South Slope Wood Frame Stripped Bare

 Stripped of most of her exterior cladding,  548 Sixth Avenue shows off her modest bones.  Forensic architectural historians might want to check out the early Twentieth Century building materials and techniques openly on display before she is demolished and a new four story, four family building takes her place.  Judging by the size and placement of the boarded up windows, I imagine some kind of commercial establishment might have been the original occupant.  The interior, it seems, has already been completely gutted.

Tax records show the property was sold 5/27/2011 for $780,000.   The lot is adjacent to  6/15 Green,  the large community garden started in 1987.  There are no demolition permits approved as of right now.  Seems they are waiting for some zoning approval relating to changing the use from a 2 family to a four family.

Corner detail

How many layers?  The protruding nails indicate the depth of the various layers of siding applied over the building's lifetime.

Side wall

IMBY Weekender: Millerton, NY

Sugar Frosted Fall Foliage

Skunk's Misery Road

Two Oaks Down

S T O O P

A M B E R  L I G H T

Remove and Replace

Vacated 1504 8th Avenue restores its side wall after undergoing extensive foundation repairs. The apartments are in the process of being redone.

After large structural cracks formed throughout the building the entire rear facade and half the side wall was removed. 

In my back yard: Light and Air

Golden Cinder Honey Blocks at Dawn: 400 15th Street progresses from the inside out.

We have lost our panoramic Brooklyn skyline,  one dominated almost entirely for the last century by the monumental 14th Regimental  Park Slope Armory.

Traded it all in for this.  When you live  at the bottom of this man made valley surrounded by these stacked concrete masonry units, your sun rises a little later than it used to.

Construction workers still begin their day at 7AM.

In My Back Yard: Geotechnical Investigations and Subsurface South Slope Exploration

IMBY... In My Back Yard returns to its roots with this  construction update. For those familiar with THE STORY you will be glad to see that we are moving on with the remediation of our damaged crack houses.

After five fucking years of endless soul-killing litigation in the Brooklyn civil court system before the Honorable Justice Laura Jacobson, my neighbors and I have embarked on another financially and emotionally draining journey, hiring what seems like all the king's horses and all the king's men to put our Humpty Dumpty houses together again.

First this, then that, then this.
So you finally find a respected general contractor(s) you like for the job, but they all tell you that foundation repair on 100 year old brick rowhouses is complicated to say the least. The builder tells you he needs detailed drawings, an approved plan, a set of DOB approved marching orders  to know how to bid for the job.  He tells you that he requires the professional advice of a licensed engineer.  Someone who has a vast knowledge of all the possible technological solutions currently out there to remedy your particular shit-storm of a problem.   The one best suited to your individual foundation site.

So now you hire the services of an Engineer.  But Engineers work with hard facts and data.  They need to know what's what.  So your engineer  contracts out the specialized services of a geotechnical engineering firm.  We need someone with a thorough understanding of the principles and practices of subsurface soil investigative techniques in order to determine the current soil conditions and, in our case, how our properties have been affected by the haphazard excavation and construction of the Armory Heights Plaza's three story underground parking garage.

A truck mounted boring rig is the first piece of heavy equipment to show up on a construction site, sometimes even before it starts to look like one.

Leading the Industry Since 1957
So that's where we are today.  Let me introduce you to the Soil Mechanics Drilling Corporation of Seaford Long Island.  They will be performing our subsurface exploration demonstration for today.


The Standard Penetration Test with a Split Barrel Sampler.
This is what is known in the geology business as "The Farmer's Daughter".

First the equipment.  Take note frugal homeowners.  Limited access to the site (say the enclosed backyard of a Brooklyn row house) unfortunately requires the use of a portable drilling/boring rig.  This means all the individual parts of the drilling rig have to be taken off a truck and lugged to the boring site, in this instance through one's kitchen, then assembled out in the backyard.    Afterwards the rig has to be broken down and brought through the kitchen again and out to the street, where it gets loaded back on the truck.  That, as they say... costs a premium.

The portable drilling rig,  assembly required.

Your standard "Donut Hammer".

Briggs and Stratton engine equipped with rotating cathead.

The Parts Diagram for the S.P.T

Opening the borehole. Concrete hole saw cuts right through 5 inch thick patio making way for the iron sampling rods. During the construction of the parking garage this entire patio slab migrated away from the rear wall of our house.

The three man crew sets up and operates the rig.  It took all of three hours to set it up, perform the test sampling, and break it back down.  In Brooklyn it's actually bad news if they strike oil.

Ready to start.  Wrapping the rope around the spinning cathead.

Split Barrel Sampler:  The two haves of the barrel shown separated revealing the soil sample.

The biopsy

The threaded ends allow for the fastening of both halves of the barrel.

The soil samples are removed and placed in glass jars for study back at the lab.  This sample taken from approximately 20 feet deep revealed dense peat-like organic matter. You could actually see what looked like plant material; bark, seeds, stems, within the the sample.   Evidence of some type of long ago bog-like geography perhaps?  Maybe a sheep pasture?

The sample box.  All combined Soil Mechanics performed a total of 6 boring tests.  Besides the actual collection of these samples a written descriptive log was maintained documenting the entire process from start to finish.

Once back at the lab, the extracted boring samples are analyzed, and then a geotechnical report will be issued by Soil Mechanics Corp.  
Our engineer will use this information to design, if needed, an underpinning plan to stabilize our compromised foundations.  Our general contractor will work with the engineer to come up with some kind of estimate as to the cost of the repairs.  Anticipating what the engineer is going to prescribe to remedy our ailing homes?   I fear that I already know what he is going to say.  There is seldom good news.   Stay tuned...

Safe Slope Take Back Our Streets Rally September 14th at 8pm

Link to Safe Slope Facebook page  LINK 

Updated police sketch of man suspected in as many as seven assaults and attempted rapes in the South Slope, Greenwood Heights, Sunset Park neighborhoods.

Lest we forget...
The terrifying March 20th assault captured on a neighbors home surveillance tape.

After the Huricane: Skunk's Misery Road, Millerton, NY

August 29th, 2011      From the top of Skunk's Misery,  Irene's painterly exit.

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After the Hurricane: Skunk's Misery Road, Millerton NY

Contributary
The tiny creek that flows down the mountain along side Skunk's Misery Road is normally just a few inches deep all year long, but the rains from Hurricane Irene  have caused the  water to rise 4 feet,  in some places jumping the banks. 

The Last Hurrah. Leaving Millerton

Backyard Bouncy Castle Birthday Party.  School starts next week...Back to Brooklyn.

From the series Buildings at Work: The Forensic Engineering Unit

The Forensic Engineering Unit is an elite team of engineers charged with assessing the structural stability of buildings during major emergencies and overseeing the repairs of these structures. The video is narrated by the Unit's Executive Director, Timothy Lynch, P.E.

The Unit has four forensic engineers on duty. They each handle somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 "uncontrolled construction incidents" per year. That's a lot of shit covered fans to clean up after.

For those readers who have been following OUR story, I actually met Mr. Timothy Lynch, P.E. after the Armory Plaza excavation debacle back in 2007 after much of the damage had already been inflicted on our properties.

1504 Eighth  Avenue in Brooklyn had been served with multiple emergency vacate orders after literally cracking in half and Mr. Lynch was put in charge of protecting the public's safety at the site.   We, the surrounding property owners, were afraid our buildings would be next to fall into the hole and were seeking a time out until someone could reassure us that the excavation contractor/developer knew what he was doing.  We were seeking an explanation as to why after repeated complaints noone actually did anything.  There was a meeting.   As I recall it didn't go very well.

The Buildings Department ultimately decided at the time it was more dangerous to leave the site in its current fucked up condition than to delay the work and risk the clusterfuckation of the entire block. A partial stop work order violation allowed the project to continue with some major changes in the way the pilings were to be installed.   They also brought in another engineering firm to oversee the completion of the foundation.

We didn't know this at the time, but our fears were correct. The whole site was dangerously close to imploding in on itself.  We learned later that engineers detected that the pilings were caving inward.

Cracked 1504 Eighth Avenue teeters above the braced excavation, site of the future Armory Plaza Apartments 406 15th Street.

 Attorney for the Armory Plaza developers,  Ravi Batra, pictured center w/lapel flag pin, pleads his client's case to  DoB Engineers. 

Summer Hours

Submit:  If you can't already tell, IMBY's on vacation.  Expect more stoop photos.   Reader generated content is highly desired... Feel free to submit to IMBY@NYC>RR>COM.

 Evidence:  In the mean while, thank Imbyleaks for furnishing us with this gruesome crime scene photo.  Looks like the victim, whom authorities declined to identify at the request of relatives, may have been eviscerated elsewhere and then dumped here in the Slope.  Police are not saying whether this  handiwork is that of a Gang Bashing or just another example of Pinata on Pinata ethnic violence.

Anvil 10-10 to be dropped on South Slopers Tonight

NYC Health Department Will Spray Pesticide to Reduce Adult Mosquito Populations Tonight.

 To reduce mosquito activity and the risk of West Nile Virus, the Health Department will spray pesticide (Anvil 10+10) from trucks in parts of Greenwood Heights, Park Slope and Windsor Terrace in Brooklyn, on Wednesday, August 3, 2011 between the hours of 8:15 p.m. and 6 a.m. the following morning, weather permitting. In case of bad weather, application will be delayed until Thursday, August 4, during the same hours.  The Park Slope Weather Report is saying there currently is a 50% chance of rain tonight which should postpone the spraying.  Remember to turn off your air conditioners and keep your kids inside until this poison wears off, especially if you are invertebrates.

Opposition:  No Spray Coalition Flyer

Stoop

85% Bittersweet

Stoop

17th street

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