New York City to the world: Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated. Just ask quintessential New Yorker and comedy icon, Jerry Seinfeld. His recent op-ed in the New York Times counters current detractors declaring the demise of the New York we know and love. Working in—and for—New York City for decades, we at SUPERSTRUCTURES are doing everything in our power to ensure Jerry’s right.

In part 1 of this post, we made the case that deferred building maintenance threatens building owners with a curve of costs that can soar out of control if not headed off. But just how does regular, proactive maintenance of building systems “flatten” the cost curve to save money and manage liability?

The quantity and magnitude of change orders are the responsibility of the engineer / architect. SUPERSTRUCTURES' exacting drawings detailed with our Restoration Assembly Detail (RAD) tag system help head off the cost and inconvenience of change orders.

McCarren Park Pool in Greenpoint, Brooklyn was built as a WPA project in 1936. The building's vast scale and dramatic arches, designed by Aymar Embury II, exemplify New Deal architecture. Closed in 1984, the pool reopened in 2012 after a major refurbishment by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. SUPERSTRUCTURES’ contribution to the facility’s revitalization was a comprehensive investigation and analysis to address water infiltration through the building envelope.

On this day in 1973, the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. Roughly bounded by Canal Street, West Broadway, Houston Street, and Crosby Street with an extension to the east, the district comprises about 500 buildings, many of which are distinguished by their ornate cast-iron facades. SUPERSTRUCTURES has conducted restoration projects on a number of buildings within this open-air museum of nineteenth century architecture.

While the majority of SUPERSTRUCTURES’ work is on building exteriors, we’re not exclusively “outdoor types.” We’ve undertaken challenging interior investigation and restoration projects as well. Two notable examples are McKim, Mead, and White buildings on the Columbia University campus: Low Library and John Jay Hall. Both involved a familiar material of Beaux-Arts architecture: plaster.

Lately, it’s been impossible to avoid the phrase “flatten the curve.” But for building owners, the Covid-19 pandemic isn’t the only curve that should be controlled; the cost of deferred building envelope maintenance can also spiral out of control if not nipped in the bud.

It probably won’t come as a surprise that there’s a general correlation between contractor quality and price. All contractors pay about the same price for the products and materials to be used on a project. So what contributes to variance in price among bidders?

The New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC) chose SUPERSTRUCTURES to conduct a building-wide facade investigation and produce a temporary stabilization program for the Bellevue Men’s Shelter, the former Psychopathic Hospital building. SUPERSTRUCTURES’ work on the Men’s Shelter earned our team an outstanding evaluation from the DDC with a perfect score of 100.

On this day in 1916, New York City passed a zoning resolution which established the maximum mass of buildings allowed on any give site, based on a prescribed vertical height above the street. The multiple setbacks that resulted to maximize floorspace within this restriction created complexity in building envelopes with profound implications for New York’s skyline and SUPERSTRUCTURES’ future work.