Not so long ago, a comprehensive restoration of the New York City Center building in Manhattan was completed. The restoration of this architectural monument took place in several laborious stages, from the dome to internal communications. But apart from the complexity and the large amount of work, the restoration is interesting for other reasons. One of them is the origin of the building itself.
Initially, the building, now serving as a hall for concerts and performances, was called the "Temple of Mecca": it was built by the Masonic society "Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine", or Shriners for short. …
When the Templars needed to find a roomy meeting room for the lodge, their choice first fell on Carnegie Hall. But at their meetings, the Masons "produced" a lot of cigar smoke, which the manager of this famous concert hall did not like, and they were "denied home." This prompted the templars to build their own building.
The "Temple of Mecca" was designed by the architect Harry Knowles, also a member of the lodge (which was not uncommon for architects of the past centuries). The design in the Moorish style confirmed the Arabic allusions of the name of the society: the Alhambra palace was taken as a model.
After Knowles' death in 1923, the project was completed by Clinton & Russell. The "Temple of Mecca", richly decorated with stucco and glazed tiles, stood out from the surrounding buildings. However, due to the Great Depression that began in 1929, the Templars could no longer pay property taxes, and the building became the property of New York. It was supposed to be demolished in the early 1940s to make way for a parking lot - but he was rescued by the mayor of LaGuardia, who turned the former Masonic temple into a New York Center concert hall with affordable tickets, where such large masters like Leonard Bernstein. In 1984, the structure, which had changed its name and function, was given the status of a monument.
One of the most interesting parts of the building is its dome-hemisphere 31 meters in diameter and 16 meters high, covered with Ludowici tiles.
Its construction was completed in 1924, and only 75 years later the first problems arose: the dome began to leak, its felt insulation could not withstand. Therefore, in 2005, its restoration was carried out, which affected not only waterproofing, but also the restoration of the coating. Representatives of the contractor Nicholson & Galloway compared their work in terms of complexity with the construction of pyramids: usually ordinary roofs are covered with tiles in New York, and metal is used for domes, here, in addition, they used "graduated" tiles that change size from row to row (there are 469 of them), becoming narrower as the height increases. The restorers ordered 28,475 tiles of the same unique configuration, again from Ludowici.
An important consideration was to avoid the "Disneyland effect", that is, the impression of fake and novelty. Therefore, red, light red and ocher terracotta tiles were randomly installed to give the dome the features of a monument that has survived a decade. The installation work was carried out in difficult conditions: under the weight of the builders, the tiles could break, so the installers moved with the help of a specially made fiberglass ladder, repeating with its profile the curve of the dome.
The new covering of the dome of the "New York Center" made of unique Ludowici tiles should last at least 100 years, restorers assure.
Ludowici * is a major manufacturer of roof tiles from the United States. The company has existed since 1888, producing to this day tiles of a wide variety of types, shades and styles. The official representative of Ludowici in Russia is the ARCHITILE company.
* The Ludowici brand belongs to the Terreal concern, Europe's largest manufacturer of building ceramics.
