Old Structures Engineering

Spring must be here: the blossoms are out.

This afternoon I will be attending the 2026 Preservation Conference of the Historic Districts Council, on the topic of “Making It In New York: The Preservation Of Manufacturing.” I’m expecting an interesting afternoon. As a bonus, one of the speakers, Cassandra Smith, works at a long-time client, the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center. GMDC is […]

Forest Hills Gardens in Queens was constructed as a rail suburb, taking advantage of the nearby main line of the Long Island Railroad, and was as centrally planned as any suburban development today. It was swallowed up by the growth of the city, and specifically by the growth of central Queens spurred by the construction […]

Last week, I was talking about a postcard showing the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge. From 1912, here’s the Brooklyn end: The photo that this was based on is probably a year or two older than that, since we should be seeing the Woolworth Building and we’re not. The curve to the approach was […]

It’s a cliché to state that land is expensive in Manhattan because it’s an island surrounded by large rivers and therefore the supply is inherently limited. That cliché is also, to a large degree, only partially true, particularly in the past. Taxpayers exist because the land is worth holding on to but isn’t so valuable […]

Ten years ago (!) I discussed[1] the restoration of a portion of the Saw Mill River in central Yonkers to something approaching its natural state, as it was before it was buried early in the 1900s. This was not a one-off project: similar attempts to re-established rivers and streams buried by people in the past […]

My first thought was to wonder why someone had been using spray-foam insulation in an abandoned building. Then I realized that wasn’t foam…it was growing.

I don’t go into the Port Authority Bus Terminal expecting to agree with the management on much, but on January 19, 2024, it was like they read my mind:

A good article on life in a city near sea level: “A Fifth of NYC Built on Bygone Water Now at Risk: Study Maps City’s ‘Blue Zones’” BY Samantha Maldonado. The source for much of the research cited in the article is “Blue Zones: Identifying Adaptation Opportunities UsingPast, Present, and Future Flooding in New York City” […]

This is not Artemis II: That’s Apollo 11. I have some vague memories from the summer of 1969, when I was four and a half, of watching the first moon landing on our black-and-white TV set. I certainly watched bits and pieces of the later Apollo missions, and Apollo-Soyuz in 1975, and Viking’s landing on […]

From 1911, a much-worn postcard showing Park Row: City Hall is off to the left, amongst the trees; the big stone building on the right is the old New York Times headquarters, although the Times had moved uptown to Longacre Square, renamed after them, seven years earlier. The light-colored building on the left with the […]

A photo of a tile arch floor from a 2018 site visit: Starting with the easy stuff: the hung ceiling was demolished shortly before we got there. The terra-cotta blocks are corrugated to act as lath for directly-applied plaster, but in this case the ceiling was on metal lath suspended below the vaults, so there […]

February 1, 1956, Max Hubacher shows us the demolition of the el, titled “42nd Street and 3rd Avenue, Manhattan”: The elevated steel structure ends abruptly about a block or two up the avenue, with the sun fittingly glaring on the street beyond. There are piles of demolition debris – wood and steel – on the […]

An outside-the-courthouse dramatic moment in a Daredevil comic: Looking south from the sidewalk in front of the New York County Courthouse at 60 Centre Street: The building with the colonnade at the left is 40 Center Street, the federal courthouse; the vaguely parklike area more visible in the drawing than street views is Foley Square […]

We use Slack for intraoffice communication. Even before Covid, when we were not working hybrid, people were often on site, away from their desks, so asynchronous communication was absolutely necessary. That does not mean that everything in our Slack discussion is life-and-death engineering… Two takes on the same topic, yesterday: exactly how self-absorbed are New […]

A circa-1811 postcard named after the Ansonia, one of the nicest apartment houses on the Upper West Side: The flip side extolls the virtues of a high-end apartment living: The only problem is that I can’t find the Ansonia in the photo. It’s a very large building, but it looks nothing like the only large […]

I will be taking part in a panel discussion this evening organized by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Structural Engineers Association of New York. Details: here. For the link-phobic, the title is “SEAoNY and Landmarks Preservation Commission – Panelist Discussion: Saving Historic Buildings: Strategies for Remediating Structural Deterioration” and the description at the SEAoNY […]

I’m almost done with the photos of the construction of the original IRT subway. This barely suburban scene is Broadway and 139th Street in 1901. The wood used in stabilizing the edges of the excavation – what we call “support of excavation” today – and the horses, and the wood-frame buildings, make this view look […]

We have been asked, many times, if it’s possible to reduce the noise from facade repair. The answer, in general, is not really. There’s no quiet way to remove masonry from a facade, or drill holes in it. The installation of new masonry is relatively quiet, but getting to the point where we’re ready to […]

There is a lot going on in this February 1, 1956, photo from Max Hubacher, titled “The Third Avenue Elevated being dismantled:” First, in the center middle distance is the title event: there’s a crane being used to remove the steel deck of what’s left of the el. We’re looking north on Third from just […]

From October 2018, as I was taking a train to Albany, the demolition of the old Tappan Zee Bridge, with the new bridge behind it: That’s a big floating crane because disassembling cantilever trusses needs both careful sequencing and the ability carry off big pieces. The truss portion of the old bridge is, of course, […]

In Ellie’s words, “Bumped into some old friends” on the way to the doc”: Our work as part of the team that restored the Nivola horses was not heavy engineering, but it’s still nice to see these little guys.

From 1908, a German postcard titled “New York From Hoboken”: The only buildings on the New York skyline that I’m entirely sure of are the Park Row Building (two spires, left and down from the car’s front right tire) and the St. Paul Building to its right. The photo that served as the basis for […]

I came across a source that may well have supplied some of the iron for the stoops I’ve been featuring: They have castings that look like some of the iron newel posts: And cast-iron handrails in case a wrought-iron handrail isn’t fancy enough for you: Random ornament: And balusters specifically called out as for stoops, […]

One block form last week’s IRT subway construction photo, we have Broadway and 135th Street in 1900: For some reason, there are relatively few construction photos at this stage. The trench has been dug, the foundation constructed, and the steel framing for the tunnel was erected, at least for about 75 feet of tunnel, but […]

From a factory converted to apartments forty years ago, a sign uncovered by interior removals: It used to be required to post such signs in industrial buildings, the same way we still post such signs in elevators. Whether or not we can believe the sign is another matter… Let’s start with the magnitude of load. […]