By Kareem Fahim
When he worked at one of New York’s most respected preservation firms, Timothy Lynch would have spared no effort to save brownstones like the two that sat before him on a January morning.
They were landmarks on one of Brooklyn’s prettiest streets. But contractors renovating one of the buildings had accidentally knocked down a load-bearing wall, threatening both with collapse.
Mr. Lynch, an engineer who had once helped restore famous buildings like the Park Slope Armory and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, now worked for the city’s Department of Buildings; his priorities were different.
Apart from the danger to residents and workers, engineers predicted that a collapse would probably bring down at least two other brownstones, leaving an unsightly gap in the more than 100-year-old visage of MacDonough Street.
The choice facing Mr. Lynch, if not easy, was clear: He ordered the brownstones demolished.
That provoked an outcry from Robert Providence, the owner of the brownstone under renovation, and from city preservationists and local homeowners who cherished the street.
What followed was a concerted campaign to save the brownstones, a battle in which Mr. Lynch emerged an unlikely hero and Mr. Providence was left with a huge bill.
In the end, about 36 tons of concrete and more than half a mile of lumber were deployed in a rescue effort that transfixed a corner of Bedford-Stuyvesant and underscored the difficulties and often high cost of historic preservation.
When the demolition order on the two brownstones was lifted last week, amid rejoicing by the preservationists, Mr. Providence was left several hundred thousand dollars in debt, he said, having sunk his life savings into the rescue.
And Mr. Lynch, who went from condemning the buildings to helping save them, was left exhausted from the work. His role was crucial, said John Weiss, the deputy counsel for theLandmarks Preservation Commission. “He ends up being the redeemer,” he said.
The brownstones are on a block in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District that has remained virtually unchanged since the late 1800s. In January 2009, Mr. Providence bought his brownstone, at 329 MacDonough Street, across the street from the gargoyles of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, after a long exile from Brooklyn, where he had grown up.
He was a litigation analyst at a large corporate firm, and the brownstone, built in the late 1800s in Italianate style, looked like a steal at $770,000. “It was an amazing block,” he said in a recent interview as he walked through a maze of wooden structures used to shore up his home.
Planning to rent out the top two floors, he applied for permits for a gut renovation. Contractors renovated the upper floors, but subcontractors also dug in the basement, where they had no permits to do work. What they were doing is a matter of dispute: Mr. Providence said they were installing a boiler without his permission, but city buildings officials suspected they were digging a trench with the aim of lowering the floor in the cramped space.
Sometime in the early morning of Jan. 20, the cellar wall collapsed, rupturing gas pipes in the basements of Nos. 329 and 331 next door.
Mr. Lynch, the city engineer, arrived at the scene that morning. Without the cellar wall, he figured that about 180 tons of brownstone was essentially being held in place by the front wall, buttressed by a stoop, and the back wall, braced by a concrete shed.
He had come to know the engineering challenges of brownstones well, having worked for 14 years at Robert Silman Associates, famous for its historic preservation work. “Our concern was public safety.” Mr. Lynch said. “You cannot endanger workers.”
Within days of Mr. Lynch’s conclusion that the brownstones needed to be demolished, a fight had broken out. Preservation groups and residents rallied to save the brownstones. Mr. Providence’s lawyers filed motions to stop the demolitions, and his neighbors packed a Brooklyn courtroom for a hearing. Mr. Providence and a neighbor in the other brownstone, Doreen Prince, hired engineers. Other engineers offered opinions.
The plan the assembled experts presented to Mr. Lynch was complicated and dangerous, but provided a sliver of hope. To shore up the cellar, cribbing boxes — essentially wooden columns — would be installed. Then, with the building better supported, concrete would be poured into timber frames to build another basement wall.
It was all easier said than done: for safety reasons, only two contractors could work in the basement at a time. Constructing the cribbing boxes took two and half weeks of around-the-clock work, followed by the building of a new wall.
After each workday, Mr. Lynch and the contractors hired by Mr. Providence held their breath, to see whether their engineering theories held the buildings up. Because of the danger of a secondary collapse, “It was one of the most complicated engineering plans I’ve worked on,” Mr. Lynch said. In the end, the work took 42 days.
Meanwhile, the pressures on Mr. Providence were mounting. The six people who lived next door — including Ms. Prince — were forced to move in with family or friends. And the costs of the rescue were rising, forcing him to spend his retirement savings.
Seeking assistance in financing the project, he met with a local conservancy group and approached politicians. “No one has the money to help,” he said.
Mr. Providence said that he knew the work would be expensive and that the burden would fall on him.
“I tried to do things the right way,” he said.
For his part, Mr. Lynch said his role as a city engineer still involved preservation, albeit of a different type. “The preservation of the buildings is not as important as the preservation of workers, or of the neighbors,” he said. Saving the brownstones, he said, was a bonus.
The New York Times
