NOTE: I do NOT sell antique pieces here at any time.

There are many photos I took in the 70's that were moved from this page to their respective building pages so that the rescued artifacts and the buildings they came from are together. As I do not have photos of every building the artifacts came from, approx 50 artifacts will not have a corresponding building image for them.

As a sculptor, I specialize in creating new authentic looking Victorian and Art Deco models in clay which, when molded enable casts for interior, garden and construction to be produced for sale.

The casts which are available to purchase are in my web store, I add new designs regularly with the details, prices and measurements to the SALES STORE

Most of the images in this section were taken by the author during his teens, from a period spanning 1973 through about 1977. Most of the 100 buildings shown were located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, from 13^th Street to Houston St, avenue A to avenue D. Most of these buildings were demolished over 30 years ago, only a few still stand after renovations or adaptive conversions.

Keeping meticulous records of my collection was a passion, I kept notebooks listing the origin and weight of each piece; frequent moving for more storage space almost made that a necessity for truck rental planning! Around 1980 I had 50 TONS spread out in half a dozen storage spaces and lofts, and by the time I was 18 I was working 5 part time jobs to pay all the rents.

Around 1987 I sold the collection, but since then I have begin a second much smaller collection of artifacts which can be seen on two sub-pages here.

Most of the buildings depicted in the photos were abandoned, remained vacant, and open to vandals and scavengers. Other buildings had structural weaknesses or fire damage and were condemned by the city.
Most were extremely unsafe to enter, one could fall through holes in the floor or have a stairway suddenly collapse under their weight as happened to me at 215 Eldridge Street (Building photos Plate-19). The late salvager Richard Nickel of Chicago was killed by a floor collapse in an unstable building being demolished in 1972.

The camera used for most of the images was cheap by necessity, due to the neighborhoods I went to (smart people never went to these neighborhoods at all) The Kodak instamatic used 126 cartridges that unfortunately produced very grainy photos that don't enlarge well at all.
I hope they provoke some measure of awareness of what urban renewal, neglect and greed can do to that which can't be replaced.

Over 100 photos, many of the pages include photos of corresponding rescued elements, though, some elements have no corresponding building photo.

TENEMENT FACTS:
Number of tenements in New York City, December 1, 1888: 32,390
Number built from June 1, 1888, to August 1, 1890: 3,733
Rear tenements in existence, August 1, 1890: 2,630
Total number of tenements as of August 1, 1890: 37,316
Est 100,000 by the 1910's when constructing this form of building was phased out.

Estimated population of tenements, August 1, 1890: 1,250,000

Plate 1 E10th st. ave C	Plate 2 101 Park Ave	Plate 3 109 Norfolk	Plate 4 110th st 1st Ave	Plate 5 11st 4th-ave
Plate 6 E11th st. Ave A	Plate 7 127-9 Pitt St	Plate 8 13th St. Ave A	Plate 9 Esterbrook Pen Co.	Plate 10 149 St Ann Ave, Bronx
Plate 11 161 Delancy st	Plate 12 172-6 Norfolk St	Plate 13 117 Ave C	Plate 14 177 Ave B	Plate 15 202 Eldridge St
Plate 16 * 207-9 East 96th st	Plate 17 208 Eldridge st.	Plate 18 * 214 Eldridge st	Plate 19 * 213 Eldridge st	Plate 20 219 West 28th st
Plate 21 * 23rd st. 6th Ave Booth Theater McCreary store	Plate 22 232 E 3rd st	Plate 23 242 Spring St	Plate 24 284 E 2nd St	Plate 25 295-297 W 137th st
Plate 26 300 West 137th st	Plate 27 315 East 4th st	Plate 28 397 East 8th st	Plate 29 415 2nd Ave	Plate 30 522-524 East 12th st
Plate 31 53 Suffolk st	Plate 32 603 East 11th st	Plate 33 611 East 6th st	Plate 34 625-627 East 5th st Block 388, Lot 55	Plate 35 639 East 6th st
Plate 36 717 East 9th st	Plate 37 154 West 68th St	Plate 38 184 East 2nd st	Plate 39 311East 4th st	Plate 40 58 Norfolk st
Plate 41 751 East 5th st	Plate 42* 176 W 86th.st Amsterdam Ave	Plate 43* 1924 2nd Ave E 99th st.	Plate 44 Riverside Ave	Plate 45 East 53rd st
Plate 46 733 E 5th st Ave D	Plate 47 653 Broadway	Plate 48 E 3rd St Ave C	Plate 49 Public School 21	Plate 50 115 Norfolk St

Plate 51 611 Broadway	Plate 52 2nd St Ave D	Plate 53 129th, St Nick Ave	Plate 54 E 1st St 1st Ave	Plate 55 7 E. 1st St
Plate 56 299 West 137th St	Plate 57 747,749,751 E 5th St	Plate 58 * 1-3 E.7th St at Hall Place	Plate 59* 190 Forsyth St	Plate 60 * Henry St
Plate 61 Old Hotel	Plate 62 Commodore Hotel	Plate 63 523-527 East 13th Street	Plate 64 The Bowery at E1st St	Plate 65 Women's Jail
Plate 66 707-9 East 5th St	Plate 67 * 11 West 28th St	Plate 68 Public School 27	Plate 69 E 2nd St Ave D	Plate 70 * 72 East 120th St, Park Ave
Plate 71 Riviera and Riverside theaters	Plate 72 Wall St	Plate 73 East 30's hotel	Plate 74* 170 Worth St. 23-25 W.Broadway	Plate 75 747 E. 9th st
Plate 76 719-21 E. 5th st	Plate 77* 138-140 Stanton St Corner of Norfolk St	Plate 78 308 E. 18th st.	Plate 79 299 E 3rd st	Plate 80 299 E 3rd st
Plate 81 * YMCA Orange NJ	Plate 82 E 6th st and Ave B	Plate 83 5-7 Ave D	Plate 84 East 6th St Ave D	Plate 85 Broadway Central Hotel
Plate 86 Cristodora House 8th and B	Plate 87 * Public School 168	Plate 88 308 west 145th St Harlem	Plate 89 Midtown	Plate 90 646-8 East 6th St
Plate 91 Bruckner Ave, Bronx	Plate 92 Ave C and 2nd St	Plate 93 296 Broome St	Plate 94 327 E Houston St	Plate 95 308 E 106th St
Plate 96 * Attorney and Stanton	Plate 97 * Columbia College of Pharmacy	Plate 98 * Leon Lowenstein Clinic	Plate 99 * 1 West 111th St Harlem	Plate 100 * 343 E 105th st Harlem
Plate 101 * 350 Pleasant Ave, Harlem	Plate 102 * Pantages theater, Seattle	Plate 103 * Corn Exchange Bank, Chicago	Plate 104 * 621-623 E 5th st Block 388 lot 57

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For sales, custom sculptures, catalogue, artist statement, and older studio photos.

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Updated 9/16/10 All photos are copyright by Randall's urbansculptures.com and are not to be used for any purpose without prior permission, which will usually be as simple as an email request.