I’ve talked about my skyscraper research a few times, and the finale is here: the book will be published in the next few weeks: The Structure of Skyscrapers in America, 1871–1900: Their History and Preservation. This post will stay at the top of the blog list for a while. As I previously mentioned, I will …
I’ve written about Belvedere a lot, partly because it’s one of my favorite projects of the last few years and partly because it’s a unique structure and therefore posed unique challenges. A summary of my previous posts is here – Belvedere Castle – along with some vintage photos and some construction photos. Our work, performed …
John Roebling, the engineer who designed some of the most important US bridges of the middle third of the nineteenth century, is today somewhat overshadowed by his oldest son, Washington Roebling. After John’s death by accident during the earliest stages of the work on the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington became the chief engineer for that project. …
I said yesterday that the Mount Prospect and Ridgewood Reservoirs of the Brooklyn water supply system are long gone, but that’s a simplification. The Mount Prospect reservoir is completely gone, buried under a new park and the Brooklyn Public Library. The Ridgewood reservoir, seen above in a 1909 map, has had an interesting after-life. This …
Every so often I get a reminder that I don’t know New York’s history so much as I’m good at looking things up when I need to. When I was looking for “tower” photos a while back, I found the picture above, and it stumped me. The caption is “Brooklyn and New York from Prospect …
Getting an accurate photo of a large structure can be difficult. With skyscrapers, for example, you have to get far away to reduce the effect of perspective, and that means you lose detail and likely have other structures blocking part of your view. With bridges, it’s a bit easier, as you can use the river …
