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Nicolson pavement, alternatively spelled "Nicholson" and denominated wooden block pavement and wood block pavement, is a road surface material consisting of wooden blocks. Samuel Nicolson invented it in the mid-19th century. [1] Wooden block pavement has since become unfavored because of its poor surface quality and high cost of maintenance.
Wood block pavement may have originated in Russia in the 14th century, but it gained prominence in the 1820s and 1830s as a road building alternative to the irregularly surfaced cobblestone streets common during that era. [2] Wood block was also favored because stone was scarce and wood was abundant. [3] Additionally, horse traffic reportedly made less noise on wood-surfaced streets. [4] However, the drawbacks of Nicolson pavement include slippery surfaces when wet or icy, [4] [5] and the tendency of the blocks to rot, decay, and heave due to moisture seeping between the blocks. [6] For example, the 1910 Great Flood of Paris caused substantial damage to inundated streets when the wood blocks floated and became dislodged. [7] When treated with creosote, wood block pavement would last longer, but the creosoted pavement had a noticeable unpleasant smell. [2]
M. Gourieff introduced [to St. Petersburg] the hexagonal wooden pavement with which, in London, we are all acquainted. This, with continuous reparation, answers pretty well, taking into consideration that equality of surface seems utterly unattainable, that the knavish contractors supply blocks so rotten as to be worthless a few days after they are put down, and that the horses are continually slipping and frequently falling on the perilous highway. It is unpleasant, also, to be semi-asphyxiated each time you take your walks abroad, by the fumes of the infernal pitch-cauldrons, round which the moujik workmen gather, like witches.
George Augustus Sala, A Journey Due North , 1856.
Nicolson pavement was the focus of a Supreme Court case, City of Elizabeth v. American Nicholson Pavement Co. which held that while the public use of an invention more than one year prior to the inventor's application for a patent normally causes the inventor to lose his right to a patent, there is an exception to this rule for public uses for experimental purposes.
Remnants of Nicolson pavement still exist in several cities across the US. Touted as the only remaining wooden street in the US, Roslyn Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is completely paved in wooden blocks. [4] [5] In addition, patches of creosoted wooden block pavement are still visible in an alley along 10th street between Olive and Locust Streets in St. Louis, Missouri, [6] and at least three other alleys in Chicago, Illinois, still retain the use of wood block pavement, though some are in states of disrepair. [8] The 200 block of Camac Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is also paved with wooden blocks, and it is regularly maintained, having been listed in the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. [9] Hessler Court in Cleveland, Ohio, known for its Hessler Street Fair, likewise maintains its Nicolson Pavement for historic reasons. [10] In 2009, a series of wood block pavers were installed in Wall Street in New York City from Broadway to William Street. The locations of the pavers follow the exact path of the Dutch wooden defense wall that gave the street its name. [11]
Bitumen is an immensely viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In the U.S., the material is commonly referred to as asphalt. Whether found in natural deposits or refined from petroleum, the substance is classed as a pitch. Prior to the 20th century the term asphaltum was in general use. The word derives from the ancient Greek ἄσφαλτος ásphaltos, which referred to natural bitumen or pitch. The largest natural deposit of bitumen in the world, estimated to contain 10 million tons, is the Pitch Lake of southwest Trinidad.
A sidewalk, pavement, footpath in Australia, India, New Zealand and Ireland, or footway, is a path along the side of a road. Usually constructed of concrete, pavers, brick, stone, or asphalt, it is designed for pedestrians. A sidewalk is normally higher than the roadway, and separated from it by a kerb. There may also be a planted strip between the sidewalk and the roadway and between the roadway and the adjacent land.
Creosote is a category of carbonaceous chemicals formed by the distillation of various tars and pyrolysis of plant-derived material, such as wood, or fossil fuel. They are typically used as preservatives or antiseptics.
Tarmacadam is a road surfacing material made by combining crushed stone, sand, and tar, patented by Welsh inventor Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1902. It is a more durable and dust-free enhancement of simple compacted stone macadam surfaces invented by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam in the early 19th century. The terms "tarmacadam" and tarmac are also used for a variety of other materials, including tar-grouted macadam, bituminous surface treatments and modern asphalt concrete.
A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as tarmac, concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.
A road surface or pavement is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, macadam, hoggin, cobblestone and granite setts were extensively used, but these have mostly been replaced by asphalt or concrete laid on a compacted base course. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the beginning of the 20th century and are of two types: metalled (hard-surfaced) and unmetalled roads. Metalled roadways are made to sustain vehicular load and so are usually made on frequently used roads. Unmetalled roads, also known as gravel roads, are rough and can sustain less weight. Road surfaces are frequently marked to guide traffic.
Permeable paving surfaces are made of either a porous material that enables stormwater to flow through it or nonporous blocks spaced so that water can flow between the gaps. Permeable paving can also include a variety of surfacing techniques for roads, parking lots, and pedestrian walkways. Permeable pavement surfaces may be composed of; pervious concrete, porous asphalt, paving stones, or interlocking pavers. Unlike traditional impervious paving materials such as concrete and asphalt, permeable paving systems allow stormwater to percolate and infiltrate through the pavement and into the aggregate layers and/or soil below. In addition to reducing surface runoff, permeable paving systems can trap suspended solids, thereby filtering pollutants from stormwater.
Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings.
Nevsky Prospect is a main street located in the federal city of St. Petersburg in Russia. Its name comes from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the monastery which stands at the eastern end of the street, and which commemorates the Russian hero Prince Saint Alexander Nevsky (1221–1263). Following his founding of Saint Petersburg in 1703, Tsar Peter I planned the course of the street as the beginning of the road to Novgorod and Moscow. The avenue runs from the Admiralty in the west to the Moscow Railway Station and, after veering slightly southwards at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
Pavement, in construction, is an outdoor floor or superficial surface covering. Paving materials include asphalt, concrete, stones such as flagstone, cobblestone, and setts, artificial stone, bricks, tiles, and sometimes wood. In landscape architecture, pavements are part of the hardscape and are used on sidewalks, road surfaces, patios, courtyards, etc.
Tramway track is used on tramways or light rail operations. Grooved rails are often used to provide a protective flangeway in the trackwork in city streets. Like standard rail tracks, tram tracks consist of two parallel steel rails.
The Hessler Street Fair was an annual arts and music festival held the first weekend after Memorial Day on the historical wood-block-paved Hessler Road, in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Bureaucratic difficulty in securing permits and event insurance were among reasons for the long-running free festival's end in 2019.
A paver is a piece of construction equipment used to lay asphalt concrete or Portland cement concrete on roads, bridges, parking lots and other such places. It lays the material flat and provides minor compaction. This is typically followed by final compaction by a road roller.
City of Elizabeth v. American Nicholson Pavement Co., 97 U.S. 126 (1878), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that while the public use of an invention more than one year prior to the inventor's application for a patent normally causes the inventor to lose his right to a patent, there is an exception to this rule for public uses for experimental purposes.
In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property in other countries. Possible owners of a plot can be one or more persons or another legal entity, such as a company, corporation, organization, government, or trust. A common form of ownership of a plot is called fee simple in some countries.
A sett, also known as a block or Belgian block, is a broadly rectangular quarried stone used in paving roads and walkways. Formerly in widespread use, particularly on steeper streets because setts provided horses' hooves with better grip than a smooth surface, they are now encountered rather as decorative stone paving in landscape architecture. Setts are often referred to as "cobblestones", although a sett is distinct from a cobblestone in that it is quarried or worked to a regular shape, whereas the latter is generally a small, naturally-rounded rock. Setts are usually made of granite.
The United States provided many inventions in the time from the Colonial Period to the Gilded Age, which were achieved by inventors who were either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Cobblestone mosaics can be found throughout Freiburg im Breisgau. Most mosaics are embedded in the cobblestone pavement of the city centre of Freiburg.
Wooden Alley is a historic wood block paved alley connecting Astor Street and State Street in the Near North Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The alley is 530 feet (160 m) long and composed of wooden blocks roughly 6 to 10 inches long and 4 inches (100 mm) wide. This wood block technique is a derivative of Nicholson paving, a more durable method of wooden paving which replaced plank paving in many U.S. cities in the nineteenth century. First paved in 1909, the alley is one of only two wooden alleys remaining in Chicago. Wooden paving was common in the late nineteenth century in Chicago, as the city's large lumber market made wood much cheaper than other paving materials. By 1909, however, a decline in the lumber market combined with the increased durability of other paving materials had caused the city to turn away from wooden paving, making the alley an unusually late example of the method.
Roslyn Place is a small wooden-paved cul-de-sac located in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The street was built in 1914 in the Nicolson Pavement style and is home to the historic Roslyn Place district.