1504 Structural Stabilization & Temporary Building Bracing

The owner of 1504 8th Avenue, a Mr. Arnold Rosenshein of 1504 Realty L.L.C., has been granted a permit to begin work on stabilizing his heavily damaged building.

Is this "temporary fix" only a defensive response to the previous two D.o.B./E.C.B. violations for "Failure to Maintain"? Or could it actually be the beginning of an honest to Betsy attempt to rescue and repair the building before the outer masonry walls shear off into the Memorial Baptist Church's now vacated parking lot? No sidewalk shed permits have been applied for to our knowledge.
There are significant cracks on both the rear and side facades. The left side wall seems to be twisting. There are also areas on the front facade where the brick around the window gates has popped off. The basement floor and foundation wall at the rear of the building show signs of severe depression. It does not look good. IMBY staff psychologists have been working closely with the building as it has been "entertaining certain thoughts" about throwing itself down into The Pit. There is always the chance that this hysteria could have already spread to the neighboring 1502 8th Avenue. Just last week, our caring DoB inspectors stopped an apparent self-inflicted boiler-ectomy. Was this a cry for help?
Sunnydale Hell Hole
In any case, the Armory Plaza Gang have wasted no time in digging down to the next level. You can see the different colored layers of glacial sediment being exposed by the excavator . Our IMBY staff Geologist is out this week, but I will venture to guess that this soil has not been disturbed in like a gazzillion years.

Gravity + a little bit of knowledge=

Maybe the reason why buildings seem to be falling all over the city...

“This has been a big problem for some time,” structural engineer Joe Tortorella told The Observer. “It is a consequence of overzealous contractors and owners trying to work too fast and make money, and ultimately cutting corners.”

Mr. Tortorella, former president of the Structural Engineers Association of New York, an engineering trade group, thinks that the incidents stem largely from inexperience.
Read the entire story here.

Or if you like, from the good folks at Curbed, still another cracked perspective on the recent avalanche of brick.

Some recent handiwork from The Pit.

Happy 2 year anniversary!

Armory Plaza #2 Party
Remember two years ago on April 16th, 2005? It was a Saturday around 8:30 in the morning when our good neighbors decided to tear down the fence and introduce themselves.

"Where's my complimentary Armory Plaza designer logo swag filled tote?"
I love candles! How about something from Bricolage Designs new aromatherapy line of D.o.B.-friendly scents? They have a slightly dirty, lingering (but not overpowering) scent that makes it the hands-down favorite of candle connoisseurs year in and year out. "Good times" as Jeri Blank would say.

Getting Biblical

Something like a near record breaking 8'' of rain fell on NYC in a 24 hour period on Saturday night and Sunday. The kind of real scum scrubbing rain that finally washes away all the sick whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, and junkies, off the streets of the South Slope. Ironically, Alternate Side of the Street Parking was not suspended, so I still had to move my car for this mornings street cleaning.

New Crack!

Wow, check out the new crack on the side of the now vacated 1504 8th Avenue. It formed over night. It's the one starting just above the spray painted "B". The one without any crack monitors on it yet. Then there's that massive crack that runs the entire height of the building. It has spread wide open, especially at the top near the parapet wall.














































DOB inspectors issued a Vacate Order and taped off the parking lot with forsythia colored caution tape.




















Love the Pole and the Hole
In an attempt to brace the deep foundation walls they are using everything but the kitchen sink, including the left over pilings welded at angles to brace the corners.

























CrackCams installed with two cameras-One pointing into The Pit and the other trained on the failing wall of 1504. Possibly a new public access channel? Where can I get a subscription?














































Is anyone still noticing that The Memorial Baptist Church continues to crack. "Good Times"

Seven, eight, lay them straight.

Started hanging the iron this week. Reminds me of the first time I ever tried hanging a towel rack on an uneven plaster wall without the use of a level or tape measure.

Shadow Puppetry
I like this hallucinatory landscape image along the 8th Avenue side of The Pit that arrives each afternoon just as the sun is about to set. Do you remember when you stopped seeing shadows? The stage is set for some Indonesian morality themed shadow-play, except in this instance, living people will perform instead of paper cut-outs. It's not a good idea to place a ladder on such a severe incline.














"en plein air"
Visually pleasing, the "mud and rust browns", they are. Maybe it's the pixillation, but my photos have been coming out impressionistically fuzzy, as if I was executing some quick preliminary studies done on site and then brought back to my studio at the end of each day.
I usually don't like Impressionist paintings but, there is a Impressionist landscape show at the Brooklyn Museum that includes a very tasty little John Singer Sargent painting depicting a forest stream that totally surprised me. Sargent was a great society portrait painter. He sure could paint the way shallow water feels- speeding up when it passes over, around and between rounded stones, becoming more opaque, and then translucent as it becomes still again... You know, junk like that.























Turning the corner.





































Eastern wall parallel to 8th Ave. The old lot line that separated 406 from 408 15th.

























Detail of welded steel I-beam support struts along shared rear lot line. Fabricated spacers fill the gaps as the piles are not exactly in line.

Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye.

My son is now at the age where he can finally fend for himself against the attacks of most of the locally grown gap toothed varietals.
Daddy's time. Yesterday at the playground, I was able to read right through, literally from cover to uninterrupted cover, including all the classifieds, an old copy of Giantess Magazine.

Lately most of my leisure time is ill spent, religiously gazing at this tiny little man at the bottom of The Pit. He's been fervently, almost fetishically, daubing hand mixed masonry product between the massive steel columns. Like Sister Wendy having a Ferris Bueller Moment, I'm frozen, transfixed in front of "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte", it's been that kind of life affirming week to say the least.







As someone who finds diastematics quite pleasing to the eye, I never understood why spoil sport dentists couldn't leave things better off alone. " The absence of enamel is unashamedly lustful!"

Architecturally speaking, 257 years ago, in a prior life, might I have preferred a chinked log cabin over a chinckless one?

"Arguably the greatest scene from the greatest movie ever made..."

Iron Work

Workers have set about removing the loose soil between the tube piles. Not unlike tiny symbiotic Plovers (Pluvianus aegyptius) cleaning out the gaps between the teeth of some gynormous crocodile.

































Piles of flossing debris.





Delivered this steel to the site on Friday.
The pit is now about 12' deep. They need to dig an additional 24' more to accommodate the basement and two subcellars.

Demerara Engineering, PLLC to Supervise Construction of Armory Plaza, Brooklyn

RAW BROWN CANE SUGAR























Barbie Princess Fairytopia MiniKingdom Playset by Mattel now features this cute pastel colored Lil' Tomboyz Excavator from its Princess @ Work Collection. Pit optional.



















Who you all gonna call when the vibrations return?


REVISED PW1 & TR1 FILED HEREWITH TO ADD OSCAR WALTERS OF DEMERRARA
ENGINEERING PLLC TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY OF CONTROLLED INSPECTIONS.

DEMERARA ENGINEERING PLLC
160 PEARL STREET,, New York, NY 10005
Professional Title:
PE
License Number:
68504
Filing Representative:
Ali/Vargas Nazeema/Roger
Phone:
718-259-1100
Bricolage Designs
6321 New Utrecht Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11219

length without breadth

406 15th Street Armory Plaza Excavation

The Principle of Superposition and Original Horizontality



















Starting each week day at 7am, semi-trailer dumping rigs and smaller sized dump trucks wait in line for their chance to fill up with dirt. It doesn't take the excavator very long. Just a few minutes before they are full and another truck moves in to take its place. 300,000 cubic feet of misplaced soil that needs to be removed. So goes life living on the edge of what may be the largest open-pit mining operation in the entire South Slope region of these United States of America. Did you know that New York State is one of only 15 states that claims an official state soil? Who said Honeoye? Thats right! Only It's pronounced "Hay-e-a-yeah.” Our Honeoye series consists of very deep, well-drained soils formed in glacial till which is strongly influenced by limestone and calcareous shale. They are nearly level to very steep soils on convex upland till plains and drumlins. The Honeoye soil is in the Alfisols soil order and is classified as fine-loamy, mixed, active, mesic Glossic Hapludalfs. Gesundheit! God Blessed Nicolas Steno.

I can't recall ever seeing any recent building construction utilizing this particular foundation technique, then again not every new development in Brooklyn has three levels of underground parking. Most of what you see around is the standard poured in place concrete foundation cellar walls. So far the pilings seem to be holding their ground. In the mean time the earth on the 16 Street side of the fence is thawing out and continues to settle down.

Blogmaster "Jon Brownstoner" De-cloaks.

*SPOILER ALERT*






Nom de plume?

The Brooklyn based blogosphere nearly collapsed into its self today with news that some 37 year old, white, married dude is actually... believe it or not, The Jon Brownstoner.
According to an article in the March 26th edition of The New York Observer, some guy named "Jonathan Butler" has come forward claiming to actually be the real Jon Brownstoner.

Brownstone.com's message boards exploded with dozens of anonymous comments all claiming, "Not fair, I'm Jon Brownstoner!". Among those besides Mr. Butler who are also laying claim to the title: Eletricgreek, Crown Heights Proud(the real one), and something named linusvanpelt.


IMBY Labs was able to procure this satellite image of what we believe is the bonafide, never-ever before seen head of Mr. Brownstoner.





The question on every one's mind right now... "Hey Jon, wow... who did you use to redo the brownstone on your front stoop? It looks great!"

Hole

As the excavator begins removing the ground, some 300,000 cubic feet before it's all over, the steel foundation piles are being revealed. So far I can't report hearing any melancholy cries, loud weeping, or gnashing of teeth coming from the pit.


















The earth moves first along the rear lot line, pictured above.












Pictured above. The Eighth Avenue line. The Baptist church is on the far right. 1504 8th Ave. is on the far left.

Rebar and Pile Caps

La piece de resistance

The pile caps have been poured and work begins on removing the load-o-soil that has dominated the centre of the site. The plywood fence at the bottom of the photo divides the construction from the rear yards of the homes along 16th Street.


















Within the plywood forms, an artistic arrangement of re-bar awaits concrete. The Port-o-John gives one a sense of scale.

Like a virgin, being touched for the very first time.

"When the little dwarfs came home at night they found Snow-White lying upon the ground. No breath came from her parted lips, for she was dead. They lifted her tenderly and sought for some poisonous object which might have caused the mischief, unlaced her frock, combed her hair, and washed her with wine and water, but all in vain-dead she was and dead she remained. They laid her upon a bier, and all seven of them sat round about it, and wept as though their hearts would break,"

-From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs











Resurrection

In the familiar animated Disney version of Snow White, the Prince, already deeply in love with Snow White, arrives in his search for her, raises the lid of the glass coffin, and offers "Love's first kiss''. She then awakens after three days with great delight into his arms as the proprietary forest animals and Dwarfs rejoice at her resurrection.

In the original Grimm Brothers' slightly different version of the story, a Prince just passing through the forest, sees the beautiful maiden in the coffin, and persuades the Dwarfs to let him carry it off with him to his kingdom. When they stumble over a shrub while carrying the coffin, the piece of poisoned apple is dislodged from Snow White's throat, and she awakens to his open arms and a declaration of love from the Prince follows.

In the Disney version the story ends with the wicked Queen falling off a cliff after being struck by lightening. The Grimm Brothers have the old hag attending Miss White's wedding, but then dancing to her death in a pair of red-hot iron shoes.

Prince Karl Fischer
On February eighth two thousand and seven, building permits were once again renewed by Prospect Terrace, LLC on that very troubled lot, 1638 Eighth Avenue. Five years in the unmaking, this sleeping condominium has been poisoned by unsafe and defective excavation and shoring work. Residents on Prospect Avenue have complained about lost earth, sinking back yards, defective retaining walls, and excessive vibrations that were judged bad enough by the D.o.B. to shut the pile driving down. Oh, and the water...


If Snow White teaches us anything, it's that if we wait passively, quietly, patiently, remaining absolutely still in our prettiest dresses, then someday our Prince will come and everything will end once more, happily ever after.


Forgiveness blanket

Snow flakes falling from the sky like unharnessed day laborers. What yonder magic "a two inch thick blanket" of fresh snowfall has to transform a shit hole into a pristine winter wonderland of possibilities. Mother Nature may have thrown a white tarp over this frozen corpse, laid out between Prospect Avenue and Windsor Place in the South Slope, but now I'm feeling rejuvenated once more. I haven't felt this giddy since I drank all the "water" from my son's Curious George snow globe. Regardless of my past mistakes, my flaws and failures, I feel like anything is possible. Wonder Works Construction, all is forgiven.

PILE CAPS Everyone!

If I had a hammer, or a Pile Integrity Tester

Beginning last Monday February 26th, workers began building the plywood molds, that when filled with concrete, will form what's referred to in the millinery trade as "pile caps". Pile caps are large concrete blocks into which the heads of the sunken piles are embedded. The forms pictured below are on the rear property line. It doesn't look like they are being embedded though. It looks like they are being set, more or less, on top of the pile heads. These pile caps are supposed to distribute the loads evenly amongst its neighbors. Let's hope that what's known as low strain impact testing was performed by the on site engineer to determin if any cracks or voids exist in the burried foundation piles before further construction begins. All it takes is a single blow from a hand held hammer and some complex math according to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM D5882-00)

chazir-treif
The drilling rig is back in action boring holes directly (let's say 10 feet) behind 1502 8th Avenue. It looks and sounds like they are using the "drill inside the pipe method" as specified by the Department of Buildings. Somewhere on the site there is or there is not a forensic engineer from the DoB over-seeing all of this work. Listening to the familiar pounding of metal against metal makes me think the engineers are out sick today.