[log in to unmask] writes:

<< Missed the Times yesterday. Snowed in at the bottom of a very steep hill
just outside the village of Cold Spring. In the interest of disseminating
information -- rather than shameless self-promotion -- I respectively request
Mr. Gray, the Great, post this article to BP (or send it back channel). Am
having a similar conversation on a daily basis with many clients. Why they
ask an engineer, I'll never know. Guess they think we know something about
heat transfer (many semester's worth, actually).

Sign me,  Ray D. Aant >>

McIntyre Building, NYTimes, 4.9.2000 (slightly garbled version, not quite
final)

    By CHRISTOPHER GRAY
THERE'S nothing like nice new, modern windows: they operate
easily, the glass is perfect, and they don't need painting.  So what kind
of crazy co-op would spend as much money restoring its 110-year-old wooden
windows as it would take to buy new ones?
     ``We're a very strange group of people,'' said  Wallace Kaminsky, the
architect who is supervising the  restoration for his fellow shareholders
in the 1892 McIntyre Building, at 18th Street and Broadway.<QL>
   In 1892, Ewen McIntyre, a prominent retail druggist, hired  Robert H.
Robertson to design an 11-story building to replace his branch store on the
northeast corner of 18th and Broadway.  Mr. Robertson, at that time known
for chunky Romanesque-style structures like the old Y.W.C.A. at 7 East 15th
Street, loosened up with the McIntyre Building, perhaps because of its
height.   <QL>
   The ``A.I.A. Guide to New York City,'' by Norval White and Elliot
Willensky, describes it as ``unspeakable  eclectic: a murmuration of
Byzantine columns, Romanesque arches, Gothic finials and crockets - the
designer used the whole arsenal of history in one shot.''  Its  tower at
the 11th and 12th floors is a startling touch on a commercial structure.
<QL>
   Mr. McIntyre did not occupy his namesake building, but rather rented out
the space, apparently as offices.  By 1930 the building was dominated by
china and textile representatives, apparently mostly wholesalers.<QL>
   In the mid-1970's a  group that included  artists, potters,
photographers and an architect bought the building and informally converted
it to a co-op.  At that time, it had no residential certificate of
occupancy, making it illegal to live there.   Rick Globus, an artist and
photographer,  was the first of the new group to move in, buying the entire
fourth floor for $17,000. Some units in the building now sell for close to
$1 million.
    ``My mother and father weren't happy,'' he said. ``They thought I'd
lose my money.  That's when ABC Carpet was a little ratty store selling
remnants.'' <QL>
   Robert and Ursula Garrett moved into the corner space on the seventh
floor in 1977; they have sweeping views from Union Square south to the
Woolworth  Buildings.  Their space had been an illegal nightclub, the Cobra
Club, and they had to clear out a glass cage that had been used to display
snakes, along with  snake skins that escapees  had left in various nooks
and crannies. Mr. Garrett said that  snakes were spotted in the building
for years afterward and that the first bylaws specifically prohibited
exotic pets.<QL>
   The Garretts run a public relations and marketing firm from their
apartment, which they have  built  themselves -  they made the
antique-looking trestle table in their sunny kitchen from oak salvaged from
an old plumbing chase.  They have a collection of announcements dating from
the period  when artists in the building  ran communal open houses. The
building was officially converted to cooperative ownership in the 1980's.<QL>
   The entry to the McIntyre Building is a battered aluminum door, but it
leads to a mosaic-tiled lobby with  an inset banner reading ``MacIntyre
Building,'' apparently a spectacular typo, since period accounts spell the
name of both the building and the druggist without the ``a.''  The main
stairway soars to the top in the shape of a half-oval, but other than that,
there is little  original detail in the building, save for some wide pine
floors and  some nice ironwork.  <QL>
    Now the co-op is planning  to clean the exterior and to restore the
huge wooden windows.  That's an unusual decision, as evidenced by the large
number of  companies that advertise their expertise in replacing old
windows,  but few that  want to fix them.  <QL>
   Mr. Kaminsky says that some of the windows were close to falling out,
and the co-op had considered new windows.   But he says that when one major
manufacturer  couldn't replace such large windows - those in the Garretts'
apartment are  six feet wide - the board decided on restoration instead.
The building's contractor, Restoration Management Services, specializes in
repairing wooden windows.  Jim Hicks, its president, said that his company
will remove all 180 pairs of sashes, six to eight at a time,  and repaint
them in the shop and restore the frames. The repairs will take a couple of
weeks for each  batch, and in the interim, plywood sheets with clear
plastic inserts will cover the window openings.

     Mr. Kaminsky said the cost of the project will be  $1,000 to $2,000
for each of the windows, depending on size and needed repairs,   about the
same cost as new aluminum windows but less than new  wooden ones.   He
added that  the co-op  would pay for the building cleaning and window
restoration without raising the maintenance.  With its new certificate of
occupancy,  the building was able to  refinance, doubling the mortgage to
$1.5 million and dropping its rate from 13 percent to 7 percent.<QL>
   The McIntyre Building is in the Ladies Mile Historic District.  Its
windows are now painted black, but Terri Rosen Deutsch, the spokeswoman for
the Landmarks Preservation Commission, said that  the restored windows
would have to be painted in the  original colors, to be  determined by
microscopic examination.   Judging  from old photographs, the original
windows appear to be  a light color, perhaps buff, matching the original
limestone and light brick.<QL>
   Mr. Kaminsky explained the choice of repairing the  wooden windows by
saying, ``We're really concerned about what we look like.''
        In Mr. Globus's apartment, the pine windows and surrounding oak
paneling gleam like library furniture. ``I spent two years of my life,
stripping 150 years of paint off my windows,''  he said.    He has also
stripped the original brass window locks, which are brawny enough for a
battleship.
   <QL>
   Mrs. Garrett said that  initially,  she had mixed feeling about
restoring the windows.  Then, pausing to  lookout across Union Square, she
reconsidered and  said, ``You know, it would really be a shame to lose the
old glass -  they're part of the building.''ws<EC><QL>