I keep posting pictures of building ghosts and associated masonry oddities because I keep seeing them. That picture is the north and east sides of 33 Rector Street (the brick building) as seen from the east. As you look down the brick of the east wall, it abruptly turns to stucco below the fourth floor level, where there used to be a small commercial building.
That small building had two chimneys at its west wall. When 33 Rector was built in 1921, chimney extensions were installed to carry the flues up above 33’s roof. That building was mostly torn down in the early 1950s, replaced by a one-story diner and a small parking lot (or maybe it was entirely torn down and the diner was a mobile unit towed to the site). The diner was gone by the late 50s, leaving just a parking lot, and then 90 Washington Street (the white metal-clad building) was built in 1969. 90 Washington is set back from the Rector Street lot line, as is clear in the picture above, creating the kind of plaza that the 1961 zoning law encouraged. The setback meant that the east wall of 33 Rector remained mostly exposed, including the portion where the two chimney extensions are.
In short, the two chimney extensions have been meaningless for more than 60 years (after being useful for less than 35 years) but remain because there was never a reason to tear them down. They look to me like an abstract sculpture, making the boring end wall of the building into something with a little visual interest.
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