Randall's Urban Architectural Sculptures

Coming up on the 10th anniversary of my adoptive dad’s passing in 1998, thought I’d share a couple of photos in remembrance.
The first one shows him outside his bar on 1st Ave and 51st Street NYC, “The Tomcat Club” circa 1974. To his left out of view was a steel door to the basement where I had tons of salvaged pieces stored. It was one of several locations I had all kinds of things from buildings stored away.

And here we are around 1967 or 1966- dad cooking breakfast, he certainly was not afraid of housework and in my teens he was the one who got me up, fed and off to school after coming home tired from working all night. This was our kitchen in a house we owned on West creek Farms Road, Sands Point Long Isand.

And at the previous house on Plandome Road;

Photo of me with our Gt Dane puppy, Long Island, NY, always liked this photo.

Here’s a view of the house today- still looks the same except the mailbox was on the other side of the driveway, the trees are bigger of course and there’s more shrubs. My bedroom was on the right corner and the only artifact I have from then was the ship’s wheel ceiling lamp fixture which hangs in my bedroom now. House is assessed at over $2 million now;

I bought this classic antique console made of solid bronze recently, it is the right side of a pair it looks like- the upper side has a flat area with a shape that shows there was a horizontal moulding between the pair.

No idea where it came from but it might have been part of a teller’s desk in a bank or supporting a pediment over the doorway in a bank or hotel.
It weighs 13-3/4 pounds

These are properly called consoles, though the term corbel or bracket can be used as well.

ow that my model has been cut into the appropriate sections it is drying and soon will be ready to make the mold from.
It is in five sections rather than the subway extant’s 7 pieces.

Cast iron eagle plaque 13″ tall, 8# mounted on walnut base.

Possibly dates to the late 1890′s to the early 1920′s due to the classic acanthus details.
Originally painted gold and subsequently painted gloss black.
Lower rear has two horizontal tabs for screws or bolts.
Purchased in as found condition, I removed the paint and rust, polished with a wire wheel and oiled with WD40.
Finally, I mounted it on a wood base for stability.

Origination was said to be architectural, in which case it may have come from a store’s cast-iron facade- over the doorway or on top of a cornice, a theater marquee, or a boiler, machine emblem.

No markings or numbers of any kind, purchased for $20

I’m happy to mention I acquired this petite little cast-iron Corinthian Capital which originally came from the interior of the Morgan-Reeves building in Nashville.

Although a number of them were saved during the 1975 demolition, a miscommunication or misunderstanding resulted in all but this one being tossed into the scrap truck. So this is the only surviving example of Morgan’s two dozen interior capitals.

It ran me $245 with the shipping.

It sat in the original owners basement since 1975, all the paint is gone, I’d like to wire wheel it clean but since all the attached leaves are “riveted” on with interference fit “rivets” it could be real difficult to get into all the undercuts. There are acouple of leave tops missing long ago and one flower on top, maybe sometime along I can cast them.

It is only 9-3/8″ tall and all of the leaves and ornaments were individually cast and attached to the core which was cast in one piece with the top- 29 pieces in all.
It is likely it was cast in Morgan’s own foundry. Morgan himself is entombed in the Tenn state capital buildings’ wall and was a big name back then.

There is more on this building and the iron I bought 4 years ago;

MORE

The building itself was surveyed, photographed, measured and documented by student architects working for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in 1970, and this file appears in the Library of Congress’ HABS section.

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.tn0024

Survey number HABS TN-16

Significance: This building, among the earliest to be erected on Public Square following the fires of 1856, is a fine example of the richly decorated Italianate storefront in Nashville and may offer the first significant use of cast-iron elements in commercial buildings in the area. It was erected in 1856 by Samuel D. Morgan, who was instrumental in founding cotton and textile mills in Nashville and Middle Tennessee, and who served as chairman of the State Capitol Building Committee. Since 1897 the building has been occupied by J.S. Reeves & Co., another dry goods store.

The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections are among the largest and most heavily used in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies including examples as diverse as the Pueblo of Acoma, houses, windmills, one-room schools, the Golden Gate Bridge, and buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Administered since 1933 through cooperative agreements with the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, and the private sector, ongoing programs of the National Park Service have recorded America’s built environment in multiformat surveys comprising more than 350,000 measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories for more than 35,000 historic structures and sites dating from Pre-Columbian times to the twentieth century.

This online presentation of the HABS/HAER collections includes digitized images of measured drawings, black-and-white photographs, color transparencies, photo captions, data pages including written histories, and supplemental materials.

The model is basically done except for some clean-up and minor detailing/refining.

A recently acquired cast-iron fragment from a SOHO building for $52
The building in this cast-iron district would date to the 1870′s early 1880′s