Pondering Problems

You Boston Chapel coworkers who were there in 1960 quickly sensed the posting found on the Chapel front door posed serious problems:

"NOTICE: Existing City of Boston policy places liability upon a property owner for failure to maintain a sidewalk grating in a reasonably safe condition. The Village Street grating adjacent to your building is missing. If this unsafe condition is not corrected within 7 days from the date of this Notice, you may be issued an official citation for not maintaining the grate, resulting in a cumulative daily fine until the violation is corrected. For further information, call this City number
_____________."

We went to the side of the building and looked. The iron grate was missing from the middle of the sidewalk. A gaping 1-1/2 by 2- foot hole was staring up at us, presenting problems both pressing and perplexing that would have challenged some star students of Dr. Mel-Thomas Rothwell's logic class. Boston Irishman who answered the City phone said we would have to find a foundry that makes iron grating for sidewalks. "The Boston Redevelopment Agency now handles sidewalk grates and any other out of code issues with South End properties," he said, "and they'll tell you they don't have grates. You'll have to go to a foundry."

Some major elements of the problem:

1. We did not want anyone to be injured by stepping into the 3 square foot hole, and night time was approaching. Compounding this concern, there were neighborhood stories of parents sending children in front of moving cars, and seeking personal injury awards through similar litigation or claims;
2. A foundry special order of a sidewalk grate could prove very costly;
3. Even if the iron grate were replaced, the new grate might similarly disappear, and then what? Endless recurrence?;
4. Dealing with the Boston Redevelopment Agency (BRA), whose plans included soon demolishing the Chapel's entire neighborhood, seemed pointless;
5. The threatened impending, ongoing, fine from the City definitely needed to be avoided.

As you might imagine, it was Merle Fetter who speedily solved the problem, with a 6 foot length of 2"x6" stair tread lumber. Merle was an accomplished carpenter even before coming to college. The three equal pieces of wood he saw-cut fit snugly into the 2 foot by one and 1/2 foot hole, flush with the surrounding concrete City sidewalk. Ancient Biblical craftsman Noah may have been smiling widely in heaven as Boston Chapel Associate Pastor/Sunday School Superintendent Merle Fetter rapidly remedied a huge Boston Chapel problem with just 1.111111111116 square cubits of wood, turning a grating problem for the Chapel into a wooden walk-over that worked out fine.