A Wall to Feel Good About
Donation protected
Dear Friends...dear Neighbors—
Many of you already know the backstory. For a while after this sandstone wall collapsed—the one that runs along the long edge of our place on Bridgeton's W Commerce St—it felt like it had fallen on us.
We spent a lot of precious work-time struggling to clear the sidewalk and avoid fines. And, yes, trying to make the case that it wasn't just ‘our’ wall—that it was built by County and City investors over 160 years ago, precisely to cut away the flat bluff our house already stood on, and gain easy commercial passage to the Bridgeton bridge.
But you can’t fight City Hall—or you can’t KEEP fighting ‘em. So after our ’torts’ hit a wall—we had a long winter’s wait while the City used their HUD program to find (out of state, mind you) the only construction firm they said would even touch the job, and presented their estimate.
And it was huge: more than $100,000—about $75,000 MORE than would be available in HUD grants—IF we decided to go that route.
And we’d HAVE TO go that route to get any help from them.
Well, this is where our friend Jeff Fogg stepped in, picking us up off the floor. Many of you know him—a peerless guy who’s done a masterful job restoring his own Lake Street home. Who cares about his neighbors and his neighborhood.
Jeff also happens to be a structural engineer—and—miraculously—he’d already drawn up a workable plan for our wall, a lot less costly than the one from Conshohocken and that would ALSO use a Bridgeton contractor, deeply invested in this city.
Allowing for permits and City code contingencies, his working estimate is about $50- to $60,000.
This is better—a LOT better.
But, for us, with no help from City or County, still huge.
So, here we are, reaching out to the so many many of you who, for many months now, have been asking how you can help—even recommending we do this.
Thank you, first, for offering.
And now you can help—and (to put it in a plain cliche) we’re going to need all the help we can get.
Maybe you'll have to think about it—think about what this wall—and yes, its companion granite wall on the other side too—have meant to you and to this community, not just for our lifetimes but for over a century and a half. And how much stress they’ve taken over that time. More and more stress, actually, from bigger and heavier semis...and firetrucks ...and school-buses. And now from heavier-than-ever annual rainfalls, over those same many years.
And, yes, how much joy they’ve given—ALL of us—as every parade marched by, and the winter jasmine and then the daylilies covered ours in bloom.
Because in this sense too our wall is also your wall.
Maybe it had to fail to remind us what it meant—not just to us personally, but to everyone in this community.
And day after day, ever since it fell, week after week, as we’ve all gone up and down this hill, summer and winter—as mothers with kids (unable to use the opposite sidewalk because THAT wall too is endangered) had to push their strollers into the street, literally making us cry— those few stretches of ugly yellow barriers and weedy piles of sandstone have been telling all of us just how much we want it back.
So, yes, we’re begging. Because it's honestly no joke to say our backs are against the wall. As the City well knows now (if they didn’t already), our fixed incomes barely cover our expenses. Yet we’ve also worked hard for the City in many ways since we moved here 12 years ago, and have never asked for anything in return for ourselves.
Now we get to ask.
And we're asking.
Please.
Help.
Now.
And if you give, we promise: we won't just keep track of every gift and explain every expense. When this wall is done, we'll throw the best Top-o-the-Bluff garden party this town has ever seen.
Because it isn’t enough to need you. We’ll want to thank you.
And—more than we can say—we’ll want to celebrate that wall-conquering community spirit we've found here.
And hope to live by to the end.
Flavia and Sandy
Many of you already know the backstory. For a while after this sandstone wall collapsed—the one that runs along the long edge of our place on Bridgeton's W Commerce St—it felt like it had fallen on us.
We spent a lot of precious work-time struggling to clear the sidewalk and avoid fines. And, yes, trying to make the case that it wasn't just ‘our’ wall—that it was built by County and City investors over 160 years ago, precisely to cut away the flat bluff our house already stood on, and gain easy commercial passage to the Bridgeton bridge.
But you can’t fight City Hall—or you can’t KEEP fighting ‘em. So after our ’torts’ hit a wall—we had a long winter’s wait while the City used their HUD program to find (out of state, mind you) the only construction firm they said would even touch the job, and presented their estimate.
And it was huge: more than $100,000—about $75,000 MORE than would be available in HUD grants—IF we decided to go that route.
And we’d HAVE TO go that route to get any help from them.
Well, this is where our friend Jeff Fogg stepped in, picking us up off the floor. Many of you know him—a peerless guy who’s done a masterful job restoring his own Lake Street home. Who cares about his neighbors and his neighborhood.
Jeff also happens to be a structural engineer—and—miraculously—he’d already drawn up a workable plan for our wall, a lot less costly than the one from Conshohocken and that would ALSO use a Bridgeton contractor, deeply invested in this city.
Allowing for permits and City code contingencies, his working estimate is about $50- to $60,000.
This is better—a LOT better.
But, for us, with no help from City or County, still huge.
So, here we are, reaching out to the so many many of you who, for many months now, have been asking how you can help—even recommending we do this.
Thank you, first, for offering.
And now you can help—and (to put it in a plain cliche) we’re going to need all the help we can get.
Maybe you'll have to think about it—think about what this wall—and yes, its companion granite wall on the other side too—have meant to you and to this community, not just for our lifetimes but for over a century and a half. And how much stress they’ve taken over that time. More and more stress, actually, from bigger and heavier semis...and firetrucks ...and school-buses. And now from heavier-than-ever annual rainfalls, over those same many years.
And, yes, how much joy they’ve given—ALL of us—as every parade marched by, and the winter jasmine and then the daylilies covered ours in bloom.
Because in this sense too our wall is also your wall.
Maybe it had to fail to remind us what it meant—not just to us personally, but to everyone in this community.
And day after day, ever since it fell, week after week, as we’ve all gone up and down this hill, summer and winter—as mothers with kids (unable to use the opposite sidewalk because THAT wall too is endangered) had to push their strollers into the street, literally making us cry— those few stretches of ugly yellow barriers and weedy piles of sandstone have been telling all of us just how much we want it back.
So, yes, we’re begging. Because it's honestly no joke to say our backs are against the wall. As the City well knows now (if they didn’t already), our fixed incomes barely cover our expenses. Yet we’ve also worked hard for the City in many ways since we moved here 12 years ago, and have never asked for anything in return for ourselves.
Now we get to ask.
And we're asking.
Please.
Help.
Now.
And if you give, we promise: we won't just keep track of every gift and explain every expense. When this wall is done, we'll throw the best Top-o-the-Bluff garden party this town has ever seen.
Because it isn’t enough to need you. We’ll want to thank you.
And—more than we can say—we’ll want to celebrate that wall-conquering community spirit we've found here.
And hope to live by to the end.
Flavia and Sandy
Organizer
Flavia Alaya
Organizer
Bridgeton, NJ
