Saw the weirdest concrete job at the new park in Cedar Rapids

They poured a huge slab for a picnic area, but the finishers left these perfect, tiny handprints all along one edge, like a kid just walked through it. It's been cured for weeks now, so they're permanent. Who lets that happen on a city contract? Has anyone ever had to fix something like that, or do you just call it 'art' and move on?

3 comments

3 Comments

rowan_wells671mo ago

Hang on @evan151 I gotta jump in here because I think the sizing thing is actually the easiest part to figure out. Little kid hands leave a very specific spread where the fingers are short and stubby, like a chubby toddler paw. Adult small hands are more elongated and slender, the fingers are longer relative to the palm. If you look at the distance between the wrist imprint and the tip of the middle finger that should tell you right away. But honestly the bigger question nobody is asking is why nobody caught it before the concrete set. Like that's a whole crew standing there watching a kid walk through wet cement. I've seen guys try to fix stuff like this by grinding it down or filling it with matching slurry but it never looks right unless you resurface the whole slab. City probably just calls it a feature and moves on because nobody wants to pay for a re-pour over some tiny handprints.

evan1513mo ago

Wait, are they little kid sized or like, adult small? That detail changes everything.

felix_jones3mo ago

Actually used to think it didn't matter, but @evan151 is right. Kid sized means they're basically dolls, adult small means they're just tiny people. That's a huge difference for how you see the whole story.