Central Terminal 1992
Terminal fan Richard Gilbert contacted me a while ago about video footage he had of the building from the early 90s. Well he has started converting it to digital formats, and is sharing it with us and all of you through Vimeo. Check out the first installment below from September 1992. The concourse clock is already gone, but there is so much intact glass still, and notice how much ceiling is still left in the waiting room!!
Buffalo Central Terminal September 1992 pt 1 of 2 from Richard Gilbert on Vimeo.
November 22nd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Astonishing! Simply amazing!! I can’t even picture how much natural light there is the main concourse without everything being all boarded up as it is now.
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Well, in the Cheshire Cat video ‘Never’, filmed later on, there was a lot of natural light in there also. I had to put out a few ‘fires’ on the home (and work) front this past month, but hope to be up at least one more Saturday before Christmas to help out with the work parties, weather permitting. Hopefully soon, if I get time, I hope to upload some of the footage from Oktoberfest and Members Only Tour 2009. I’ll give y’all a shout when it’s ready!
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Well you can tell that they really hate Telesco.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:40 am
Does anyone recognize the people in the video? And what exactly is the condition of the waiting room? I have seen other references to it being structurally unsound besides Ms. Etten’s comment on the ceiling, but am curious as to what specifically is wrong.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:09 am
There is still plaster falling from the waiting room ceiling, which is why it remains closed to the public. The CTRC is currently using it as a storage area.
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I do know that one of the men they mention Steve Koenig did in fact spend money out of his own pocket trying to seal the building up. Light bulbs to locks he saw the building before a majority of the damage was done that you see in the video.
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
The well-dressed 60ish fellow seemed to be with a historical society or museum.
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Like Phil said, if anyone recognizes any of the people in the video, let us know as Richard Gilbert would like to include that information with the vid.
As Derek said, the waiting room can’t be used until all the ceiling comes down. But other than that there are no other problems with that space structurally.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:55 am
The waiting room ceiling looks a whole lot worse now but its all cosmetic. The one pic i current have of the wait room ceiling is this one: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/PICT0064.jpg . Its the largest remaining section of the plaster relief design and is roughly diagonal from the mens room doorway.
The holes you see in the picture are where the plaster and steel mesh have fallen away, but the actual concrete ceiling is a few feet above the top of the arched plaster, and is strong enough to stand another 80 years
November 24th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Thanks for the info. I had seen a comment here in the past year (I think in response to a question about the original restrooms off the waiting room, seen in the video) that the floor of the waiting room had “heaved up” several inches due to a structural problem, and had always wondered what that meant.
About the gentleman in the video: he says that he was trying to obtain artifacts such as a bench and a baggage cart, and I wonder if whoever they are managed to get anything and if so do they still have them. He sounded frustrated so they may have given up, and he might not even be from the Buffalo area.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:12 am
I believe, from what I was told, was that a water main break beneath the waiting room floor caused it to heave when the water froze up. There is a lot of broken and missing Terrazzo floor sections around the new indoor bathroom area and center waiting room entrance doors. Probably more under where the stuff in there is being ’stored’. I hope a developer with deep pockets and a kind heart comes along someday to help us to return it to its former beauty. (Steve Koenig is still with the WNYRHS, isn’t he?)
November 25th, 2009 at 4:25 am
Parts of the floor are broken up in the waiting room, but i wouldn’t call it structural issue in the slightest bit. I am no engineer, but like the ceiling it appears cosmetic to me.
I couldn’t hear the audio very well on my computer speakers, so I couldn’t tell where they were trying to get the baggage cart and benches from, but Architectural Circus on Niagara “acquired” carts and benches at some point in the past, but no longer have them. They sold us all of their remaining carts and cart parts a few years ago but had no benches anymore.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Thanks again. I have watched this video about ten times now. It is absolutely fascinating. I do not believe that the person looking for benches and carts had bad intent, I think he was trying to rescue some items before the vultures carried them all away. What is so interesting is that this video apparently was made at the moment when it was becoming known that Telesco was looting the building.
Regarding the waiting room: I agree that it was the right decision to put off restoration in there for a later time, just because so much of the room’s appearance seems to be ornamental compared to the other big rooms, and so much of the details were either looted or washed away. You probably couldn’t fix the plaster a bit at a time, it would need one big project like the roof, done by paid professionals. But I am happy that the room’s overall condition is much better than I had mistakenly thought.
November 26th, 2009 at 2:07 am
One thing i noticed in the video that hadnt clicked for me before is why the original mens room has a wall built down the middle. Amtrak’s “terminal inside a terminal” would have cut of access to the original womens room, so the mens room had to be divided.
Paul G, there shouldnt be a main water line beneath the waiting room really, as the mainline into the building is in basement below and behind the wait room, (behind curtiss) and water for the front part of the building is delivered under Curtiss also IIRC…. theres very little piping of any sort under the main concourse, and therfore shouldnt be any under the wait room.
The damage to the Wait room floor is most likely due to cosmetic cracks that took on water from the leaking ceiling over time, and froze during the winter. no different then how potholes in the street are formed
Sara: wasnt it said that Architectural Circus most likely had one of our main concourse chandeliers also? As the story goes one chandelier fell as it was being looted, and the other sat at Arch. Circus in the rear lot (outside) but was slowly torn apart and scrapped by kids hoping the fence to grab whatever they could.
Phil: the best bet for the ceiling is to rip it out and start over. The plaster is supported by small angle iron that has steel mesh attached to it, and the mesh is quite rusted, leaving no support for the plaster. The angle irons are also just wire tied to each other, and when the wire ties rust off the angles become free to move any way they please.
HOWEVER: we still have 2 1/2+ out of 4 of the plaster releifs, 2 are complete (the train and statue of liberty) and the 3rd is more then 1/2 there (forget if that ones west falls or niagara falls) and if dressed up and sealed properly they WILL survive. we also have a good amount of the plaster surrounds for the reliefs, so new ones of those would be a cake walk.
Any plaster thats a repeating pattern can be copied and new sections produced in a workshop using molds and attached to a repaired ceiling, its a rather simple process.
The missing heating grates are smaller versions of the ones in other parts of the building, the clocks are simple to reproduce, and we still have ONE bench left that can show us almost exactly how to build as many as we want.
as far as “paid professionals” is concerned … nah .. just need some volunteers that arent afraid of heights, and a BUNCH of supplies.
i cant let the cat out of the bag yet, but theres one project im hoping to get the go ahead on that Ive been told (by outsiders) that ill fail and everyone will hate me for it …. but i KNOW for a fact that we can do it using volunteers. Hopefully the project gets the green light next season.
Now that i think about it, ive got a few different projects in the works … lol. Anybody have a bundle a 2″ square tubing laying around? we need about 400 feet …
November 26th, 2009 at 2:30 am
I have not heard the story about the large ceiling fixture being at Architectural Circus, and when I spoke with him several years ago, he never owned up to having any lights. In talking to another dealer who was the main reseller of the lights and clock, that fixture was too huge for him to take, no where to put it…he didn’t know what happened to it. I’ve not gotten any leads from anyone on that fixture in the 6 years i’ve been trying to find artifacts.
What bench do we have left? The benches in the building right now are church pews…
November 26th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
The mens room bench. Its single sided and has an enclosed bottom, but its still an excelent example of how the benches were originally built.
And no worries about the light fixtures, i know someone that can draw them from scratch
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/prints/27sconce1.jpg
November 26th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Thank you for posting this. It is nice to see the marble there and the condition of the station was much better than. Too bad the Central Terminal restoration did not get it when it looked like this. I will await the second part with baited breath!
November 27th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Heres the other blueprints i have for the lights that belong around the main concourse, all these belong on the flat ceilings. i also have the exit lobby’s triangular wall lights in the works.
i wish i had pics of the trolley lobby light fixtures, and a pic of the ceiling light that belongs at the begining of the train concourse (just our side of the cinderblock wall)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/prints/?action=view¤t=flatceilinglights.jpg
November 27th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Nick, is this one of those?:
http://buffalocentralterminal.org/pics/album/72157605311998978/photo/2533384188/donated-by-sue-joffe-bctslide13.html
Lol, I have been spending a lot of time digging through the photos on this site since the video went up, trying to find an early photo of the (intact) waiting room. Here is one:
http://buffalocentralterminal.org/pics/album/72157605316894779/photo/2532586601/historic-photos-04.html
Also, you mention the trolley lobby, I have not seen a photo anywhere of it in use, what is its condition now? I know that the area where the tracks were in the parking garage was bricked up. It would be neat if it could be reused for its original purpose, such as light rail, at some point in the future.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Phil, that picture shows the the rectangular light and also the perfectly square one
The Trolley Lobby’s name is a bit misleading, as it was never used as such. Van Dyke Taxi company made sure of that while the terminal was still being built.
currently the Trolley lobby looks like this:
first 2 sections of stairs down from the main concourse: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/panolobbystairs.jpg
Before we cleaned it up: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/Trolly%20Lobby%20Stairs/PICT0216.jpg
more cleanup: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/Trolly%20Lobby%20Stairs/PICT0339.jpg
bottom set of stairs, cleaned up before i was involved w/ the terminal http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/PICT0329.jpg?t=1259352202
and here’s the trolley lobby looking the other direction. i still cant figure out what would have went on the far wall, it LOOKS like a plaque should have been there, but there;s no evidence anything was ever installed. Maybe a plaster relief of a street car was supposed to go there ?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3184/3010810536_233c24038c_b.jpg
and here’s our only remaining bench: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/?action=view¤t=panobench.jpg
November 27th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Do you mean the top of the far lobby wall? It was a clock.
November 28th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
ah, the apparent lack of bolt holes and wiring was throwing me off on that.
any idea what the ceiling light in the trolley lobby looked like ? or for that matter the one thats at the start of the train concourse ?
i can figure out the outlines just like i did for all the rest of the lights, but the rest is a mystery to me
November 28th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Thanks again so much for the info, all fascinating. I dug around a bit and found this story about the streetcars (it says exactly what Nick said about streetcar service never being established):
http://buffalocentralterminal.org/about-the-terminal/news-archive/1985-news-archive/beacon-at-mile-4359-1-a-station-too-late-too-far-91985/
Unfortunately the terminal was built at the beginning of a roughly fifty year time period when streetcars/ light rail/ passenger trains were out of fashion- the terminal was both behind and ahead of its time! A nice dream for me is that I live long enough to see a streetcar approach the trolley lobby for the first time, perhaps the one out to the airport that has been in the works. Can you imagine- under five minutes to downtown. Anyway, thanks you guys for all the effort you are putting in, you really seem on top of things and to be making progress.
November 28th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
oh yea, Paul G, wheres the hardware for the window ? Were kinda tryin to put the place back together ya know
November 29th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
The only things missing should be the screws. Most of those were so bad they had to be thrown out. (And the 80+ year old broken drill bit I pulled from the outer frame.) The window frame and all the moldings were there. The inside molding is all one piece, shaped like a rectangle, very fragile. The outer moldings were strips, the top and side ones were with the window frame. The bottom one was sitting loosely on the outer frame at the marble ledge, unless they all got moved again for the Variety Club thing and the ghost hunts. The window frame had a piece of wood in it that I was using for a straightedge after banging out the bends in the dividers. Last time I left them in the ticket counter area and they got moved for the train show. I found them in the elevator room after I got a tip from Nathan. This time I left them inside the room where the frames and moldings were being worked on. They were leaning up against the inside wall right next the hole where they went in. If they got moved again, check the elevator room again. BTW that was an interesting and informative discusstion I had with you and Nathan at the train show in September.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:33 am
If I think of it, next time I come up I’ll bring a package of 8-32 x 3/4 flat head or oval head machine screws, and maybe a tap or two. I think that’s the size they were.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:33 am
i know they have the 2 larger pieces, the one that all the glass panes sit in and the fragile molding, we just didn’t know where the smaller stuff had went. Everything that was behind the ticket windows is now behind the FIRST ticket window nearest the ticket agents office, so we should be able to track those smaller pieces down rather easy.
And heres another of my light projects for anyone keeping track … this one is far from finished but its a solid start to work from. Once i get ahold of the measurements where it sits against the ceiling ill be able to do more to it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/chandtemp.jpg
November 30th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
That’s this one?:
http://buffalocentralterminal.org/pics/album/72157605312119556/photo/2533410508/the-1970s-weterminal15.html
December 1st, 2009 at 11:19 am
From the bison being in the pic, I’d say it was the one in the east concourse. Sara, if you have the original, could you please upload the supersized image to Flickr, if it doesn’t get too grainy when magnified?
December 1st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I don’t have access to the original at the moment, and the negatives are 4×5 so I can’t scan them with my 35mm negative scanner. But that would be the light that Nick posted last.
December 1st, 2009 at 6:12 pm
well they arent the originals, but Walter Ettens’ pictures of the terminal are available in much higher quality then the ones on the CTRC website, you can find them here:
http://www.icenine.org/photography/bct.html
Those pictures were BY FAR the most helpful in my quest to accurately redraw the light fixtures for the terminal, no other pictures out there that i have found show even 1/2 as much detail
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:55 am
that would be my father, and my website haha
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:09 am
I am always saddened when I see what has happened to this beautiful building. We have been in it many times and my whole family are becoming more active in the CTRC in the next year to do what we can to help. Thank you for posting this!
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
4×5 sounds like 120 film. If you have access to a darkroom and enlarger, prints of 8×12 or bigger could me made there. If they are black and white, developing the print paper should be easy. I did b&w photography in college many years ago. Scanning the highest quality prints at the highest pixel density possible might use a lot of disk space, but the results will be rewarding. And the grainy edges could be cleaned up with software such as Photoshop, etc..
December 4th, 2009 at 12:15 am
BTW I don’t know if they have negative scanners available for 120 (4×5) and 620 (4×4) size film, but that’s something someone might want to check into. If there is a CTRC member who works with 120 film or knows someone who does that would like to help out with this, it might be a good chance to speak up.
December 4th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Yes, you definitely can have medium and large format negatives scanned. I have used a Nikon film scanner for 120 roll film, and have had good results. I understand that the best results are from a “drum scanner” — the professional shops do that.
I am in Seattle, and have not lived in Buffalo for a while, so I don’t know who is good.
Just found these folks online: http://www.kbmprinting.com/
There are plenty of places around the country you could send this work out to be done, but (a) do you really want to risk losing those negs in the mail? and (b) support Buffalo business whenever possible!
December 4th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
One more light to post. the only thing required to finish the design so i can start breaking it down into individual pieces is the laser scan data of the concourse ceiling, which i should have this weekend if all goes well.
Once i have that, I’ll know the actual diameter of the chandelier where it touches the ceiling, and i can rescale my work accordingly.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/chand3d.jpg
December 5th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Fascinating. I assume you would put it together on a jig of some sort. Are there any blueprints in existence for the large light fixtures? I recall reading that there were blueprints from eighty years ago for the ornamental railings that were recently replaced:
http://buffalocentralterminal.org/2009/06/railings-return-to-the-mezzanine/
Perhaps the blueprints wouldn’t help as much for the light fixtures because of how many individual parts make them up, whereas the railings were cut from one large sheet.
December 5th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
There were no original blueprints for the railings, the blueprints we have were created on autocad by a volunteer using photographs, same as what Nick is doing for the lights. The way the railings have been reproduced now is different than what we originally intended. Originally all the scrolls were being formed from the same sort of steel used for the frames of the railing sections. Marty Slawiak had the idea to cut the designs out of whole sheets of metal, and attaching the sheets to the frames. It was a much easier process that took a few weeks, instead of the way we were going the other way which had been delayed several years now haha. But we’ve got a bunch of steel scrolls now!
December 5th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I think I see what you guys have in mind with the large fixture: cut sort of N shaped pieces for the top, large section, more triangular pieces below, tack weld or braze them together, add glass. I also assume that you would include tabs in the metal that you could bend back to hold the glass pieces. Brass, not steel, right?
Impressive. It makes my head hurt just to try to imagine those sort of compound curves and how you dissect them into individual components.
December 5th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
It’s amazing what CNC processes can do to reproduce things that would otherwise take an extremely long and painstaking effort, but the ‘art’ value is lost in the tradeoff. Nostalgia vs getting the job done affordably and in a timely manner is a tough balance. The end results could only be distinguished by the trained eye. The average person would probably not be able tell the difference from the originals, unless they have actually seen the originals, which are now long gone.
December 5th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I believe that the gentleman with the Blue work shirt , name tag Mike, is Mike Peglau , who is with or was with, the WNYRHS.
December 5th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Has anyone used a Canon Canoscan 8800F scanner? There’s a few on eBay for about $100 plus shipping. That might do the job for the big negatives- it’s a flatbed type. It will take media up to 8.5 inches x 11.7 inches. It’ll work with Windows 2000 & higher, and Mac OS-X 10. I need to read some reviews on that one. It might be what we’re looking for.
December 5th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Well, after reading the PCMag review of the 8800F, the guy reviewing it recommends the Epson V500 for negative scanning. That one will scan medium size negatives at 6400 pixels per inch as opposed to the 8800F’s 4800 ppi, and supposedly the 8800F will not scan medium or large frame negatives at all. And the Epson comes with digital ICE for scratch removal feature. I’ll check the full review of the V500 and see whai I come up with.
December 5th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
BTW a Howtek 4500 drum scanner is about 150 pounds and surplus it runs about $1500 on eBay. It is also SCSI interface and supports Windows 9x/NT and earlier MAC OS versions. So unless a local shop has something similar they use everyday and can offer their services to scan large negatives at a reasonable price, an Epson V500 or V600 might be an alternative, but negative size is limited to 6cm x 12cm for the V500 and 6cm x 22cm for the V600. I don’t know if that could be a problem. I’ll keep looking. I don’t know if The Buffalo News might have a drum scanner, or if they’ve gone all digital. Maybe someone could find out.
December 6th, 2009 at 11:25 am
The light fixtures for the terminal might never have been fully blueprinted originally. They could very well have been some scribbles on a napkin w/ a few critical measurements, and let the artist figure the rest out.
All the light fixtures will be broken down into their individual bars, which will be formed on a press brake to their proper angles, miter cut on each end, then welded to their neighbors. If we cut triangular pieces the welds would be down the long edges which would make quite a mess in the end.
I most likely will not be building much of a fixture for these either, just build it upside down on a large table and work my way around and up, then build a support structure on the inside for strength.
The chandeliers will be steel, as brass would be roughly 12 times the cost for materials alone
December 6th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
And brass pieces of the same dimension as steel pieces are slightly heavier in weight, and the fusing process is more painstaking. Those would need to be silver soldered or brazed by someone with a very steady hand. With steel, tig welds would produce the neatest joints, with sufficient strength to hold it together. Of course, some of the joints would probably only need to be spot welded. The final finish could then be painted (or plated) on, if a plater big enough could be located that could do that economically. Or a powder coat finish could be applied electrostatically, then baked on. Unless, of course, stainless is used for some of the parts, but that’s expensive too. Maybe Marty can come up with some ideas too. (That’s right up his alley, working in a metal shop!)
December 6th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Steel is the material of choice here. i have a mig welder but we dont have the juice at the terminal to run it. We have a 60A service there and my mig draws 25+. The brothers generator is also to small for running my mig (i think)
ill see if i have everything required to build a basic scratch start tig setup using the converter box i have. The converter is ment to be attached to a stick welder so we should be able to hook that up to the brothers welder / generator just fine, and then i can tig the entire assembly.
All the welds will be complete one way or another, probably bevel / filler rod on the exterior and then just wash the inside seam together w/o any filler. That way they never start bleeding rust stains no matter what happens.
i would love to see these get powder coated in the end, plating is probably to pricey as these are large items and cant just be tossed in a plating vat w/ 100 other paying jobs the plater would be doing at the same time. (100″ wide and 52″ tall)
December 8th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Yeah, I worked with a Miller MaxStar 200 convertible stick/ tig welder and they are nice units. But any DC stick machine fitted with a tig adapter should work fine. With tig, the tip is negative so it don’t burn up in the arc, and has foot pedal control, preflow and postflow adjustments for the gas. And with tig you run pure argon as opposed to a 75/25 or 70/30 mix like with gas mig. All around you have better control over the whole process with tig, and the end result is a very neat weld. (And I like the idea of using RF to start the arc over trying to strike an arc with temperamental electrodes that stick to the metal! Of course, the auto ‘lift to start’ feature on the newer stick machines is nice too.) Powder coating would be nice, but painting is still probably the cheapest way to finish the end product.
December 8th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Being curious I did some digging on the net and there is a company on Main street in Buffalo that does plating. They seem to have been in business for a long time:
http://www.keyfinishing.com/
Probably out of the reach of an all-volunteer org., but they have a place to request a quote that would give you a baseline price. Of course you could always build your own electroplating tank, as it seems likely to me that these lamps will be the first of many. Excellent!
December 8th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I was toying with the idea of inventing an electrostatic metal vapor plating process where a chamber could be constructed around the large object to be plated, and a mist containing plating metal material would surround the item to be plated and electrostatically deposited to the surface. Once the process was finished, the chamber could be easily dismantled, and reassembled if another large piece needed to be plated. Portability would be the key element there. It would need to be easy to transport to and from the job, easy to set up and dismantle, and wouldn’t require large amounts of power to operate. And the tricky part: the process would have to be economical… and environmentally friendly…..
December 8th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Or, as with the powder coat process, have guns in the chamber that would atomize the plating solution, and shoot it, using high voltage to accelerate the mist, with enough force to penetrate the pores of the electrically charged heated object to be plated. The object would be rotated within the chamber (on a turntable) for uniform coating of all targeted surfaces. The liquid carrier of the plating solution would be drawn out of the chamber once it makes contact with the heated object and evaporates, leaving the plating metal deposited on the object. The vapor residue could then be sent to a condensing unit, converted back to liquid for possible recharging and re-use. Sounds like a good idea, no?
December 14th, 2009 at 9:42 am
My great-grandmother was a “car counter” up in the tower, ’til her retirement from the NY Central in ‘49. Railroading is in my blood, in fact she and several others on that side of the family had relocated to Buffalo from PA as the transportation industry there boomed.
My only recollection of the terminal was as a 5 year old in ‘79. My grandfather brought me, my mom, and my baby sister to there to jump on the train back to Rochester. We’d dropped off a car for him to drive, as he’d wrecked one of his own. At any rate, I remember the waiting room with the murals, sitting on the benches in there, and sitting on the train waiting for it to pull away from the terminal. The last passenger train left BCT a little over a month later.
Saddens me to see the vid. I’ve seen Chuck Maley’s pics from that time frame, too, and other pics taken since the early 90’s. Glad to see the terminal is sealed off and some wonderful people are committed to cleaning it up and starting the painstaking process of restoring parts of the complex.
December 15th, 2009 at 1:07 am
And an off the cuff design, based on some of the other lights in the terminal but at the same time a unique design.
i know where i want to put them, but im not gonna tell just yet
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/GS-B-1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/GS-B-2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/GS-B-3.jpg[/IMG]
December 15th, 2009 at 1:08 am
woops:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/GS-B-1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/GS-B-2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/GS-B-3.jpg
December 16th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Hmmm Nick, I’m going to say a chandelier for the Trolley Lobby?
December 17th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
The mini chandeliers in the trolley lobby and train concourse are both (if i remember correctly) 12 sided, and i also don’t intend to replace any of the “public area” lights of the terminal with anything that’s not accurate to history, so those 2 light fixtures will have to wait till the day we have pics to show what they looked like.
These will be going someplace else. wait and see is al i can suggest.
December 17th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
My guess would be the new restrooms. If so a good idea, a bit of art deco in what is otherwise a modern utilitarian space.
December 18th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I guess that rules out the ceiling fixtures above the entrances to the main concourse from the base of the tower, the Van Dyke lobby, the baggage check , and the train concourse (or does it?). Nick, has anybody CAD’ded the 2 tier tulip concourse entrance lights with dimensions yet? I know there’s not much to them, and the base and frame would be the most difficult parts to construct. An interesting touch to them would be the use of color changing LED lamps! Rebuilding the pedestals they sat on is another thing. I think only one or two out of the eight are still in good enough shape to use. The rest need major work.
December 18th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I did the 27″ sconces already, and the 7′ ones are the same general design, just stretched out a lot and a bit bigger around. Once i get the measurements for the 7 footers i should be able to draw those up no problem.
Cynthia Schwartz measured both the 27″ and 7′ units when she visited Hong Kong, which is also when the pictures in the gallery were taken.
Unfortunately a while back both my hard drives took a long walk off a short pier, so the CAD files for the 27″ units are most likely lost, but i know how i did them so im not to worried about it.
As for the pedestals for the 7 footers, im thinking that would be a good place for fiberglass replica’s. Make molds of the good pieces we have, Lay down a coat of clear jel coat thats LOADED with Botticino marble dust, back it up with white jel coat, then lay down fiberglass matting. all the detail of the starburst engravings, none of the expense.
Noone will ever know the difference, even if you tell them. And marble dust / fiberglass mixes are already commonly used for outdoor statues, so its a sound design concept. and Botticino dust is like $7 for 5 pounds or something of the sort.
December 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
and as for whats ruled out for this newest design:
all lights in the entry lobby area, exit lobby area, elevator lobby, main concourse, train concourse, baggage area, waiting room, Trolley lobby, new bathrooms and old bathrooms.
gotta keep you guys guessin for a bit
December 19th, 2009 at 12:24 am
its a start !
form them, trim the ends properly, weld them together end to end in a fancy fashion, paint, install glass, hang, say “oh those look pretty”
easy right ?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/hotrodkid/bct/bct%20projects/PICT0210.jpg
December 21st, 2009 at 1:52 am
Well, nothing is ever as easy as it sounds, unless someone has done similar work and knows exactly what to do. Yeah, the fiberglass composition slabs for the torch pedestals sounds like it would work pretty good. I see on the fiberglass composition bathroom vanity sink tops the marble finish they use looks like the real thing. And that’s a lot easier to form than cutting real marble. That’d work great for the rounded ends on the kiosks too! (At least in the immediate future, until some kind soul wants to spring for the marble and shape it. Don’t see that happening anytime soon!) I think we have set a new record for comments posted for a message on this board! The last time this many came was when Speaking With The Dead was aired! Can’t wait for Richard to release Part II of the video!