The right kind of restoration

by Tevah Platt / Staten Island Advance

Advance photo/Bill LyonsOnce crumbling, the wall surrounding Fort Hill Park in St. George has been restored and preserved, thanks to a public works project.

The crumbling wall surrounding Fort Hill Park has been masterfully restored through a public works project that preserved a piece of history, enhanced the look of the neighborhood and supported independent quarriers upstate.

A city carpenter not involved with the project was overheard one recent afternoon marveling at the retaining wall under construction along Hendricks and Sherman avenues, and as he passed the site, he wondered aloud where the funds came from to have bankrolled such a "heck of a job."

The answer to his question: Capital funds set aside following the Henry Hudson wall collapse of 2005 to repair public retaining walls supported the project, and city contractors took pride in restoring the beauty of the 19th-century stonework.

The .78-acre tract at the top of a hilltop straddling St. George and New Brighton, used as an embankment by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War, only became a park in 2003, when Councilman Michael McMahon (D-North Shore) allocated funds for the city to purchase the site from private owners, preventing its development.

The tree-filled plot had been surrounded by an aging retaining wall, whose gaps had been filled in with cinder blocks.

The contractor, Trocom Construction, shored up the 19th-century wall this year using cement and rebar and a stone fascia painstakingly crafted with new and original materials to maintain its historic character.

Stone seller Thomas Cucchiara of Leatherstocking Timber Products, Inc., in upstate Oneonta - a former resident of Great Kills - went to the Canadian border to find a match for the wall's original blue indigo granite and bluestone coping, or capstone.

Cucchiara, who also has supplied stones for Tribeca Park, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, found the right rock in upstate Fort Ann and sent 107 tons of blue indigo granite and hand-chiseled bluestone coping to St. George, where Trocom masons from the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 1 "installed it with perfection," he said.

"Quarries from 100 years ago no longer exist, a lot of the time, so you have to really work at it to get the right texture and match," said Cucchiara. "I used a different stone from a different part of the country. You put a stone that might weigh a ton through a guillotine and it gives it a rough look on the surface. (The capstones) were done the old-fashioned way, with a chisel, so each one is unique."

A new slate, bluestone sidewalk also was installed around the park.

"These city projects that use bluestone really benefit the state and help the industry up here," Cucchiara added. "The independent quarrymen go into the mines and snap the stone; the miners are like cowboys in pickup trucks."

Mason workers are currently finishing the last stretch of wall along Sherman Avenue.

One neighbor with a home on Westervelt lauded the job: "It's a work of art."