You (all) recall my original query about a 1920 apartment house  at 245 
West 75th Street, with  "one of the nicest details I've ever seen:  at every 
fifth course, the masons laid the mortar with a continuous strip of  copper 
right in the middle of the bed."
 
First, I should have noted that it is every fifth  bed >>for the first two 
floors only<< which further supports my  surmise that it is decorative, not 
functional.  
 
Second, I took a hammer with me today, because I  wondered if it might  be 
lead, instead of oxidized copper.  It's  not.  It's slate, very thin flats 
of slate.
 
Christopher 

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