What kind of street is the "closed, hard" street?

Question

What kind of street is the "closed, hard" street in the following paragraph?

When had things gone wrong between us? Was it after my brother Michael was born, when I stopped serving her "tea" inside a hollowed-out bush in Oxford’s University Parks? Was it the day I was five and she strolled away from me on the Woodstock Road, pushing Michael ahead in his pram, leaving me bereft on the closed, hard street to run alone, weeping, back to our locked brick row house on Thorncliffe Road, because I’d stamped my foot and argued with her about which playground to visit?

This is in this book.

Answer 1

Mirriam-Webster defines closed as "not operating or open to the public". Given the context of bereft ("lacking something needed, wanted, or expected") relating to the protagonist's companion, I would interpret this as empty, lonely or desolate. With regards to hard, again given the context I would not think this related to the street being paved, but to the environment being "harsh" or "difficult to bear or endure".

To me the wording conjures up an image of the protaganist left sad and lonely and unsymapthetic environment.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bereft

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/closed

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hard