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Vaulted sidewalk

From Wikipedia - Reading time: 3 min

Vaulted sidewalks, also called sidewalk vaults and areaways are sidewalks that are not placed directly on the ground. Rather, there is an empty space below them where the ground level used to be. This may happen where the street level has been raised over time, or where basements are extended, or as utility vaults.

Sidewalk vaults may be protected as historical architecture, or filling them required for planning permission.[1]

Chicago

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Cross-section of a road and adjacent building, showing the basement extending under the sidewalk and part of the road. Sunlight is shining through the sidewalk into the basement.
A sidewalk vault in Chicago, daylit through vault lights, 1880

The raising of Chicago started in 1855[2] as a response to the muddy conditions of the streets [3] and because of epidemics of cholera.[4] The raised streets needed new, raised sidewalks to match them. In the case of vaulted sidewalks, which might be 5 feet (1.5 m) or more over the original street level, a structure was built to hold a new sidewalk at the new street level, and an empty space was left between the original and the new sidewalks. This process gave building owners a choice: raise their buildings to the new street level, or relocate the main entrance to the second floor of the building to match the new street level.[5] Many buildings chose the latter option, opting to use the vaulted area for storage. As recently as 2001 there were still over 2,000 vaulted sidewalks in Chicago[6]

Today the old vaulted sidewalks are visible mostly during construction and cause increased costs of infrastructure maintenance.[7]

This is a vaulted sidewalk under construction in Chicago
This is a vaulted sidewalk under construction in Chicago

Milwaukee

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As of 2022, several sidewalk vaults, or "hollow walks," remain in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward and increase the cost of street and sidewalk reconstruction.[8]

New York

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In New York, basements may extend beneath the sidewalk and drivers are warned "HOLLOW SIDEWALK, DO NOT PARK".[9]

Seattle

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Some Seattle Underground sidewalks have vault lights, inset glass that trasmits sunlight to the lower level.[10]

Use for daylighting

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Prism lighting allows sidewalk vaults to provide daylight to the basement.

  • Diagram of prisms in a pavement bending light to hit a wall of glass prims lying directly under and in line with the basement wall, which bend the light further to the horizontal
    Two-stage refraction system for basement lighting; prism wall below center, shop above left. Note I-beam and masonry wall.
  • A brightly-lit room with the inside edge lined with carrell desks. The ceiling is made of pendant prisms, supported by a very unobtrusive frame (which is in turn supported at wide intervals by slender diagonal braces from the walls). The wall over the desks is made of prism tiles.
    The same system used to light a salesroom inside a hollow sidewalk; prism wall is on the right, vault lights above.
  • A black-and-white photo of an unfurnished basement, horizontally lit with diffuse light. It has a pale coffered ceiling, with thickish round pillars supporting the intersections of the beams. The lower half of both pillars and walls is covered with dark wood panelling. The bare floor is pale grey.
    A basement daylit by sidewalk prisms (prisms out-of-shot to the left)

References

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Vaulted sidewalk in front of a store in Chicago
Vaulted sidewalk in front of a store in Chicago
  1. ^ Marie Wong; et al. (2011), Seattle Prism Light Reconnaissance Study (PDF), Institute for Public Service, Seattle University, archived (PDF) from the original on 27 March 2016
  2. ^ "City Streets: How Chicago Raised Itself Out of the Mud and Astonished the World Gapers Block: Ask the Librarian". gapersblock.com. Retrieved 2017-06-26.
  3. ^ Khudeira, Soliman (2009). "Chicago's Vaulted Sidewalks: History and Structural Rehabilitation". Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction. 14 (3): 100–104. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)SC.1943-5576.0000032. Retrieved 2017-06-27.
  4. ^ Nugent, Walter. "Epidemics".
  5. ^ "Street Grades, Raising". www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org. Retrieved 2017-06-26.
  6. ^ "City Streets: How Chicago Raised Itself Out of the Mud and Astonished the World Gapers Block: Ask the Librarian". gapersblock.com. Retrieved 2017-06-26.
  7. ^ "Uptown Plaza With Outdoor Concert Stage, Revamped Broadway In The Works". DNAinfo Chicago. Archived from the original on 2017-09-07. Retrieved 2017-06-26.
  8. ^ Jannene, Jeramey (April 7, 2022). "Transportation: Traffic Calming Efforts Advancing On Two Downtown Arteries". Urban Milwaukee.
  9. ^ Denton, Jack (29 October 2020). "Your Latest Nightmare: How Does a Sidewalk Just Collapse and Swallow a Guy Up?". Curbed. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  10. ^ Dever, Jim (14 June 2017). "The historic glass streets of Pioneer Square are nothing short of amazing". KING 5. KING-TV. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 | Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaulted_sidewalk
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