The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-26
INVESTIGATING COBBLES.
MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION AND
HALF-MILLION CLUB IN
TERESTED.
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-F1vE
BLOCKS THAT OUGHT TO BE
ASPHALTED.

The Merchants Association has COM
pleted map showing the pavements OF
San Francisco so as to know at a glance
what condition the streets are in and APP
proximate cost of keeping different dis
tricts clean. After careful compilation
of reports from inspectors it was found that
there still remain in the city 155 blocks
paved with barbarous cobblestones.
Since new ideas began to obtain regard
ing pavements a popular belief has grown
that cobbles are fast disappearing and are
being replaced by bituminous rock. The
impression is erroneous, for. in the best
parts of San Francisco block after block of
cobbles hurriedly and carelessly laid in the
sand can still be met with. People have
become so accustomed to the wretched
pavements they pass the cobblestones by
without seeing much TO find fault with.
Nor does there seem to be much anxiety to
replace the cobbles with bituminous rock
unless, indeed, it be in the public spirit
now finding expression in the Half-million
Club.
South of Market street there are ten
blocks in the streets running east and
west, and nineteen in the cross streets still
paved with cobbles. The former blocks
have each an area of S25x44 IS feet, and the
latter one of 585x44 IS feet. To pave them
with bituminous rock would cost approx
mately $S077 and $5771 block respectively,
or S190, coo, or Whereabouts, for the whole
lot.
In the business district north of Market
street where real estate Is very valuable,
and in the Western Addition, there are
126 blocks of cobblestones in great variety
of picturesque decay.
Blocks on streets running east and west
have an area of 412:6x3S:9 feet, and con-
tain about $4,000 square feet, which at %
cents foot costs $500 to be laid with best
bituminous rock. The cross town streets
measure 275x3s 20 feet to block, or 10, $50
square feet, and that costs $2332 for paving.
The total expense for putting down BIZ
| luminous rock north of Market street
would be about 1876, 900.
For the whole improvement something
work could be done for $500, in excel
lent pavement.
Any real-estate agent in town will state
his conviction that if all the cobbles were
taken up and good asphaltum streets sub
stituted owners of real estate would find
their property enhanced materially in
value. The half or three-quarters of a
million dollars needed for the improve
| ment would come back doubly to mer-
| chants, property owners, Hverymen and
| draymen.
These facts will be impressed upon the
people by the Half-mill1on Club when it
begins in earnest with the laudable enter
prise of improving and identifying San
Francisco as one means to the end in
view-the commercial prosperity of the
| city.
| On every block laid with bituminous
rock the city government pays $3.50, but
even that had to be suspended until July
| because there is a deficit in the Street De
partment fund. Street railway companies
have to pay for paving between their
outer rails. The remainder falls upon the
property-owners on the street. This is
about $37 for lot with % feet frontage
really reasonable price in comparison with
! the benefits received.