New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Prestigious Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award has been given to the 54 Bond Street façade preservation and restoration project.
The international project team for the complex job included architect CTA Architects P.C.; owner’s representative D+DS Architecture Office; general contractor Traditional Waterproofing and Restoration; Gent, Belgium-based cast-iron fabricator Van Cronenburg Architectural Hardware; and structural engineer GACE Consulting Engineers. Andrews Building Corporation manages the building.
54 Bond Street is a circa-1874, corner cast-iron building in the French Second Empire style.
The Lucy G. Moses Awards are the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s highest honors for preservation excellence. The award was presented at a ceremony held at the historic St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue .
“The $4.5 million project was phased, with the first phase being the façade restoration, and the second, final phase being the reconstruction of the sidewalk, which is currently being completed,” said Christa E. Waring, AIA, LEED AP, CTA’s Principal in Charge.
“It was an extremely involved, painstaking process involving extensive restoration as well as the replication of over 1,000 incredibly intricate cast-iron units, including formed metal cornices and pediments.
“In addition to the extensive cast iron, there is sheet metal ornamentation on the façade, on elements such as the cornices. All renovation work was performed from pipe scaffolding.”
The highly ornate, six-story, 15,000 s/f 54 Bond Street building in the Bowery section of the NoHo Historic District, was designed by Henry Engelbert and constructed between 1873 and 1874 – at a time when the Bowery was a residential and cultural center.
Columns surround the windows and a stately cornice was specified for above the sixth floor. A shallow pediment is on the Bond Street side of the building, while Englebert placed a cornice around the building between each floor, to unify both sides of the façade. The structure served as the Bond Street Savings Bank for five years. As the Bowery declined, the structure became home to the German Exchange Bank, then a loft and storage space, and, after that, the Bouwerie Lane Theater in 1963.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the building an individual landmark in 1967, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
It was in 2007 that 54 Bond was purchased and converted into a condominium property with three large high-end residential lofts and two commercial spaces on the first two floors.
In 2011, the owner, 54 Bond Street Condominium, contracted CTA to repair the façade, as it had become somewhat dilapidated.
CTA’s Bradley Heraux, technical manager on the project, noted that the team’s biggest challenge was coordination. “The cast-iron units were molded and replicated in Belgium, while the sheet metal elements were remade locally, in Long Island City, by Gotham Sheet Metal. There were so many different elements in different geographical locations, we really had to coordinate it all very carefully,” he said.
“The team collaboration was superb despite the geographical distance,” Heraux continued. In fact, the Belgians traveled to Manhattan for an extensive site review and to create additional documentation of the façade elements.
