Out Of Place

Part of investigating buildings is simply recognizing when something is wrong. If something looks wrong, it may mean that there’s a problem, or it may mean that there was an old renovation. Case in point, a random building I walked by in the South Slope:

First thing that’s wrong: what is that weird drum on top of the corner turret? A lot of victorian-era buildings with turrets have pointy hats over them, and this could be the base of one of such a hat.

Second thing that’s wrong: the vertically-striped or corrugated siding on the turret. That’s just not a thing with a building from the 1890s/1890s/1900s. Sheet metal was absolutely used in facades: look at the sheet-metal cornice and the fascia below the cornice for what it looked like.

Third thing that’s maybe wrong, that is a weird store entrance at the base of the turret.

As is so often true, the mystery disappears when you look at an old photo. Here’s the 1940 tax photo, when the building was 60 years old or a bit less, some 85 years ago:

Note that (a) the turret has a pointy hat, (b) the turret walls appear to be figured sheet metal much like the cornice and fascia, and (c) the store-entrance at the bottom of the turret looks much the same. Note that the fascia at the top of the storefront looks to be another band of sheet metal.

So, my working theory, which can only be confirmed by some slightly-destructive probing that, I have found, people object to when you’re not actually the engineer for the building: (a) over time, the pointy hat was leaking or damaged by winds, and it since it served no purpose other decoration, it was removed; (b) the sheet-metal skin of the turret, over time, developed leaks and the easiest way to address them was to overclad the old sheet metal with the new vertically-striped sheet metal, and (c) the walls above the storefront appear to be supported on two cantilever spandrel beams, one on each face, that are supported on the masonry past the big windows and on a pair of columns flanking the corner door.