The shaft...............................

    Adding an elevator to the Old School was always part of the plan.   While school buildings tend to have wide corridors and staircases, three stories is a lot of stair climbing.  We deemed the expense of providing an elevator absolutely necessary for the success of the project.   The early, early architectural plans called for the elevator shaft to be constructed within the building proper.  For a number of reasons, I vetoed that idea.  We consulted the historical people and submitted new drawings showing the elevator shaft on the outside of the building.  Along with the drawings we submitted a sample of the exterior block.  It was a close a match in color as we could find.  Fortunately, the historical folks consented.  The addition of the elevator shaft will be the only structural change to the outside of the classic building.  Otis Elevator will be installing the elevator car once the shaft is completed.  Their specifications for the shaft were exacting.  This is one part of the project that has no margin for error.   It is no accident that the masonry crew had previous elevator shaft construction experience.

First comes the footer and foundation

Walls need to be cut to provide access from the elevator
shaft (and elevator) to each of the floors

New lintel over the newly cut ground floor opening

Walls have been saw cut.  Now waiting for the third
floor lintel to be installed

Third floor lintel being installed

Openings cut, lintels set.  Ready for the shaft

Block laying commences

Must be break time

This is what progress looks like

The right equipment helps

Almost done

The Otis elevator people gave firm instructions for the
installation of a steel beam at the tippy top of the shaft

Shaft isn't complete until its roof goes on

The finished product

Fifty years ago........................

The Rolling Stones..............................................Stray Cat Blues

 

Fifty years ago..............................

On the television...................The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

 

HVAC..................................

       Air pressure, air movement, air temperature; dust removal, mite reduction, dehumidification:  all were not just a matter of soft self-indulgence indoors, but of positive no-allergy health and the deterrence of rot, rust, fungus and mildew.  The Lazarus act on old buildings began, in my no doubt obsessional mind, with the provision of clean dry air, unobtrusively circulating.

-Dick Francis,  channeling architect/builder Lee Morris in his book Decider

Reasonable people will likely agree that my mind does not qualify as obsessional, but the decision about providing heating and cooling for the 29 apartment units in the Old School was not an easy one.   The 30,000 square foot building, when in use as a school, was heated by a gas-fired boiler.  One cold winter's day soon after we acquired the building we could actually hear the gas meter whirling as the boiler did its thing.  We quickly decided we could not afford to heat the empty building, so the boiler was shut down and the gas turned off.  Also, in the old-fashioned way of 1939 school buildings, the only air conditioning was a window unit in the principal's office.
      We knew several things to be true:  1) we needed air conditioning, 2) we needed each apartment unit to have its own HVAC (heating, ventilating, air conditioning), 3) we needed to be able to meter each unit separately so that the tenants would pay for their own utility usage, and 4) we needed a reasonable way to heat and cool the six corridors. 
       After considerable debate, we opted to use an all-electric Mitsubishi Split System to heat and cool the units.  The plan for installing these units seemed rather simple at first.   However, a consultation with the historical folks changed that it a hurry.   The systems operate with individual unit compressors.  We had planned to cluster these compressors for the first and second floor on the ground outside the building, and them obscure them with landscaping.  The historical folks vetoed that idea (and yes, they have veto power since it is a historical tax credit project).  They thought that passers-by being able to see +/- 18 modern compressors would detract from the classical historical structure.  One must admit that they were right.   So without a fight, we changed the plan and put all of the compressors, out of sight, on the roof.  What that meant though, is that the 35 line-sets running between the unit heads and the compressors had to find their way, unexposed, through the building to the roof.   It got complicated quickly. 
       To make sense of the photos, they start with the heads and work backwards to the compressors:

Most of the units have two heads.  One in the living area and one in
the bedroom.   The two-bedroom units have three heads.   The smaller studio
units only have one head

Installation

The supporting bracket

A line set awaiting the head.   The small visible pipe is the condensation line

line set and condensation line waiting patiently for next steps

Collected line sets heading to the roof

Remember the beautiful new roof?    Watching them cut
holes in it hurt

Our roofer will be very busy flashing all the penetrations.   It will require semi-
annual inspections on all the flashing to make sure the roof stays water-tight

setting the flashing for the soon to arrive line sets

Cut the roof and drill holes in the concrete deck.    Double ouch

The line sets make it through the roof

Line sets ready to connect to the compressors

It's like a compressor farm on the roof

There will be additional photos once they are finished.

Fifty years ago....................................

Clarence Carter..................................................Too Weak To Fight

 

This is our inheritance.....................

 "Awe is the moment when ego surrenders to wonder."

-the rest is here

More stuff I never knew.......................

     Aristotle, a leader of Greek learning with a passion for encyclopedic knowledge, described the earth as unmoving.  Even so, the Greeks soon discovered that the earth was not what it seemed.  They found that the earth was a sphere, and that was a big surprise.  The Greeks also knew quite accurately just how big our sphere is.
     The Greeks noticed that the slant of the sun's rays changed as one moved from north to south.  The difference of the angle at two points on earth, one directly south of the other, could be easily observed at noon during the summer solstice (when the sun appears to come as far north as it ever does).  If one knows this angle and the distance between the points of measurement, on can determine the circumference of the earth.  Eratosthenes is credited with originating this principle and first applying it.  To measure the angle, he used a perpendicular stick in Alexandria and a well with vertical walls in Syrene (modern Aswan).  The stick in Alexandria cast a shadow that indicated the sun was 7° 12' from the vertical.  At the same time, the sun was shining directly down the wall at Syrene.  The distance between the well and the stick was 493 miles. Since 7° 12' is 1/50 of 360°, the circumference of the earth was calculated to by 50 x 493, or 24,661 miles.  This is only about 150 miles less than today's best measurement.

-Edward Teller,  The Pursuit of Simplicity

Fifty years ago.....................

Wilson Pickett.................................................................Hey Jude

 

Develop..................................

How strange it seems that education, in practice, so often means suppression: that instead of leading the mind outward to the light of day it crowds things in upon it that darken and weary it. Yet evidently the true object of education, now as ever, is to develop the capabilities of the head and of the heart.

-Louis Sullivan

Architectural......................

It may be just my opinion, but in redeveloping an old building, the choice of an architect matters.  I think we made a good choice.  The better the plans, the better the sub-contractors can bid, and the easier one can get a building code permit. 
      Fixing old buildings may resemble building new ones, but it actually is a very different undertaking.   Old buildings have their quirks.  It has been my experience that honoring those quirks is a good thing.  So, flexibility and adaptability are fairly key, especially in a historic tax credit project where the historical folks have some significant and specific demands on what the result must be.   I won't tell you that the renovation has exactly followed the architectural drawings (I wouldn't want to speak untruths to faithful readers), but for the most part the results align with the plans.  I will tell you that our architect, a true team player, was consulted regularly when issues and questions and changes arose.  I do believe he will be proud of our creation.  Here is a quick stroll through the drawings:

The title page with all sorts of important information

The building code people care about this stuff

a basic site plan

A fairly old photo.  I have no recollection of that fencing

The design for the basic one bedroom unit

The first floor

The re-design of the old boiler room.  Should be a
pretty cool, and very large, apartment

Giving the electricians something to do

The new elevator shaft, part 1

The new elevator shaft, part 2

Your basic bathroom and mezzanine plan

Kitchen plan

One must go to plumbing school to make sense out of this schematic

Fifty years ago.................................

Ten Years After.....................................................Rock Your Mama

 

Choices.................................

In the famous tale by Ahiqar, later picked up by Aesop (then again by La Fontaine), the dog boasts to the wolf all the contraptions of comfort and luxury he has, almost prompting the wolf to enlist.  Until the wolf asks the dog about his collar and is terrified when he understands its use.  "'Of all your meals, I want nothing,'  He ran away and is still running."
     The question is:  what would you like to be, a dog or a wolf?

-Nassim Nicholas Taleb,  Skin In The Game:  Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

Aesop's tale of the Wolf and Dog is here

Salutary..........................

Gene Callahan reviews Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Skin In The Game:

"In this intellectual climate dominated by “interventionistas” and “IYIs,” nothing is more salutary than a bold and original thinker willing to call a fool a fool and a knave a knave."

The bumblebees are back............

Must be Spring!   More than you wanted to know about bumblebees can be found here.

Framing..........................

Before much of anything can get done in a building project, the interior walls need to be framed in.  While the existing bones of the Old School are brick, concrete and ceramic block with plaster interior walls and ceilings, most of the new walls are either 2" x 4" or 2" x 6" wood studs.   The new walls were added mostly to create bathrooms, bedrooms, and the kitchens.  The old plaster walls were saved wherever possible.  One of the issues confronting the design of the renovation was hiding the new plumbing.  Since it is a three story building, and the rooms are essentially stacked upon each other, it was necessary to hide the plumbing for the third floor units from the second floor units and  the second floor from the first.  We solved problem by creating a mezzanine over each bathroom.   For the most part, all the plumbing lines, hot water heaters, and exhaust systems are hidden there.

Basic framing for a smaller "studio" unit.  Note the removed blackboard
on the existing left hand wall.   These will be the Old School Apartments,
so each unit will have a blackboard

A one bedroom unit, without full bedroom separation

The former "boys" room, a future studio apartment

One of my favorite units, this one bedroom will have a kitchen island.  The
window in the far wall of the island was previously located in an interior
classroom wall.  We are reusing everything reusable

I don't remember any schools I attended having a fireplace, but this one did.
Likely it was the Superintendent's of Principal's office when it was built.  No,
 we will not allow the fire place to be used.  Chimney has been capped.

This piece of furniture was built-in storage in one of the classrooms.  It will
be fixed up and cleaned up.  We think it adds a nice touch to this
one bedroom unit.

Typical closet space for most of the units.   Also home for
the electric panel for this unit

One of the four two bedroom units

This is the mezzanine located over all of the bathrooms. You can see the
necessity of hiding the plumbing from the unit above.

Typical one bedroom framing

Fifty years ago................................

The Bee Gees.........................................................Massachusetts

 

Voting early...................

The great state of Ohio makes early voting easy.  Took advantage of that today and voted in favor of the renewal of the Newark School levy.

Fifty years ago.....................

The Moody Blues..............................................Ride My See-Saw

Opening paragraphs................

     To call a book on the development and applications of science The Pursuit of Simplicity may seem paradoxical.  Science and technology are more often viewed as the source of complication in the world than as simplifying factors.   Large numbers of educated people, even learned people, in the western world are gripped by a malaise of despair at a world that seems too complicated to understand, much less affect.   They wish that the world were more simple, more the way it used to be.  Their pursuit of simplicity begins with wanting to discard science and technology.  Rejecting science and technological progress, even if it were possible, would certainly not solve people's problems.


Edward Teller,   The Pursuit of Simplicity, 1980

It is in finding the small pleasures..................

.........................................that one enriches one's life:

Fifty years ago......................

Fleetwood Mac..................................................Merry Go Round

 

Fifty years ago.................................

The Doors..............................................................Hello, I Love You

 

Fifty years ago............................

The First Edition.....Just Dropped In (To See What Condition ...)

Watching, always watching.............

enlargeable photo, and back story, here

Time Travel..............................

.......................................Enjoy a preserved cinematic view of New York City (population about 4.7 million) in 1911. A different time:

 

via

Harder than it seems........................

"How to give a five-minute presentation: Give a four-minute presentation and take your time."

-Seth Godin

Just my observation..................

...........................................but systems frequently get gamed.   Something about human nature.  Always remember - the one unbreakable law is the law of unintended consequences.  Ben Carlson is on the case.  A wee excerpt here:

Incentives drive the world in many ways so getting the right compensation system in place can have a huge impact on people’s actions. Measurement can help an organization better achieve its goals but it can also lead to unintended consequences. Performance bonuses or fees are typically seen as aligning interests of all parties involved but there are downsides when the wrong measures are used.

Opening paragraphs.............

     Skies over the North Atlantic were mostly clear when the unarmed twin-engine DH-98 Mosquito climbed out of Goose Bay, another factory-fresh fighter-bomber on its way to help the British repel Hitler's war machine.   The pilot, an American civilian employed by the Royal Air Force Ferry Command, banked out over the Labrador Sea and powered his agile aircraft toward a rendezvous with the "hurricane express" - a fierce but friendly tailwind blasting out of Canada at nearly seventy-five miles per hour.  RAF meteorologists called it "the Iceland Wave."  By whatever name, the rushing wind stream promised a faster-than-normal ocean crossing, possibly even another world record, since the captain was taking a rather daring direct route to Prestwick.
     Under normal circumstances, the Mosquito's limited range made such a plan suicidal.  A straight line to the coast of Scotland was about twenty-two hundred miles - nearly a thousand miles beyond the plane's maximum fuel range.  Even with a temporarily installed two-hundred-gallon gas tank lashed to the floor of its empty bomb bay, this fighter-bomber would need a hefty tailwind to avoid ditching hundreds of miles short of land.
      Young Captain Kirk Kerkorian was feeling lucky.  A month earlier he rode the same air current and shattered the existing nine-hour speed record for an Atlantic crossing by nearly two hours.  It was exhilarating, the way winning big at poker was exhilarating.  He liked it - the thrill of victory, the rush of adrenaline, the payoff.  For a quiet, seemingly mild-mannered guy, Kirk was surprisingly comfortable with risk.  At least that's what his poker face suggested.

-William C. Rempel,  The Gambler:  How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became The Greatest Deal Maker In Capitalist History

Fifty years ago...............................

At the Movies.............................Ice Station Zebra with a great cast