Historic Properties Fund projects occasionally take unexpected paths towards completion. This one led to India.
In the summer of 2019, the owners of a brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant reached out to the Fund seeking to replace the existing non-original ironwork on the stoop. The homeowners wanted to replicate the ironwork that had been installed on numerous stoops on the block when the buildings were originally built in 1884.
The loan application was approved in the fall of 2019. But, while preparing for closing in the spring of 2020, COVID hit. The loan had to be closed remotely, and interviews with potential architects for the project took place over Zoom. The owners selected Easton Architects as the project architect. Easton had experience working with an ironworker in India who was able to replicate original ironwork at a much lower cost than fabricating it in New York or elsewhere in the United States. Like other construction costs, the price of fabricating ironwork had soared. Work on the project got underway in June 2021, with Excellent Contracting chosen as the general contractor.
In May of 2022, the new stoop ironwork was shipped from India to New York and delivered to the project site. Installation of the new balusters got underway, but when it came time to install the new handrails, it was found that they had been incorrectly fabricated and did not fit correctly on top of the new balusters. The contractor in India had fabricated details of the handrails incorrectly. But after some long-distance negotiation, he offered to fabricate new handrails as originally designed by Easton at no additional cost.
It took two years, but the handrails were finally shipped to New York and delivered to Excellent in May 2024. The owners were amazingly patient throughout the process, and the iron fabricator was good for his word. The installation began in November 2024 and finished two months later.
That still left masonry work to be done on the stoop this past spring. Most of our projects don’t take 5 years and require international dealings to complete, but it shows that we will take whatever time it takes to get the job done.
