Looking Closer

A nice day in Tribeca, and a couple of old buildings with a shared retail space: Unlike in Soho, further north and generally built up somewhat later, masonry-front buildings are common in Tribeca. The red brick and sandstone of the building on the right is good example. That beautiful rusticated stone on the left deserves a closer look… That is some truly incredibly regular stone work for a mid-1800s industrial buildings. And so perfectly unweathered… Yeah, no, it’s all cast iron, built in 1870. It has been reasonably well maintained, so no rust stains. Most cast-iron facades were made to look like masonry but have proportions that would have been unrealistic for masonry at the time: the windows are too big and there’s not enough pier or spandrel panel. In this case, the proportions are pretty much exactly what you’d expect if this were limestone or Tuckahoe marble veneer with brick back-up. As a result, this facade is a much more believable fake than most of its cast-iron…