Walkway

The corrosion of I-beams may have caused the collapse of a second-story walkway at the Ascot Motel yesterday morning, inspectors said. No injuries were reported, but firefighters had to use ladders to bring down some of the 20 guests on the second floor of the $39-a-night motel. The rest of the four-story motel's 53 occupied rooms were evacuated after the 6 a.m. collapse. "It was scary. You looked down, and there was nowhere to go," said Eliza Bowen, 47, whose room was several doors from the collapse, which occurred over the manager's office near a stairway and in front of two guest rooms.

AVON, N.J. - Many Jersey Shore towns pummeled by Hurricane Sandy have been racing to rebuild their beachfronts and boardwalks for the summer season. But things have not gone so smoothly in this Monmouth County town. Unlike its next-door neighbor, Belmar, which already has rebuilt nearly half its boardwalk, Avon is lagging, dogged by its on-again, off-again handling of a deal to rebuild a boardwalk restaurant, a court injunction over an eighth-of-an-inch difference in the size of boards between one company's bid and another's, and a protest by environmentalists over the town's plan to use rain-forest wood to rebuild the walkway.

Advocates for bicyclists and pedestrians have launched a last-minute effort to restore funding for a proposed ramp to the Ben Franklin Bridge walkway. Plans for a $3.2 million ramp on the Camden side of the bridge were not included in the 2012 capital budget approved Wednesday by the Delaware River Port Authority finance committee. The full DRPA board will vote on the budget Wednesday. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia on Friday asked the DRPA board to restore the money and launched an online petition drive to gather signatures of supporters of the ramp.

The Admiral Wilson Boulevard reopened to traffic yesterday, as state transportation officials began to assess the cost of removing and possibly replacing a pedestrian bridge that collapsed onto the roadway Saturday when a recycling truck hit it. Officials already have tallied between $20,000 and $30,000 to remove the fallen overpass from the roadway, said state Department of Transportation spokesman John Dourgarian. The bridge came crashing to the ground shortly before noon when it was struck by a truck owned by Harrison Avenue Recycling of Camden.

The names etched in windows along the refurbished central walkway of St. Mary's Hall are a sharp contrast to those that high-school seniors once carved into the glass with their diamond class rings on graduation day. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, young women who attended the former boarding school tested the authenticity of their gems by scratching their names into windows, creating life-long tributes to their school days, said Peggy...

First, the flame. Then the flagstones. Two years ago, the eternal flame - Washington Square's gas-lit Revolutionary War monument whose sputtering existence in the last two decades ignited more exasperation than inspiration - was lit again. For good. These days, it's a bright lick of light burning in a stainless-steel bowl, a round-the-clock reminder of the first army to take up arms for this country. Now, say Fairmount Park commissioners, begins the next step in restoring Washington Square's luster: bringing a mountain's worth of stone to the eight-acre square in Society Hill to replace a battered walkway that has withstood six decades of tourists and residents.

As Camden County Parks and Recreation chief Bart Mueller describes it, his son was warned. Almost a dozen years ago, when he was a boy, Bret Mueller went fishing at Haddon Lake for carp. As Mueller recalls it, his son was told to hold on to his fishing pole at all times. If the boy was not careful, a hooked fish might swim off with it. Which, of course, is exactly what happened. "My son was one of many people to lose their fishing poles in that lake," Mueller said recently.

Question: How can I remove the moss from my brick walkway? Answer: Power washing will usually work, but you want to use pressure below 3,000 pounds per square inch so you don't chip the brick. Brick is porous and comparatively soft, and a little too much pressure can easily damage the surface. Experts recommend removing moss while it is growing. Algae and moss thrive in shady spots, so you might want to trim back bushes and tree limbs to let more light in. You may have to clean your walkway frequently to keep up with the moss.

It's not the Big Bad Wolf. Rather, it is rabid animals, deer ticks and unruly teens at the core of some parents' fears. The Downingtown school board opened discussions Wednesday on a proposed walkway connecting the Bradford Glen development and West Bradford elementary school. More than 100 parents attended to point out the risks they believe such a walkway might create. Several residents took turns lambasting board members for the very notion of the walkway, a 0.4-mile-long paved path that would cut through dense woods and cost about $45,000.

Track supporters here are hoping a Walkway of Champions consisting of individual bricks paid for by supporters will help restore the high school's crumbling track. The Willingboro Track Revitalization Project, a nonprofit group made up of track parents and community members, will soon be selling engraved bricks to help pay for a new track at Willingboro High School's Carl Lewis Stadium. The existing track is in disrepair and was closed because of liability concerns last spring.