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ST. LOUIS SOLDIERS MEMORIAL WILL FINALLY GET
WHEELCHAIR RAMP -- "I want to apologize for
this
not being done sooner. You deserve more."
St. Louis Soldiers Memorial
Background with backlinks here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/
nf07/nfJAN07/nf010807-6.htm
Story here...
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/
news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story
/DE94DACCE33E7DB9862572F
5001B67EA?OpenDocument
Story below:
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Memorial access • Ramp's coming at long last
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay had promised quick construction of a
wheelchair ramp at Soldiers Memorial downtown, and on Thursday he
offered a mea culpa to the disabled veterans who have been dogging his
administration about the problem for three years.
"I want to apologize for this not being done sooner," Slay said at the
groundbreaking ceremony for the new ramp. "You deserve more."
Access for disabled people at the city-owned landmark was the topic of
the inaugural On Your Side column, back on Sept. 10, and it has been the
subject of several follow-ups in this space.
People with disabilities used to be able to get inside the memorial and
military museum using an old-fashioned wheelchair lift — a mechanical
platform connected to a railing on the building's north steps. But the
lift broke on Memorial Day 2004, trapping Stanley Brown, a retired Army
colonel, until he could be rescued by firefighters.
Brown, president of the Gateway Chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of
America, started a campaign to make the memorial accessible again. He
wrote letters to city officials, tried to get the news media to cover
the story, organized like-minded veterans and filed a federal complaint
arguing that Soldiers Memorial was in violation of the Americans with
Disabilities Act.
An earlier ramp proposal was rejected by preservationists who thought it
would detract from the memorial's design. The new plan calls for a
switchback ramp that will blend more with the memorial's stonework. Work
should be finished by August.
At $250,000, the project isn't going to be cheap. But the city is
getting help from Paric Corp. of O'Fallon, Mo., which will provide
general contracting work for free. The city is seeking other donations
for the project, and Slay said the public-private partnership might be a
model for other improvements to the run-down Soldiers Memorial.
Brown was present at the memorial Thursday when Slay announced the ramp
would be built this summer, and the old soldier was singled out by the
mayor and thanked for "taking the lead on this."
Brown and the other disabled veterans and activists present at the event
couldn't be part of the photo-op — a silver shovel affair held on a
landing between flights of granite stairs. They sat in their wheelchairs
at street level, eight steps below.
But Brown didn't seem to mind. And he's not bitter about how long it has
taken for the project to get started. "If there's one thing I've learned
since being in a wheelchair, it's patience," he said.
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Larry Scott --
