Norman Alston Architects

Hidden New York: Historic Backhouses

I share this information from a posting by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation because it is such an interesting urban phenomenon, and because it is unknown here. I am especially taken with the way these very old and historic structures have been adapted over the years to remain viable, overcoming physical limitations far beyond the comparatively simple issues that seem to try and derail preservation efforts here. Also see this related post from another East Village blogger. These were brought to my attention by my daughter Leslie who actually lives in one of the subject backhouses on East 12th Street. Her perception of her modest New York home has been premanently and dramatically changed, as has my own. And she reports that she has enthusiastically adopted the term "Horsewalk" to describe the entrance passage to her apartment.

 

The photo is from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation's "Off the Grid" blog.

 

Office Christmas Party to be "adjusted"

A few folks are probably aware that our annual holiday open house was tentatively scheduled for Wednesday night, December 7, 2011, although an official announcement has not been issued. For a lot of really good reasons it has been decided that this most popular event will be postponed until soon after the first of the year. While the likely assumption would be that the party is a casualty of the economy, or that we had become uneasy with parallels between our open house and the observance of Pearl Harbor,  not so. In fact, this postponement is primarily to allow some other exciting developments to more fully run their course. Details on that and the new date will be forthcoming soon.

It was made painfully clear to me last year that two long-standing and particularly popular features were missing, and that future events should take pains to avoid these oversights. So rest assured that whatever the date for the open house, that 1) the aluminum Christmas Tree will be present and in grand form throughout the holidays and on through the event itself, and 2) sushi will be served. (Come to think of it, perhaps sushi on December 7 could have been misinterpreted).

 

Some days are just better than others, I guess.

It's been a disappointing last few hours. Last night I observed a beautiful historic interior space that had just been refitted with an amazing concentration of compact fluorescent-equipped fixtures with every engineer's favorite blue-white, 5000+ degree Kelvin bulbs. I like to preserve things from the past, but CFL's are a 1930's, toxin-laced technology that needs to die a quick, ugly death. I have also recently witnessed a demonstration of new LED lighting that, to my eye, was indiscernible from halogen lighting, so there is hope for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps the bigger problem arose this morning. While I am convinced that sustainability and preservation have a great deal in common, practitioners of the two concerns don't always play well together. For energy conservation, pretty much all communities that I know have adopted the International Energy Conservation Code. This code, like most others, is really targeted at new construction and generally lacks recognition of the unique needs of historic building. Right in the front of this national code, however, is a provision that seems to recognize the tension between existing and new and specifically exempts certified historic buildings from compliance. Today I find that my hometown of Dallas, while adopting the IECC, has added amendments that strip away this exemption. What is left only exempts compliance when compliance would result in loss of that historic certification. That's a pretty high bar with lots of opportunity to degrade and obscure historic structures before actually threatening certification. That could very well be the primary factor behind the CFL extravaganza I mentioned at the beginning of this post.