How long does it take traffic to wear cast iron like that? It definitely says “SEWER” and if I had to guess I’d say the date is 1881, but it could be an ornate 9 in “1891” and might look the same. In any case, well over 100 years and the cast-in lettering is going …
Cast-iron columns, no matter how historic and pretty they might be, are generally suspect. If the load on them increases, or if any combination of pattern live loading or lateral loading causes bending, they have to be carefully examined for safety in a way that’s not true of wrought iron or steel columns. The column …
Some cast-iron ornament, roughly 140 years old. The edges of the iron are as sharp as the day it was made, blurred only by too many layers of paint. Two materials that were popular in the past for facade ornament, cast iron and glazed terra cotta, present a good contrast to other materials: they effectively …
We’re all so used to discussing the negatives of cast iron that it’s easy to overlook the positives. The pictures are from a facade restoration project where we’re assisting Martina Bacarella Architect. The building was constructed around 1899, and a lot of the lower-floor ornament is cast iron rather than the stone that would have been …
More fun with the HABS/HAER index: I went to “cast iron fronts” in the subject listing and this was the first building I found: the Brisk & Jacobson Store at 51 Dauphin Street in Mobile, Alabama. It was constructed in 1866, which was not a great year for heavy industry in the south, because of …
