind about disability rights?"

If they walked right on by, I could say, "Guess not." And then "How bout you? Open mind?" to the next person. It actually got fun after a while. Highlights included:

• The woman who took a flyer, glanced at it, and plopped it back into Thom's hand with the pithy remark, "She's brain dead. Just like most of America."
• The two women who complimented me on my courage - the usual "Oh, I so admire you for coming out on a day like today. You are so courageous!" My standard response to this drivel is to reflect back at them with "You too! Congratulations on coming out!" in my most drippingly insincere voice. But they never notice, so I need a new schtick.
• The woman who was willing to consider my argument, as long as she would not lose "the right to die." I assured her that she would be able to die without problem.
  
• Sam, the highlight of the day, who, as he came toward me with his stroller, actually smiled at me. I said, "Open mind?" and he responded genially, "No. Does anyone have an open mind?" "No," I said. "But it is a good line, isn't it?" He agreed, and gave me his magazine that he edits, Peace Work. He also said that he would love to print our perspective because it would be interesting. A real interactive human being!

That's about it for highlights.

With the flyers distributed, we headed home, once again encountering the alley of peril on Park Street. This time, it seems to have done some damage to my old wheelchair, which is severely handicapped by three hundred million or so wires dangling from underneath the chair.

Anyway, back in my living room, I was backing up after talking on the phone and all of the sudden there was a funny drag on my left front wheel. Turns out that one of those danglers had been knocked loose and got caught in the axle, and we had to spend about thirty minutes delicately extricating the cord.

During this period of complete paralysis, I thought about the right to die and how a lot of able-bodied people would just shake their heads over the problems I was facing and be so glad that they weren't like me. And I truly was miserable! I hate when my wheelchair gets stuck.

But why was I upset? Because of my disability? Or because the goddamn city of Boston and the nearby goddamn State House could care less about disability access to downtown streets?

That's the argument, anyway. Able-bodied people think that all my problems stem from my impairment - "Paralyzed from the neck down!" - when I think that my paralysis in the living room was caused by the contemptuous indifference of leading sectors of my society.

Neighborhood Access Group was formed to somehow get around or through that indifference, whichever, as long as we people with disabilities have equal access to this supposedly great city.