SPRINGFIELD — It was a scene that has played out time and time again across the city: On Thursday morning, a group of Department of Public Works employees clad in neon yellow t-shirts had poured a new sidewalk in front of a house on Littleton Street in the Liberty Heights neighborhood.
Using hand tools, they worked on the wet concrete, smoothing it before it hardened into a walkable surface.
For six years, the Department of Public Works’ sidewalk crew works on between 86 to 120 sidewalks a year, according to foreman Samuel Acevedo.
Their goal? To make the city as walkable as possible.
It’s an effort that is a priority for Mayor Domenic J. Sarno’s administration, which highlighted the crew’s work as one of the city’s investments in its proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year.
“We do as much as we can,” said Edgar Rivera, cement finisher on the sidewalk crew.
Rivera has worked for the Department of Public Works for four years. Before joining the sidewalk crew, he said he, like many others, didn’t give much consideration to what went into fixing up a sidewalk.
He said he joined the crew as a laborer with no prior experience in construction work and now he says he gained a useful skill born from experience.
“The more you do it, I feel like the more you have a finesse with the concrete,” Rivera said.
Acevedo said the main issue is that residents think that, because they called the Department of Public Works, their sidewalk is going to be worked on right away. He said the crew works on about two sidewalks a day, each of which take about two hours to dry.
“There are 2,000 streets in the city,” he said. “We try to move and stay busy, but we also have jobs we have to do. Just because we’re in this neighborhood doesn’t mean we can do everything on the street.”
Despite this, Acevedo said they usually receive positive feedback from residents.
For instance, Alexis DeJesus, who lives nearby and was working on his car when the sidewalk crew was finishing up, said he respects the crew’s work, noting that a few workers stopped to talk to him and ask if he needed any work done on the sidewalk along his street.
“I think they’re doing a good job,” DeJesus said.
Meanwhile, it’s not just adults who notify the city of sidewalks in need of repair. In mid-June, Simon Berthiaume,14, wrote to Phillip Dromey, deputy director of planning, as part of a school project, describing how the trees in his East Forest Park neighborhood caused the sidewalks to lift.
Simon wrote that his grandmother had fallen several times over the uneven paths.
“The damaged sidewalk is a safety hazard and could cause injury,” Simon wrote. “In Springfield, there is a lot of foot traffic, especially in poorer neighborhoods. In a place where so many people regularly use the sidewalks you would think that local government would pay more attention to the quality of the paths.”
Simon’s mother, Amanda Berthiaume, said she had no idea her child sent the letter, but then an arborist and workers came by the house shortly after. The sidewalk, she said, was fixed within two weeks.
Back at Littleton Street, the crews finished smoothing the new sidewalk. As the rest of the crew moved on to the next sidewalk assignment — a location in the Forest Park neighborhood — sidewalk crewmembers Mervin Sanchez and Steven Jankeiwicz hung back to put one more detail sidewalk: pressing the segment grooves into the wet concrete.
