Well, as long as Ralph "Herbiphobe" Walter asks, here is a pre-editor version
of my article on Cooper Union for the Times on June 27, 1999.

Submitted, Christopher Gray

Story:          Cooper Union
For:      June 27, 1999

Lenght: 920 words

Caption 1:      Cooper Union, 8th Street side, 1860's.  (Courtesy of the
Cooper Union Library)

Right now, the giant, brownstone walls look like they were attacked by a
monster from a Stephen King novel, with huge claw marks scraping the stones
down to the backing.  At the 1859 Cooper Union Building, at Astor Place and
Fourth Avenue, architects and conservators are pursuig a new direction in
preservation, as they repair New York's biggest brownstone to look anything
but "like new".

By the 1850's Peter Cooper made had already made his fortune in the iron
business, and could put into action his plan for higher education for the
working class of all ages.  At the cornerstone laying in 1853 Cooper promised
"moral, mental and physical improvement of the rising generation"; the New
York Times reported that Mr. Cooper "laid on the mortar with a bold and
workmanlike hand as though he had been brought up in the business."  When the
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art opened in 1859, 2000
pupils took drawing classes, vocal music lessons, chemistry, philosophy,
design and other courses, along with nightly lectures in the Great Hall in
the basement.

The architect, Frederick Peterson, designed an Italianate structure, with
stores on the ground floor facing both Third and Fourth Avenues to provide
income, even though their signs and awnings, to modern eyes, defaced the
stateliness of the building.

The Great Hall saw it most famous speech early on, as Abraham Lincoln
addressed a large audience on Monday evening, February 27, 1860.  This was
the Illinois lawyer's introduction to most New Yorkers, and the success of
his speech is generally considered a critical factor in his election in the
fall.  The New York Tribune described Lincoln as "one of Nature's orators ...
yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye and the mirth-provoking look
defy the reporter's skill".  Lincoln took a hard line against slavery,
concluding "Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let
us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it."

In the 1880's and 1890's remodeling programs added floors to the top of the
building in a helter-skelter way. By the 1890's mid-century architecture was
in especially low regard - the 1892 "Sun's Guide to New York" describes
Cooper Union as "a brownstone edifice of indeterminate architecture designed
... by an incompetent amateur."

In the 1970's Cooper Union gutted its building - except for the Great Hall -
in a radical modernization program, but the exterior was left untouched.
Now, to address leaks and facade failure, the school is spending $11 million
to restore exterior in a project which will stretch into early 2001.  The
architects, Platt Byard Dovell, are working with a Massachusetts
architectural conservator, Ivan Myjer, to reverse and stabilize a century of
decay to the outside walls.

They first discovered that the exterior is not all brownstone - "that arch is
limestone, that part's terra cotta, that copper cornice is later" said Anne
Holford-Smith, project architect with Platt Byard Dovell, speaking high up on
the scaffold that now surrounds the building.   It is not clear why such a
mix of materials was used, but photographic evidence and on-site testing
indicates that the window surrounds and cornice were painted to imitate a tan
colored sandstone, contrasting with the brownstone.

Brownstone itself was the glazed terra cotta of the 19th century - cheap and
easily worked, but prone to weathering failure, especially along its
sedimentary layers.  "This stone, from Portland, Connecticut, has a lot of
mica, which disrupts the natural beds" says Mr. Myjer.

From across the street, Cooper Union's brownstone looks aged but
unremarkable.  Closer in, the stone walls - originally honed to a uniform
smoothness - show up as a darkly heaving sea, with giant scrape marks an inch
wide and a foot or more long.  Mr. Myjer and Ms. Holford-Smith say that these
are the leftovers of one or more 1950's projects to "neaten up" the failing
brownstone by aggressively removing the top layers.

In the present restoration campaign this has presented difficult problems.
The drastically uneven cutting back blocks the most common alternative, to
cut everything back to a uniform level - if that were done, in many places
the anchors and even the backup wall would be exposed.

So, in addition to recarving whole new sections of intricate brownstone trim
and detailing, craftsmen are working the entire surface to a soft, deckled
finish, but with the same changes in surface level that are now present.  The
new facade will be stablized and weather-tight, but still far from the
original smoothness of like-new work.

This is a change in typical current practice with brownstone work, which is,
usually, to make the building look "like new", either by full bore
replacement, or by the more common strip-and-stucco method used on most
rowhouses.  After spending $11 million the professionals working on Cooper
Union are going to deliver a building which is the reverse of the
out-of-the-box "new" character of most big budget restoration work.

The idea of over-restoration is an emerging topic among preservation
professionals.  Last month David West, an Australian stone conservator,
observed in a post to an internet restoration listserv, Bullamanka-Pinheads
[web address: [log in to unmask]], that many
architectural restorations were done up to look like new cars, not old
buildings.  "What we really need to do is to show the public a few major
buildings with lumps missing and say "Look at these.  The process of
deterioration is important. We can learn from this, too."  It will be
interesting to see what we learn from the completed Cooper Union restoration,
due in early 2000.

END