Far And Near
The nature of Manhattan is such that you sometimes can’t see a building you know is nearby and you can
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.
Four Circles In Search Of A Tangent
From the NYPL photo album of the construction of the IRT subway 1900-1904, here are four pictures titled “59th Street
From A Distance
From the Wurts Brothers, “General View – Manhattan – Aerial view – Park Avenue – Broadway – looking south”: The
A Period Of Transition
Speaking of the orphaned triangle of land at the southeast corner of Union Square, here it is, in the foreground
All I Wanted Was A Picture Of Snow
From the Bain News Service, “Snowstorm N.Y.”: Nice. The Library of Congress website says it’s February 14, 1914, based on
A Rational Decision
I was in the City Hall subway station yesterday, and there were a number of sparrows in there with me.
Buildings Without Windows 4
In this case, a building without real windows. This building, on Joralemon Street near Hicks Street in Brooklyn Heights, is
Not Black Gold
From the photos of the IRT subway construction, a 1901 view labelled “Central Park.” The original line did not cross
Yeah, But
The title from the Wurts Brothers is “Parks – City Hall Park”: City Hall is a real park in the
Buildings Without Windows 3
Without leaving Manhattan, we now enter tin-foil-hat territory. The largest building without windows that I know of in New York
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Our office is closed today for the national holiday. For some local events and commemoration: here.
Touristy
Just a photo from a rooftop in Brooklyn Heights.
It Looked Familiar: Oblique
In the foreground bottom three quarters of the view, Bucky Barnes – the Winter Soldier – gets up to some
Buildings Without Windows 2
A bit north of the Cliff Street Substation, and a bit south of the Greenwich Substation is a building with
Buildings Without Windows 1
If you walk around the city enough, you become familiar with a series of buildings – or objects that are
Unrecognizable
IRT subway construction, for the original line, in 1901: Half the street is open for the cut-and-cover tunnel construction. We’ve
Another Detail
From the Wurts Brothers, in 1900, a view of the Lake in Central Park: The photographer did something quite clever:
If I Knew Then What I Know Now
I was on East Houston Street a few years ago and took a picture of some old work: See the
It Looked Familiar: Deco
In the Marvel universe, a bad guy is plotting bad things in an apartment house called the Sankovitch Arms: The
Credit Where Due
The photo is from 2019, so this comment is a bit delayed, but that’s an example of a modern facade