I agree Ken

What is the story of the 2800 lb GCT Stone? I had not heard of this. Please,
do tell!

Eric Hammarberg
Associate Director of Preservation
Associate
LZA Technology
641 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10011-2014
Telephone: 917.661.8160 (Direct)
Mobile: 917.439.3537
Fax: 917.661.8161 (Direct)
email:  [log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Follett [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 9:07 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: It has become conventional wisdom in the last 10 years in NYC
...


In a message dated 9/4/2002 3:45:46 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:




How much of this is real -- and how much of this is project-padding by
masonry repair companies?



It has become such a pain-in-the-ass to clean buildings in NYC, particularly
using chemicals (neutralization of run-off, protection of pedestrians, cost
of repainting Jaguars hit with overspray, re-routing of water, environmental
pressures, public pressures, water shortages etc. -- I think the most
telling was a florist down the street from a project complaining that our
overspray of misty water was killing their outdoor plant display), that I
almost prefer the customer NOT ask to have the building cleaned.

The PIA factor is what is pushing the market & development of alternative
methods of cleaning to those of chemicals.

You may want to make some inquiries into the 2,800 lb stone that recently
fell off Grand Central Terminal and landed on the sidewalk bridge.

As to the frequency of "contractors" padding jobs with cleaning I don't
think it is the contractors pushing this as much as owners. Then again, the
low low end of non-citizen undocumented workforce will clean anything (sort
of) with anything and will not see that there is a Jaguar, or sometimes
understand that they are burning the building or the skin off hands in the
process -- again, though, the bottom of the market is driven by owners.

The biggest problem with cleaning is getting everyone to agree on their
subjective definitions of "clean."

As to the reasons for cleaning in respect of the work the process quite
often makes it much much easier to see what needs to be repaired, and to see
that it has been repaired.

Economics: if a customer has already spent money to put up a sidewalk bridge
and the cost of mobilization (scaffolding) then it is cost effective to get
the cleaning done at the same time.

][<en

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>