A new project on 16th street

Welcome to the blog dedicated to documenting the construction of a new building and apartment on West 16th Street in Manhattan. Holly and I have been lucky enough to be part of this project to build a new building that will eventually have a new apartment for us. It is being led by my good friend Yiannes from high school who has built a few buildings like this in both Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The whole process started earlier in the year when we took a look at the existing building which we eventually bought from the church next door. The building was used a hostel of sorts for members of the church (its a french congregation) that were visiting the city. It was quite a dump at the time and for that reason is being demoed down to the foundation for the new larger building that is going to go up. Here are few pix from the first visit:

 124 West 16th Street

existing building

 From backyard

Our building is on the left

 Shot from the roof

 Alley to the east

Demolition of interior began in the summer

The interior was gutted entirely

Today I went over to visit and see the building one last time before demo began in earnest. There had been a bit of a delay in getting the permits for all of the scaffolding permits that we needed to put up all around the building both for demo and subsequent construction. The building to the east (left in the photo below) is owned by the state of NY and there was lots of red tape that needed to be cut through in order to get the permits. Now all is in place and walls should start coming down next week.

Building with scaffolding out front. 

To the left is the NY state owned building which is landmarked (and quite beautiful).

To the right is the church that we bought the building from.

 The church next door was built in the 1820s.

This is a view of their cellar. Note the vault construction. 

Looking up at the ceiling from the first floor of our building you can see the old wooden construction. It badly needs replacement, they found termite damage and lots of rot when everything was ripped up. 

 Looking up through the floor from the first floor, you can see all the way to the sky.

This is the stack of fireplaces. Im not sure you can make it out but you can see how the fireplaces were offset to allow the chimneys to all come out together in one stack on the roof.

Early fire safety - brick above the fireplaces to prevent the wood timbers from catching fire.

The bricks need some work...

Looking out to the backyard through the cellar grate. The size of the yard will be reduced in the new building but a yard will still be there

Installation of scaffolding over alley between our building and the NY state building. 

This was the element that took so long to get the go ahead on.

 Gutted second floor looking south. 

This is roughly where our apartment will be in the new building.

Top floor detail.

The roof above at one time had asbestos which was removed over the summer. Thats why its full of holes now.

 Third floor

View from third floor of the back yard.

A newly discovered window that was covered with plaster.

This window indicates that this building pre-dated the NY state building to the east. It was covered over after the building blocked the window on the lot line.

 Sidewalk bridge installation

A nicely placed no parking sign in front of the apartment will help with construction.

Thats it for now. Ill try to update this blog as often as I can. No promises though!

Ill be sending out automated emails when i put new posts up. Let me know if you want to be on that list either here in the comments or via email.

SG