Structural Analysis Is Where You Find It

One of my weirder old projects…The Verdi Monument at Verdi Square, which is the narrow triangle[1] bounded by Broadway on the west-southwest, Amsterdam Avenue on the east, and 73rd Street on the north, as photographed by Max Hubacher on April 27, 1961: The composer Giuseppe Verdi is on the high plinth in the middle, surrounded by characters from his operas. That’s Falstaff on the left, Leonora on the right, and Aida and Otello are on the other side, hidden at this angle by the base. The base is granite and the figures marble; the monument was completed in 1906, shortly after the IRT subway opened under Broadway. The monument was restored in the 1990s. So far, so good. The 72nd Street station on the IRT – the original line, and then starting in the 1910s, the Seventh Avenue line – has always been an express stop. Frankly, its original design stank, in the sense that the island platforms and stairs were too narrow and led to only one exit, a small headhouse in the Sherman Square, the…