Open letter to local stone masons

A solid low-stone retaining wall is about to become part of history (probably tomorrow). Do you know any stone masons in DC who could use this material? Let them know as soon as you can! Read on for more...

Titan of Trinidad noted that the church at the corner of 14th and Maryland NE has finally been demolished. This is the first step in the construction of the new "Maia" apartment building that will be built in its place.

I'm writing about the detritus of the construction project, though. As you can see from these pictures, there are thousands of bricks, many of them already broken into shards, remaining on site. There are many who would gladly take solid, century-old bricks to reuse them for other projects, but I'm afraid that it's probably too late for most of these solid pieces of history. We don't value recycling and reusing in this society to the extent that we should.

I'm concerned about this stone retaining wall that encircles much of the property. Surely the demolition crews will be removing it very soon. This is the kind of thing that simply isn't built these days - people use cheap cinder block construction for retaining walls instead.

There must be a stone mason in the DC area that would be interested in getting their hands on this material. I imagine someone could take this wall apart relatively quickly (certainly not as fast as a backhoe, but let's be realistic here!) and reuse the material elsewhere.

If you're reading this and you know someone who might fit this description, please pass the story along. I'd love to see some of this material reused instead of becoming backfill for a pit somewhere.