All Sorts Of New Technology

Part of the facade of 226 West Broadway, in Tribeca:

Glazed terra cotta was not new in 1912, when the building was constructed, although it’s not common to see it used for the entire facade of a small building like this. It looks, in my opinion, quite nice, and has either been restored or has not suffered from weathering as badly as larger terra-cotta-clad buildings of that era. There’s almost certainly a steel lintel above the big central door and that area doesn’t look like it’s been rebuilt. The big central door is where we segue into what is that written on the facade? (Note that the text is not engraved. It was cast into the terra cotta which means that the use of Vs for Us – originally used by the Romans to simplify carving inscriptions by eliminating some curves – is purely an affectation.)

The Department of Water Supply, Gas, and Electricity was exactly what it sounds like, a previous incarnation of what is now the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. The “Headquarters High Pressure Service” needs a little more explanation. Starting in the 1890s, the Fire Department was complaining, with cause, that the existing tools for fighting fires were inadequate for the very tall buildings that were being constructed in the city. Eventually a second water system, in parallel to the regular water supply, was put in place in high-risk areas (Lower Manhattan, and the intensely-flammable amusement-park area of Coney Island, for example). The high-pressure system had its own, specially-marked hydrants, that could supply more water at a higher pressure than the regular gravity-feed hydrants.