A light touch, in the form of a mason hammer, played a key role in the $2.5 million exterior restoration of the 107-year-old 36 Gramercy Park East residential tower in New York City, for which the final punch list was completed earlier this year.
Restorers used this hammer to assess each of the approximately 3,750 ornamental elements within the building’s 15,393-sf terracotta façade. Tapping each piece informed the architects, CTA Architects, by its sound which category the piece fell into: that it was in good condition, that it needed to be removed and reset, or that the piece was beyond repair and needed to be replaced.
The ornamental pieces ranged in size from several inches to several feet. About 1,500 pieces were removed, replicated, and replaced. (Boston Valley Terra Cotta, one of only two firms in the U.S. that make terracotta facades, recreated the damaged pieces.) Another 1,500 pieces were removed and reset with new stainless steel anchors or pins. There were also six winged grotesques overhanging the building by five feet, all of which were replaced.
The terracotta façade for this Gothic-Revival style building is on the street side facing west and in a U-shaped light shaft and entrance in the back. (The rest of the walls are brick masonry.) The terracotta inspection was done by boom, but the Building Team also used existing fire escapes and the building’s roof to inspect adjacent walls and the light shaft.
Some of the terracotta was anchored to the building’s steel frame and some connected to masonry wall behind them. Consequently, inspecting the various connection types presented additional technical challenges. The backup masonry and steel were waterproofed.
The U-shaped building, located in Manhattan's Gramercy Park Historic District, stayed open during its facade restoration. Image: Ola Wilk/Wilk Marketing Communications.
The Building Team—which included Total Structure Concepts (GC) and Robert Silman Associates Structural Engineers (SE)—replaced the parapets around the perimeter of the building’s roof. However, over three-fifths of the cornice band at the main roof level remains as original material.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission wanted a new handrail around the roof that would be visually unobtrusive. CTA specified a wire rope handrail for low visibility. Other preservation agencies were involved in a four-week-long color selection for the terracotta façade (its original color was bone), and also weighed in on mortar color, and brick shape and color.
Other ornamental details that this restoration addressed included oriels, Gothic arches, sculpted faces, bay windows, colonnettes, corner rope moldings, shields, more than 120 putti, and oversized statues of soldiers crown the top of the building.
“CTA has performed a great number of complex historic exterior renovations, but the 36 Gramercy Park East project was the most challenging to date, due to the historical character and great ornamental detail of the building,” said CTA partner Daniel Allen, AIA.
This project recently received the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award and the Victorian Society in America’s Preservation Award.
Related Stories
| Feb 26, 2014
Adaptive reuse project brings school into historic paper mill
The project features nontraditional classrooms for collaborative learning, an arts and music wing, and a technologically sophisticated global resource center.
Sponsored | | Feb 20, 2014
Chicago’s historic Wrigley Building renovated to attract tech companies
Purchased in 2011 by a consortium of investors led by BDT Capital Partners, the building’s new owners have recently renovated and reimagined the next life for this architectural landmark—as a hub for tech firms.
| Feb 14, 2014
Must see: Developer stacks shipping containers atop grain silos to create student housing tower
Mill Junction will house up to 370 students and is supported by 50-year-old grain silos.
| Feb 13, 2014
Extreme Conversion: Nazi bunker transformed into green power plant, war memorial
The bunker, which sat empty for over 60 years after WWII, now uses sustainable technology and will provide power to about 4,000 homes.
| Feb 5, 2014
Extreme conversion: Atlanta turns high-rise office building into high school
Formerly occupied by IBM, the 11-story Lakeside building is the new home for North Atlanta High School.
| Jan 31, 2014
6 considerations for rehabbing student union buildings
Most colleges and universities feel pressure to offer the latest amenities in order to attract and retain the best and brightest students. While hauling in the bulldozer to create modern facilities is attractive in some regards, deciding to renovate can be just as effective and, in some cases, even preferable to new construction.
| Jan 29, 2014
Historic church will be part of new condo building in D.C.
Sorg Architects unveiled a design scheme for 40 condos in a six-story building, which will wrap around an existing historic church, and will itself contain four residential units.
| Jan 29, 2014
Notre Dame to expand football stadium in largest project in school history
The $400 million Campus Crossroads Project will add more than 750,000 sf of academic, student life, and athletic space in three new buildings attached to the school's iconic football stadium.
| Jan 14, 2014
D.C. Navy Yard building, site of mass shooting, will be renovated
A remembrance area and a new visitor's entrance will be among the changes when the Navy rebuilds Building 197 of the Washington Navy Yard, where a gunman killed 12 people and then was killed in a shooting spree in September 2013.
| Jan 6, 2014
Energy-efficiency retrofits can help reduce healthcare costs
Reducing energy consumption through energy-efficiency retrofits represents an underappreciated way to cut healthcare costs, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute.