Met History wrote:

> Noted.  But:
>
> 1.  Out of 1000 "brownstone repair" projects in NYC, how many are carefully
> thought out - and how many are just applying brown stucco with a howitzer?
>
> 2.  Out of the same 1000, how many are responding to any real failure -
> except of imagination?

I imagine that very few of them are well thought out. Usually thought out in the
same manner as a homeowner deciding to rennovate their kitchen. Realizing that
going to Home Depot, or watching a video, does not quite do it -- fear of heights
making the task more difficult than painting the cupboards -- they hit the yellow
pages or local gossip network and get some names of contractors. Beside that,
gentrification prone yuppies usually have enough credit to hire out, either for
catering dinner or catering to the facade. If resourceful they call the NY
Landmarks Conservancy and get three references for contractors. They have no idea
why they would consider hiring a design professional... I mean, why pay for an
electrician when Reader's Digest tells you how to install an outlet in five easy
steps? So they get three contractors who suggest three approaches, one of them
being cheapest. Hell if the homeowner knows what this is about... the proposal
with the least number of words has the least expense. The more expensive proposal
has big words like "insurance" and says something about needing a permit and
access to a bathroom. Credit is not all that good and it would be nice to build a
deck on the roof so they go with the cheap guy. Or, they really do care about what
happens to the front of their building so they give the wordy proposal to the
cheap guy and ask him what it all means. "Gooby gooboo... we donna need dat stuff.
We do gooooood work!" Again, for the fretfull and caring OCD owner, they call up
the wordy guy and ask him four thousand questions, invite him over three times in
the evening for no dinner, and in the end resolve to ask him to meet the price of
Gooby Brothers.

>From one
often called
to touch facades,
never touched by
thought.

There are contractors that have formula approaches to their work. For them the
process is focused on the rate of production. It is cost efficient to rip off the
offending brownstone and apply stucco. It is easy to communicate to the
workforce... an intelligent workforce costs more in wages and upkeep. Every
question during a preservation project creates an exponential increase in the cost
of labor. Eliminate questions, stop the thinking process, and production
increases. Working on an existing structure, particularly in historic
preservation, is to manage a series of revealed problems. For the problem solving
contractor the process is focused on the rate of answers. It is difficult to lump
sum information, possibly as a result of infinite recursion. To think not at all
and keep the cost low, or to allow thinking and to run the costs how far? The
extreme is a strategy of thinking that does not allow for completion of the
project.
--
][<en Follett
SOS Gab & Eti -- http://www.geocities.com/~orgrease
Bullamanka-Pinheads website
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A0=bullamanka-pinheads