Before Iron
The photo above, from the NYPL digital archive, shows South William Street (AKA a block from our office) in the
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.
Reality Is Better Looking
Above, another hotel appointment card, this time from the Gilsey House. The hotel was completed in 1871, with that incredible cast-iron
It Looked Familiar: An Alternate Past
Comic books are essentially a fantasy medium, which makes it easy for the writers to create alternate pasts and futures.
Me And My Shadow
One nice thing about fire escapes: they let you get photos from a position that is effectively floating in midair
Elsewhere in the Archipelago
After more than 30 years, it will soon be possible for the public to again visit Hart Island, at least on some days
Residential Conversion and a Mirror
Office-to-residential conversion is a hot topic lately, the result of a tight housing market and the remote-work depression in commercial
Less Than Artistic
My originally-planned blog post for today has some issues and will show up next week; I was traveling yesterday and
That Certain Something
About a dozen years ago, the Republic of Tanzania bought this building on East 53rd Street to serve as, among other
Three Boxes, One Optional
I’m going to talk briefly about theater design, but I don’t mean the topics that people think of when you
I Have A Theory
Walking along East 52nd Street, I passed a partially built house for sale that’s a bit narrow. More precisely, the lot
Masonry Against The Sky
Specifically the art-deco brickwork of 21 (striped and shorter) and 20 (solid and taller) West Street, with the turn-of-the-century (and
Gotcha!
There are times I feel sorry for the people who run the huge online archives that we use for research.
Housekeeping
The two-site business is done. Oldstructures.nyc now redirects to Oldstructures.com, so everyone is seeing the same, new website. We’re still
For The Encouragement Of Thrift
When you spend as much time looking at buildings as I do, it takes something out of the ordinary to
Not Quite Qualifying
One of the points that I felt has to be made in discussing early skyscrapers in The Structure of Skyscrapers in
Raking Sunlight
Pro tip, as computer manuals said back when (a) everyone was not yet comfortable using a computer and (b) computer
The Big Day and We’re Two-Faced
Our new website is up and, as with all such changes, things are not going as smoothly as I might
The User Interface
A piece of technology that many people comment on after a trip to Japan is the combination toilet/bidet, and I
It Looked Familiar: Hot Dogs In A Temple
Above, a somewhat pathetic villain threatens the people of Gotham City, while Batgirl muses. Below, the stair connecting the train
Not Extremely Enough
The New York Times recently published “An Extremely Detailed Map of New York City Neighborhoods” and an accompanying “Extremely Detailed