Dining Out on Main Street

Here in Nashua, NH, the holiday weekend brought a new look to the city's downtown as a lot many Jersey barriers were placed along both sides of Main Street. That's because as of last Monday, March 18, local restaurants were allowed to expand their take-out offerings and include outside dining (with restrictions). Inside dining is still not allowed.

This, of course, inspired the punster in Grenville to come up with several creative tag lines, for example, There's No Barrier in Coming Downtown or his personal favorite, Eat The Street in Nashua. 

This latest development came about as City of Nashua officials recognized that local eateries, which offered inside and outside spring and summer dining on city sidewalks, needed more space as inside dining would not be allowed because of the corona virus health restrictions.

To achieve that goal, city officials made the decision to convert Main Street into a two-lane roadway with a single line of traffic in either direction. So the Jersey barriers came to Nashua, NH this past Friday morning.

What’s a Jersey Barrier? (for those wondering)

A Jersey barrier, also called a Jersey wall, is a modular concrete or plastic barrier often used to separate lanes of traffic. Jersey barriers can reroute traffic and protect pedestrians and workers during highway construction. 

More recently, they’ve been used as temporary and semi-permanent protection against land-borne attacks like suicide vehicle bombs. The California Department of Transportation refers to a Jersey barrier as a K-rail, a specification for temporary concrete traffic barriers, or as a Jersey bump. There's always a Jersey connection even in CA.

Why it's called a Jersey barrier . . .

Because, just like Grenville and myself, Jersey barriers are native to to the state of New Jersey. 

The Jersey barrier was developed either in 1946 or in the 1950s (more on when and who later) under the direction of the New Jersey State Highway Department as a way to divide multiple highway lanes. In 1959, it was introduced in its current form when its usefulness as temporary barriers became more widespread. The barriers are now used in road construction as a generic, portable barrier during construction projects, temporary traffic rerouting for carpools, and for reversing busy highway lanes during rush hour traffic.

Earlier barriers erected in 1949 were put in to stop head-on collisions when cars crossed highway medians that were as narrow as nine feet across. Many of the original barriers built in NJ in the 1950s and early 1960s weren’t modular, like now, but poured in place, like curbing. Some early NJ installations were shorter, about 2 feet high. Dividers on county and local roads that replaced a raised concrete rumble strip intended to discourage, but not prevent, traffic from crossing to another lane, were even shorter. In time, these were replaced by higher barriers. Taller barriers had the added advantage of blocking most oncoming headlights. 

How large is a Jersey barrier?

It’s not small. The usual concrete barricade size is 10 feet long x 24 inches wide x 32 inches high and made of steel-reinforced poured concrete or plastic. Many are built with an embedded steel reinforcement on each end, and can be included in permanent emplacements when linked together by concrete. The weight of each is about 4,000 pounds when the construction is steel-reinforced concrete; plastic barriers are lighter.

Who invented them is less concrete (pardon the pun) . . .

The New Jersey Department of Transportation gives that credit to William Van Breeman, a state research engineer. An official account of the barrier’s history stated that Van Breeman conceived the original parabolic shape in 1949. Van Breeman was widely recognized for his contributions in improving basic pavement systems. 

A schematic drawing of an early Jersey barrier offered 

no clues to the design’s inventor

Van Breeman was widely recognized for his contributions in improving basic pavement systems. According to the NJ records, he conceived the barrier's design without modern engineering formulas, extensive testing and certainly without a computer or CAD (computer-aided design) program. 

Van Breeman has competition for the barrier concept too. There's another contender — Charles M. Noble, an engineer, who headed New Jersey's State Highway Department from 1946 to 1949, when the earliest version of the Jersey barrier was thought to have been developed. (I wasn't able to locate much online information about this claim compared to Van Breeman.)

Yet a third claim for the barrier's invention comes from the prestigious Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken NJ. The university claims that the earliest barrier versions were designed and developed at there in 1946, three years before Van Breeman’s design. 

Even if that claim is disputed, the NJ university, named for inventor Edwin A. Stevens, has other claims to fame. Stevens was the first major U.S. educational institution to require that students purchase personal computers for classroom use. It also lays claims to designing steamboats, locomotives, and railroad tracks. Stevens alumni invented IMAP (the modern form of email) and bubble wrap. Another Stevens graduate, sculptor Alexander Caldor is credited with inventing the kinetic mobile. Stevens has plenty of other bragging rights.

Whether Van Breeman or Noble fathered the Jersey barrier or if it was designed at Stevens Institute remains unclear even now. When NJ closed its state transportation library in the 1980s, many records were discarded. And, Van Breeman can’t be asked as he died in 1977 at the age of 75.

Who dubbed it a Jersey Barrier?

That’s not exactly clear as NJ state transportation records from the 1950s and 1960s refer to them as concrete median barriers, or center barriers. It’s thought that whoever termed it as a Jersey barrier wasn’t a NJ native but someone who named it after the state where it originated.

As stated earlier, there's always a NJ connection and now it's here in downtown Nashua.

Once restaurants started setting out tables and chairs from Water to Hollis streets, we and others could start enjoying many of our favorite Main St. Courses. And, as before,  that pun was another one of Grenville's creations.

It didn't take most of the downtown restaurants long to start expanding their serving areas after the barriers were in place. These two eateries, Casa Mezcal and Oddfellows Pub Brewery, are almost next door neighbors on Main Street.

Servers must wear masks at all times and customers must don them when entering the restaurant to use restroom facilities. Social distancing between seatings is to be enforced. 

Martha's Exchange is one of our favorite places to enjoy a burger, something we do not prepare at home. We dined there on the sidewalk last Monday, before the expansion.

Fratello's is a very popular Italian restaurant which has the advantage of a corner location. We have spent a number of Happy Hours inside with mill apartment neighbors.

Stella Bleu has a dual advantage of being on a one-way side street and also away from most of the Main Street traffic. We've never eaten at this restaurant which is on our dining out radar in the next few weeks. There's so many choices; we'll space out the dining out times.

The plan is to keep barriers in place at least through summer months and possibly into the early fall. There's no word on when restaurants will be allowed to permit inside dining.

Nashua's Department of Public Works (DPW) is expecting that the revised traffic pattern will cause more traffic. DPW has already recommended that motorists try to find another way around to get downtown.

Grenville has already staked out a seat at one of places we plan to visit soon.

UPDATE: Thanks for all your comments/feedback on what the City of Nashua is doing to help local eateries. There are very few retail stores located on Main Street now compared to years ago when there were clothing and furniture stores, a hardware store and auto dealers. Today, aside from two jewelry stores, banks, wine store, and two retail pharmacies, most of the downtown business consists of restaurants and/or breweries.