A file photo from WTNH showing Caroline Street before the Belgian blocks were removed.
DERBY – The Board of Aldermen/Alderwomen voted unanimously on Nov. 14 to use Belgian blocks taken from Caroline Street in a future project downtown. Just how they will be used is still to be decided.
“The (Belgian blocks) are part of Derby’s history, and we plan on using them by the tub wheels near the Derby-Shelton Bridge,” Mayor Joseph DiMartino told The Valley Indy. “There are thousands of them that were removed and preserved and there was never a question not to use them.”
The board’s action at its Nov. 14 meeting didn’t specify just how the blocks are going to be used, but DiMartino said they will be incorporated in some way on the south side of Main Street/Route 34, where the state is expanding the road and new housing is being built.
Until 2017 the blocks formed the road bed on part of Caroline Street in downtown Derby.
They were removed under former Mayor Anita Dugatto’s administration because they were damaging plows in the winter and made the road slippery.
The Dugatto administration promised to make the blocks part of some type of display once the Route 34/Main Street widening project was done. The blocks have remained in storage since.
Just how the blocks will be used remains to be seen. They’re tricky to work with, Derby Department of Publics Works Director Mike Piscioneri recently told an Aldermanic subcommittee.
“Those blocks are so worn, that when they get wet, they’re like glass and very slippery,” Piscioneri told the committee. “I don’t think they would be a good fit for a sidewalk or walkway. They could be used for a sidewalk border. I don’t have a final call on that, but that’s my opinion.”
Resident Jack Walsh has been an advocate for preserving both the blocks and old industrial tub wheels that were discovered underground after a building was demolished on Main Street. The wheels once provided electricity to Derby mills in the 1800s.
The blocks, Walsh said, represent an important connection to Derby’s maritime past because they were used as ballast in ships that would dock in Derby.
“They are such a valuable piece of the history of Derby,” Walsh said.
Alderman Rob Hyder agreed that preserving the blocks and putting them to good reuse is the right thing to do.
“I think regardless of how they’re used they have to be used down there (south side of Main Street),” Hyder said. “It’d be a travesty not to use them. It’s part of our history, and whether it be a sidewalk or a border we absolutely have to have those presented downtown.”
Determining the future use of the blocks will ultimately require approval from the BOA/BOAA. The subcommittee requested that future designs come back to them for a review and input before going back to the BOA/BOAA for final approval.
