Forever
I have a mixed review of “NYC’s bridges can last ‘forever,’ if we take care of them” by Clayton Guse
Journal
Our work with old buildings has us studying a lot of different topics in addition to structural engineering – for example, architecture, history, and historic preservation – and we like sharing stories about what we’ve found.
Envy, History, and a Mistake
From the Wurts Brothers, a tenant directory at 250 Park Avenue: (Note that the photo date is listed as “1887
Lonely
From 1930, a postcard[1] titled “View from the Woolworth Tower looking West, New York City”: It’s a little strange that
An Unsolvable But Not Too Serious Problem
I’ve probably mentioned this issue before, but in September 2025 I came across the perfect illustration of it, so here
It Looked Familiar: Another Project
A recent magazine cover: Central Park West past the reservoir, with 285 Central Park West on the left: That photo
The Mysteries Of Travel
From last year’s trip to Lausanne… When you build a city on a bunch of steep hills, you have to
Off To Indianapolis
I will be in Indianapolis next week for the annual conference of the Association for Preservation Technology International. It’s a
It’s All Swedish To Me
From 1904, a postcard[1] sent from New York to St. Louis. Starting with the back side: I can’t make out
Trippy
I was minding my own business in Noho when this building forced me to look at it: Completed in 1883,
Before Trailer Homes
Yet another trip down a rabbit hole courtesy of a random trip to a National Park Service web page: 1906
An Edge Case…In The Middle
When I started my research into old skyscrapers, I faced a chicken-and-egg problem. What is a skyscraper? is one of
Pick Your Poison
An apartment house in Greenwich Village, looking rather outer-boroughish: Something funny at the corner…oh, it’s a whole bunch of cell
It Looked Familiar: Pointy
Batman strikes a pose with a skyscraper in the background: I was walking down Lexington Avenue and thought to myself
Once Incredibly Common
The fact that I have to explain what this is would have astonished New Yorkers of the late nineteenth century.
More Contrasty Stuff
From 1908, “Lower Manhattan from Governors Island – The City of Skyscrapers – Made possible by the development of the
Tracing The Info
A minor example of a common trail for building research: Starting with a Wurts Brothers photo of a street… Note
The Astor Building 9
This series ends here – neither with a bang nor a whimper – at the end of the sequence of
Attribution
Various streets in the outer boroughs used to be roads for long-distance (as defined in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries)
Fooled Ya
The east side of Broadway, just above Houston Street: On the right, an obviously modern building. On the left, a
Unexpected Beauty
A random two-story commercial building in Queens, with a big chimney for its boiler flue: Closer: It took amazingly little