sidewalk corners

Before the 60's-70s era sidewalk curbs were not usually depressed, they were kept full height to discourage cars from cutting the corners. Any wheel chair ramps in those days were usually on the straight part of the walk near the corner. Around 1970 or so they started putting in corner ramps on new construction and replacing older corner curbs with ramps. It took years to retrofit the older corners. I recall having to go to every non compliant corner in town that was on the replacement list and reference any property corner monuments or bench marks that might be on the corner. ....DaveB

Thank you Dave, So the

Thank you Dave,

So the depressed corners that I saw in period photos at Colorado boulevard (California, Pasadena) were something non standard right? I have seen this even in 40's and 50's photos.

non standard depressed corners ?

  Hi Yannis, Back in the early days there was no standard so older curbs can lots of different sizes. Here in town some of the oldest were limestone or granite blocks set in a row to make a curb. The older concrete curbs tended to be taller too as cars were higher off the ground in those days. 12 inch tall were seen at times versus the 6 inch tall modern curbs. If you park and your passenger side door hits the curb when you open it you might be looking at an old curb :> ) There was a type of curb used in spots that was call "roll curb", it was rounded so cars could drive over it eliminating the need to build special driveway sections of curbs, perhaps your Pasedena photo is something like that?  For modeling purposes I'd check out photos of the area I was trying to replicate and just visually copy it and call it good. Industrial areas near the track will have different curbs than residential areas so don't just settle on one type, try to match the specific locations and purposes....DaveB

Thanks Dave!I went forward

Thanks Dave!

I went forward by designing corners that looked similar to the ones i saw in period photos, and then i printed them. They look like a good approximation of what was there back then,

Another thought;

I have no idea how prevalent this was in North America, but in our small town in the 50's & 60's, they used a continuous steel ribbon as curbing, simply sweeping around the corner to create the curves.  IIRC, it stood 4-5" proud of the pavement, but I have no idea how deep it went - maybe about the same beneath the surface?  I remember vividly these street edgings as a kid cycling around town.  They were only used on the main streets, with the steel tapering to ground level once past the corner on most side streets.  I imagine they were a problem on several fronts; our local heavy equipment operators must have made a mess of them when snow clearing; any rough edge, or worse, resulting from that must have been a real hazard.  I don't recall if joints were welded, or lapped, but that would provide another hazardous discontinuity.  When installing/upgrading fire/water/storm/sewer infrastructure, they'd have to dig under without disrupting it, or cut and weld.  Also, when installed they were painted a forest green, not exactly high visibility.  Finally, they were prone to rusting (doh! we use tons and tons of salt every year!), and became a real eyesore in later years.

Just an interesting factoid!

Blair

1990...

I'm pretty sure that the "line in the sand" was the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990. Prior to that, it was a pretty unusual curb that was graded for wheelchairs, although they definitely did exist. I traveled extensively in the 80s and 90s and I remember a considerable change in the curbs over that time, although I did not take a modeler's eye or notebook to it. Certainly as a kid growing up in the 60s in various places around the Washington DC metro area I learned early to jump my bike up the curbs, because they rarely accommodated wheels in any other way.

Thank you for the interesting

Thank you for the interesting discussion and examples!

It seems that in LA which from what i read had/has high curb heights on average, at least in Colorado boulevard, they had those depressed corners (very different to the standardized they have now) even before the 40's. (Ok there is the scenario that the road goes up in height on the corners hence giving me the impression that the sidewalks are depressed, but that would seem odd).

On a different note, was there any typical situation/standard as far as sidewalk expansion joints? I do observe cases of 4' by 4' squares, and given a 15' width on the sidewalk of Colorado, something like 6' by 6'.

While walking around my

While walking around my neightborhood I took pictures of the corners I saw.  Scroll about 2/3 down the page to see what I saw. http://pattinson.net/wjp/pix/index.html

Further info...

Thank you Walt for the examples.

Upon further research of related photos and reading about... it seems that the sidewalks were not depressed, it was the parking lane that got elevated around the corners in order to cater for water drainage!

So i guess i ll just add 1 to 1.5mm plastic sheet on the corners in order to elevate the pedestrian walkways and have a smooth transition towards the apex of the roads (using putty & sanding). I guess this "higher" road surface was constructed in such a way so that there was no interference with the geometry of the driving lanes of the main road at an intersection. The secondary road did have a geometry interference anyway...

Back to designing the sidewalk corners (at least a few of them on Colorado).