The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-06-23
A HUGE GRADING JOB.
Warren and O'Malley Have Al.
most Two Years Work
in Richmond.
Residents of the District Have a Com.
paint Against the Street
Department.

For the next two years Richmond Dis
trict will be the scene of extensive grading
operations, and millions of yards of sand
will be handled. Besides the old Bay Dis
trict racetrack work, Warren & O'Malley
have large tract between Eighth and
Fifteenth avenues and A and G streets.
This is job of about forty blocks and is
covered with sandhills, many of them
thirty feet higher than the street. Much
of it is dry sand, the banks having been
recently formed by the wind, and the
graders to remove it will use the big steam
machines known as sand paddles"
A "sand-paddy" is not as diminutive or
modest piece of mechanism as one would
fancy. On the contrary, it is a monster
that eats into a sandhill at the rate of 1906
or 1900 cubic yards day BY series Of
scoops or buckets run by endless sprocket
chains the soil is elevated into hopper,
thence into railroad cars, which run on
their tracks around the machine receiving
their load, which is emptied into the cut
to be filed. The paddy" itself stands on
rails, and after il has used up all the sand
| banks within reach it is rolled forward and
the cartrack again arranged around it..
The whole system is perfect in the way of
UTILITY anu pTdCLlCaDlllly, anu TIE WOTh
advances rapidly.
Warren & O'Malley will soon have two
steamers at work, one at the sand-dune
west of the Odd Fellows Cemetery on the
old racetrack and the other on the forty
block Job, where ii will dig steadily for a
year and a half. When it has scooped up
its last bucket of sand wide strip of high
rolling land lying along the north side of
Golden Gate Park will be leveled down
and ready for the builders.
The residents OF Richmond District are
complaining bitterly OF the action of the
! Street Committee in foistIng upon them
Gray Bros blue rock. Not only are the
quarries far away, but the small property
| owners of the locality at the present time
| find that additional expense hardship.
| The people of the district hold that as so
| much Of that part Of the City is ungraded
! and often streets are mere cuts through
! sandhills it is not practicable to begin q
! system of costly paving. They wish to use
| the red rock of which they have an
unlimited supply at quarry on Thirtieth
| avenue for temporary street work. 1t is
/ their intention in the near future to btu
minize every street in the district, when
| the blue rock will be used as bed for the
! bitumen. AS it is the red rock has q
natural cement which gums the whole
mess, and thoroughfare paved with this
after being well rolled makes one of the
| cheapest and best roadways known.
! J. g. Conway, grader residing in Rich
mond District, stated yesterday that the
people of his locality were going to make
! the paving question a living issue this
! summer.
MANY of our Streets" said he, "are in
a deplorabie condition at present, and
what will they be in the wet season? They
| have been dug up for sewers gas ana
water mains until they are soft and need
! Rt1t M of IN md
s cents square foot for blue rock, for that
is too costly. We could have it done in
our own red rock for 81 cents. Talk
about an octopus-I tell you there IS nc
more unjust and crushing monopoly in
this City than the Gray Brothers and thei1
blue rock. We have number of times
sent committees to the board for redress
and there they always found one of the
Grays ready to fight them.
! 'Here IS another thing OF the many evils
that affict us. The other day the Street
| Department served notices ordering that
the sidewalk along Sixth avenue should
be bituminized. Part OF the thorough,
fare between Point Lobos avenue and the
park not only has no buildings on it, but
is fanked by deep, ungraded lots; and,
moreover, have been at work in sight of
that street every day for three weeks, and
l have not seen over twenty people walk
| ing by. What the department wants
| those sidewalks paved now for is queS-
ton past finding out.
NOW if we work out streets at all
which they need-we must use the hard
blue rock, which is the poorest material
that can be put down. 1t will not pack,
and either grinds up into fine dust, tc
turn to mud in winter, or remains a hard
gravel in the streets. We want the red
! rock put down now, and when we are able
to do costly street work we will bitumin-
ize. The Street Department need not fear
that Richmond District will fail to inl-
prove itself in the best manner possible
We want a square deal, and we will con-
tend for it. too"