Seeing as how we’re north of 1100 blog posts (as of March 2019), it’s probably too late for a Frequently Asked Questions post, but here it is anyway. This is the blog of Old Structures Engineering. Most of the posts are written by me (Don Friedman) but not all. Topics include pretty much anything touching …
No matter how much you’ve seen, you’ve never seen everything. The current proposal to open up Hart Island in New York as park land contains some rare, if not unique, issues. A little background: Hart Island is one of the small islands in the East River, and arguably the most isolated, off the shore of …
Tim Michiels was kind enough to point out that the building I discussed with cast-iron sperm-candle columns is landmarked, and therefore should be reused at some point. Good news. On the other hand, the building has been in its current state since at least 2013, when the picture on its Wikipedia page was taken, which …
I have not yet seen “Gateways To New York – Othmar H. Ammann And His Bridges” but I hope to soon. Ammann was a Swiss immigrant who led the design of some of New York’s largest bridges. By all accounts he was a reserved and calm man, which must have helped during his years of …
The picture above is the bridge for prisoners (believe it or not, “the bridge of sighs”) between the second Tombs on the right and the Criminal Courts building on the left. Both buildings were replaced in 1940 by the third Tombs. That bridge was a handy piece of construction, allowing the prisoners to be moved …
We’ve added links to my books and to three papers: “Engineering as a Prerequisite for Growth: New York and its Infrastructure” where Marie and I tried to put the various superlatives of NYC construction in historical context; “Early Predictions of Steel-Frame Deterioration: Permanency in High-Rise Construction” where I discuss the debate among people involved with …
