Randall's Urban Architectural Sculptures

Here is a photo of one of the station’s originals

I think I will start my clay model of this today as I have the form for it all ready, so hopefully the next entry will have at least a photo of it started.

Here’s a quick pic of the model which was just started an hour ago;

And an hour later;

Second modelling session on this brings it to this stage.

The model was inspired by keystones I removed around 1977 from 621-623 East 5th street. The building amazingly is still there and now occupied.
The headdress the figure wears is a soldier’s helm, probably one of those wire or chain mesh styles with ear protection, I’ll have to research a bit and see what turns up.

As the building was built in 1913, putting it at a later trailing end of the style for these tenements, the building was quite different than it’s older neighbors.

A little history I found last night;

Cost: $45,000
Description: 6-story brick tenement, 50′x 84′
Erected: 1913
Owner: Joseph and Herman Bauman, 61 East 4th st
Architect: Charles B. Meyers, 1 Union sq West

The architect it seems was a good name;

In 1937, New York City commissioned a new building for court and administrative purposes from architect Charles B. Meyers. Meyers worked extensively for New York City, especially during the 1930s, designing the Criminal courts building (with Harvey Wiley Corbett), the Department of Health Building, and several hospitals.

Last week I started on another model which will be Nr 621-R, a male bearded keystone with an unusual soft hat.
Inspired by 3 or 4 of them that I removed circa 1977 from 621-623 East 5th street, erected in 1913

According to records I learned today the following, plus the exact address and year it was built;

Cost: $45,000
Address: 621-623 East 5TH ST
Description: 6-story brick tenement, 50′x 84′
Erected: 1913
Owner: Joseph and Herman Bauman, 61 East 4th st
Architect: Charles B. Meyers, 1 Union sq West.

In 1937, New York City commissioned a new building for court and administrative purposes from architect Charles B. Meyers. Meyers worked extensively for New York City, especially during the 1930s, designing the Criminal courts building (with Harvey Wiley Corbett), the Department of Health Building, and several hospitals.

Here’s a photo of one of the originals;

And a view of thebuilding ( to the left) as it stands today, it was abandoned and burned out in 1977, I’m surprised it was eventually renovated;

The Vacant lot to it’s right was once filled with a tenement and is now a community garden, here’s a photo of 625-627 East 5th street during demolition in 1976, a slice of the facade of 621 can be seen in this view too;

Model Nr 208 R

This model is now finished and probably next week will be molded for production.

Here’s a crop from a 1906 photo showing the setting of a stone keystone in an arch of the Cathedral of St John the devine in upper Manhattan.
Pretty amazing scale to the stones and the temporary timber framework supporting the arch.

I pretty much have this model done now, though there is the inevitable cleaning up and the like as the clay dries out. I added the two rows of “beads” today but did not work on cleaning those up as they were too soft to do much with that way, so that will be done Tuesday.
Forming and placing all those “beads” was pretty tedious, I decided to stop them at the lower scrolls rather than going all the way up as the original antique sculpture had.
I understand from a couple of people, that he may have been a representation of the Greek god Ares, or at least one of them.
I’ve also found that the helmet is simply called a helm, and I’ve so far not found any quite like it in Greek or Roman military/battle attire yet.

The helm is pretty much modelled straight-on while the head is turned slightly to his right which may not seem correct, but in this case it’s appropriate since the helm is symbolic not functional, and turning the helm to the same angle as the head would necessitate angling the assembly, scrolls and bird the same way and then the large scrolls and bird would probably not look even except when viewed from the one angle.

I thought angling those would create some peculiar problems for the sake of minor realism, I think the helm with it’s styled backing of scrolls is more related to a canopy used over full bodied statues in churches and on facades than it is to something the figure would actually wear.

So Tuesday I’ll finish this up, I have a plaster shell for a mold to make and another model to start!

I believe from what a couple of people suggested, that the original may have been a representation of the Greek god “Ares” who was associated with serpents as well as depicted with a battle helm.
The only issue is Ares was usually depicted as either a young man who was clean shaven, or with a beard, not sure how the goatee factors into that as just another artist variation, or discounts it as Ares.

With the extreme generosity of a fellow on wired.com who is a supporter of my work, I now have all the measurements and detailed photos I need to create a good model of the eagle plaque found in the 14th, 33rd and Brooklyn Bridge subway stations.

Made by Grueby Faience Co 1904 to decorate the stations, most still survive while some were damaged and others are hidden behind closed-off platforms.
I will begin with the Astor Place beaver first which will be full size, while the Eagle model will take a little looking at to decide what will work best, the originals are made in multiple pieces. My model may be slightly smaller in size.

Today’s progress,coming along well.