The bad news is that all the clocktower residences at One Hanson Place have been sold. The good news is that there are still a few residences left on the lower floors, and they will not set you back the $3-6 million dollars that the tower residences would have.

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower is the major visual icon and arguably the best-known building in Brooklyn. At 512 feet, it towers over the low-rise structures that dominate the borough and is visible from various locales throughout Brooklyn.

The 1929 landmarked structure is located at one Hanson Place, on the corner of Flatbush Avenue, a major artery. Formerly the home of Williamsburgh Bank, it was designed by the architectural firm Halsey, McCormack and Helmer in a Romanesque-Byzantine style.

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower features a gilded copper dome, and its signature four-faced clock 27 feet in diameter, with colored hands designed to be visible 30 to 40 miles away. Carved lions, turtles, and birds grace the exteriors granite surface. The major attraction here is the extraordinary marble banking hall on the ground floor, with 63-foot vaulted ceilings, limestone and marble walls with elaborate mosaics, and 40-foot windows containing silhouetted iron cutouts a thrift motif: beehives, squirrels storing nuts, wise owls, Mercury (the god of commerce), and lions whose paws protect the bank’s lockbox. There are two abandoned public observation decks with signage describing the Battle of Brooklyn.

The building was converted to condominiums in 2006 in a partnership between Dermot Co. and Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds – a joint venture between Canyon Capital Realty Advisors and basketball star Magic Johnson.

There’s a lot of hype surrounding any real estate development in New York City. But, no borough resident needs to be sold, since they always knew, as everyone else now does, that Brooklyn’s got Magic 🙂

People love urban myths and recounting them, filled as they often are with drama, mystery, romance, and unusualness. The more atypical they are, the better, and if there is an element of truth to them, they are more easily believed. Few will bother to sort out the “nuances,” separating fact and fiction – such “nuances” may undermine the entire story.

We also have a love of individuals with supernatural or perhaps superhuman abilities, allowing us to triumph over the day-to-day battles we must all endure. Some urban legends explain things inexplicable to us, such as how anyone could work at dizzying heights as an ironworker on skyscrapers.

The Mohawk Indian, innately endowed with uncanny capabilities, became the explanation as well as an exotic and enticing concept – the American Indian transported and juxtaposed in the most urban environment imaginable: the steelworks of a Manhattan skyscraper.

Articles such as “The Mohawks in High Steel” by Joseph Mitchell in The New Yorker (September 17, 1949) did much to foster the mythical attributes of the Mohawk ironworker, using statements such as “It became apparent to all concerned that these Indians were very odd in that they did not have any fear of heights,” and “They seemed immune to the noise of the riveting.”
However, Kyle Karonhiaktatie Beauvais (Mohawk, Kahnawake) says, “A lot of people think Mohawks aren’t afraid of heights; that’s not true. We have as much fear as the next guy. The difference is that we deal with it better. We also have the experience of the old timers to follow and the responsibility to lead the younger guys. There’s pride in ‘walking iron.’”

However, Mohawks have been involved historically as ironworkers since 1886, when they were hired to build the Canadian Pacific Railway bridge over the St. Lawrence River between Canada and Kahnawake Mohawk land in New York State. They developed a reputation as top workers and began “booming out” from their native communities to projects in Canada and in New York City to build skyscrapers. In 1915, a large majority of men in the Kahnawake reservation belonged to the structural steel union.

Many moved to New York City, settling in the Boerum Hill and Bay Ridge neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In the 1940s-50s, as many as 700 Indians lived in Boerum Hill. Mohawk ironworkers have been involved in building the city’s most notable landmarks, such as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Triborough Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the Henry Hudson Parkway, the RCA Building, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and in 1961, the World Trade Center. In September 2001, after the collapse of the twin towers, Mohawk ironworkers dismantled the wreckage. After a building bust, some have returned to the city.

Along with innate abilities, the percentage of American Indians in the trade has also been exaggerated. The classic photo from 1932 (see Lunchtime on a Skyscraper here) shows ironworkers who were predominantly Irish. My understanding is that American Indians have not dominated the ironworkers union.
The skyscrapers of New York’s skyline are a celebration and tribute to ironworkers who, Mohawk or not, are New York City’s real supermen, our men of steel…

Photo Note: This construction is located at 58 Washington Square South, where the former NYU Catholic Center was located. The site, on Washington Square South and Thompson Street, will be home to NYU’s Center for Academic and Spiritual Life.

The New York City subway system is not the place you would associate with natural lighting, but according to a 2002 article by Christopher Gray of the New York Times:

John Tarantino, chief architect at New York City Transit, said the agency was working citywide to bring daylight back to the subway experience.

In February 1904, The New York Times noted that ”a speck of dirt would find a difficult resting place” in the new subway stations, which were trimmed with oak, bronze, red granite and decorative tile. Instead of the bare bulbs now common to most stations, the original subway had simple but distinctive globes. Ventilation was closely considered, and an article in World’s Work magazine described the air as ”dry and sweet” and noted that ”glass roofs provide the stations with plenty of light.”

Vault lights were also heavily used – in 1904, 20 of the 34 underground stations had vault lights. (See my posting, Sidewalk Vault Lights.) In the same article, Gray quotes from the 1904 commemorative book The New York Subway:

At 20 of the underground stations it has been possible to use vault lights to such an extent that very little artificial light is needed.’ Photographs of stations in those days show great banks of sidewalk vault lights casting natural light onto the platforms directly below; presumably the platforms sent a soft glow to the streets at night, when artificial lighting was used.

But not long after, most of the vault lights were removed. In 1938, an article by Laurence Bell in The American Mercury magazine entitled The Most Awful Ride in the World deplored the ”murky depths” with ”concrete even filthier than the stairs, a filth that is accentuated by the dim lights whose sole reflectors are the stained walls of once-white tile.”

Street-level station houses were not so well-liked. The well-known and heavily used station house at 72nd Street and Broadway is a particularly egregious example, with platforms and stairways that are unusually narrow. Until completion of the new control house, there was only one entrance to the station, access only via the middle of a traffic island, and no free transfer between the uptown and downtown sides of the station.

In 2002, construction began on a new control house. The design was a joint venture between architects Richard Dattner & Partners and Gruzen Samton. Inspired by the Crystal Palace at the London Exhibition of 1851, the new structure has lots of glass. See additional photo here. However, although vault lights had been planned, cost-cutting issues and maintenance concerns of the proposed vault lights resulted in their elimination.

Light is a precious thing, particularly in the New York City subway system, where natural illumination goes a long way to ameliorate the grim and grimy subterranean environment. I am sure I am not alone among New Yorkers when I ask of John Tarantino or any other NYC transit tsar, let there be light 🙂

I recall battling with my graphic artist over using just her eye to place objects and making other judgements that you could simply do by measurement. I was a believer that if something can be measured, it should be. Nothing else made any sense, and just using the human eye was unfathomable to me.

I spent hours with toys of my generation – Erector Sets, Etch-a-Sketch, and Lincoln Logs, but there was always something I didn’t like about them. I could never put my finger on it exactly, but at last I think I can. I see it clearly now. Left, right, x and y – my mind has been shaped by the orthogonal toys and the scientific tools and concepts of my youth. Working in this way can dull the mind and artistry. Just look at creative work done by those with a mathematical or engineering approach. Most artists are typically not wired to think and work in these ways.

Much of Manhattan was designed as a grid (see True North here). Certainly there is justifiable practicality in a grid from many perspectives – just ask any visitors navigating Manhattan’s gridded areas. But not everything should bend to the will of the practical, efficient, most utilitarian, or most cost effective (see Very Practical here).

The Eiffel Tower was highly controversial at the time of its building. And it is arguable that it has the look of something designed by an engineer. But there is one redeeming feature constant throughout the structure – curves. I can’t imagine how it would look built completely with right angles.

Sitting in traffic in Long Island City on the approach to the 59th Street Bridge, with a hideous Erector Set above adding insult to injury, it makes me want to roll down a window, stick my head out, and scream, “I can’t wait for the bridge. Please, someone, throw me a curve…“