Almost Isn’t Good Enough

That’s a picture of a handrail where the riverfront walkway meets a wood pseudo-pier. (“Pseudo” because I’ve never seen any kind of boat docked there but I have seen a fair number of sunbathers there.) The upper portions of the handrail are in good condition and have been repainted not so long ago; the embedded portions are obviously rusting. Rust-jacking from the expansion of the embedded bottoms has split the end piece of granite on an almost straight line.

There’s a certain irony here: the part of the handrail that’s easily maintained (because it’s in the open air) is the part that could have some rust without real damage. The part that is difficult to maintain (because it’s embedded in stone) is the part where rust was destructive. I suspect that the embedded part wasn’t properly prepared before the steel and granite were assembling, not because I have any specific knowledge about this handrail but because that’s a common problem. I don’t know if people think embedment is watertight and airtight and therefore will protect the steel – it’s not – or if they just don’t care. In most cases it’s a concrete curb that suffers; in this case it’s a piece of granite more expensive than the entire steel rail.

The damage shows the wisdom of an ancient technique used by masons. How do you split a stone if you don’t have power tools? One method, developed a long, long time ago, is to make small holes in a line by drilling or chipping, and then insert wood pegs. Wet the pegs and their expansion can split stone. In this case, the expansion of rust takes the place of the expansion of wood.

To be fair, this area was submerged for a day or so during Hurricane Sandy. But I have to assume that, as an outdoor handrail located about ten feet from the Hudson River, people understood that it was going to get wet.