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Politics & Government

Update: East Side's 'Wall of Jericho' Comes Tumbling

The saga of the half wall on East Side Drive continues to play out in bits and pieces.

For a long time, the half wall along East Side Drive seemed to have a half life, like uranium.

It came down in bits and pieces, but every time it was sliced, there was still that pesky piece remaining.

That ended Thursday, when the last piece of the wall was removed by the city of Geneva. On Friday morning, yellow sawhorses mark the wall's passing.

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The goes back at least to October 2010, when the wall—located along the detention basin across the street from Good Templar Park—started crumbling. It had been slowly tilting west, pushed by gravity and the settling berms that separate the open field from the sidewalk.

The half wall was once a handsome gateway, but it started to become a bit of an eyesore. Some added to the problem in November 2010.

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Former 3rd Ward Alderman Ray Pawlak did some research and found that the half wall was the city's responsibility to maintain. Former that in a note to Geneva Patch.

The city decided it would be best to take the wall down rather than try to restore it. Work was delayed last fall because of concerns about the grass being able to grow back late in the season. Removal got pushed back again this summer when the hit the city like a plague of locusts.

The past few months, the half wall wasn't pretty but it wasn't a safety risk, either, as it might have been when it was crumbling. So it's hard to get too worked up about the fact that it took more than a year for the city of Geneva to remove it.

I live in the part of town where the half wall stood, and I remember when it stood proudly. I have fond memories of our kids balancing on it like miniature tightrope walkers when they were toddlers, and more recently, our dog AJ doing likewise—a dog in reality but a kid at heart.

Now that the East Side "Wall of Jericho" is finally gone, we lament its passing. And in parting, we sing its theme song.

Then the lamb, ram,
Sheep horns began to blow,
And the trumpets began to sound,
Joshua told the children to shout that morning
And the walls came tumbling down!

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