The Bostonian Society; WGBH Forum Network; Preserving Boston's Old State House

And welcome to the Bostonian society's first event in its annual or lecture series for the fall of 2000 eight This is 2008. We have a very distinguished crowd with us tonight. But I want to make sure that you know where you are. This is the old state house the oldest public building in Boston one of the oldest public buildings in the country as a matter of fact. And it's the headquarters of the Bostonian society the Historical Society for the city of Boston which was established slightly more than 125 years ago specifically to preserve this building from the struction the Bostonians decided today functions as the Historical Society for the city and a number of ways although it's currently engaged in a strategic planning process that will define what direction it's going to take in the coming 125 years. The the old State House itself I'm sure you're familiar with the basic outlines of its story how it was built to replace a structure that was built of

wood on this site in the 17th century that burned to the ground in 1711 and constructed in fireproof masonry in 1713 and open to the public as the townhouse for the city of Boston. And as the meeting place for the colonial assembly the seat of a government of the British Crown in the New World in at least in the New England and the place where the various segments of Boston Society met and crossed paths it was in this building on the ground floor that the business community met and it's here where many of the basic ideas in opposition to British crown rule were first voiced not only in the informal conversations beneath us but in the chambers in which we're sitting where the colonial assembly sat and this and this end of the building the first high court of the hemisphere was established and met in the center of the building the assembly. Roused

ravels and in the far end of the building the governor met with his advisory council after the revolution. The building was transformed to its current namesake the first state house of the of the state of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts although this function was lasted only for a brief time until 1798 when the new state house opened on Beacon Hill and the procession marched up school street bearing the sacred Cod to its new quarters of the state government. The building then fell into somewhat mixed use until it was passed over to the city of Boston in 1830 where it served as the free first free standing city hall for about a dozen years and then it fell into disuse until late in the 19th century when it was proposed that it be torn down. And in that wonderful foundation mythology for our organization. The story is that the city of Chicago

proposed moving it brick by brick to the shores of Lake Michigan until the city fathers of Boston proposed that it not be demolished but to be preserved as an early effort in the nascent movement in this country. The Bostonian society as I mentioned was established at that time and it has continued to the present day as its steward primarily for most of its history. As an interpreter of the inside of the building but in recent years it's taking up the cause of maintaining the physical structure of the building and all of its various expenses. The buildings have been through a number of restorations. Several of them necessitated by various fires that have taken place in the building. One of the earliest in 1747 when some damage was done to most of the wood fabric of the building including some areas of the tower that have recently been rediscovered as

our specialists here will describe it later this evening. Various other restorations have taken place and the most recent of these is taking place even now. The group that we have with us this evening will describe the efforts that have taken place over the past few years and will be ongoing for some time. Were also I should mention proposing to do a reinterpretation of the interior of the building so it will be made clear probably for the first time in the building's history. Why this building is so incredibly important to the history of all Americans and perhaps to the world at large. So with that I'm going to pass you on to Pam Bailey who has been the project manager from elite Kennedy and Company and she will introduce you to the other panelists this evening. Thank you. I wanted to introduce the team that was involved in the project so the two projects that we've done most recently the architects and David story are an architect and

ticking over it is like any company. I was the superintendent of the most recent project managers with the managers with the old statehouse and Bostonian societies the facilities manager Judy Solon's our preservation consultant and Bill Barlow is with National Park Service. So just briefly describe the two projects that we did over the last few years. There the both of them were brought about because of water infiltration issues. The northeast corner was the first project that I was involved with two years ago that began in 2006 right after July 4th. That was a four month project. We started with the staging of the scaffolding up immediately after the July 4th festival festivities rolled out of this part of the city and then we took this scaffolding down. And the last bits of work were done in October. The primary scope with that

was the window if anybody was was by the building at that point but you could see the masonry and the mortar was just a student disintegrating on the outside. And then on the inside all of the plaster had just started to peel off and both the upper level and lower levels of the building. We also did a lot of Slate restoration and repairs. We did a lot of. Woodwork repairs there was repair to lend tools to a number of the metal elements on the outside. And then again as I was saying on the inside there was woodwork restoration in the plaster. One thing that was very interesting in that project is that the demolition that began immediately and taking all of the plaster off and then having to. But it was so wet. That for about three or four weeks we had to just let the air dry that corner and the methods that we came through developed in putting the plaster back so that they would constantly be airflow. We'll touch on later.

Then all of that work then is everything's put back together and looks as good as new again. It looks better than it did before but also at exactly the same. Then from that project we rolled or hoped to roll right into doing the tower restoration that that point the water infiltration coming in through the tower. And as of water you never know exactly where it's coming from. So you could go up stairs and the water was coming in through the base of the tower onto the clockworks through the various mechanisms. And it was threatening that the collection of the archives and threatening the building itself and my boys said the building is the most important item in the collection. So there was one October October morning a year and a half ago two years ago weird Don. Judy rich Muchel who's the mill worker and a great guy from our stage of our lives floated around the building we had a big lift

in the courtyard there. And the best way we could see what was going on was to know 60 feet in the air just float around. Poke and prod and take pictures and figure out what the scope was. And then two years later we came back and we started on the end of March the very beginning of April and as of this year and the scaffolding came down and at the end of July and we replaced all of the wood siding along the base of the tower moving up with the numerous elements the wood trim and moldings and did an awful lot of repairs to the lead cap on the lot of the flashing in the corner mitres moving further out. We had initially thought we would do just the window repairs and do some caulking on site at that point we realized that that was that it would be more important to to really do the windows right. So after we had started the decision was made to

remove all the windows take them off site setting them up to Lawrence. We store all of those windows which were from the 1880s and bring them back then still moving up further. We realized that a lot of the leak was coming in from the dome. The lead Dome had never been part of the scopes so we figured out the best way to address the issues there and peel them apart put it back together rebuild it. It kept going up and ended up with the oven the weathervane which was everybody's. Felt the cherry on top of the dome top of the mushroom I guess at any rate. So we ended up doing an awful lot more than we had first started out to do. But we're strongly proud of the job that we did and the end result of it. So I'm not going to spend too much time other than that I'm going to turn it over to Judy and Judy can really elaborate on what the specifics are that we discovered. Well let me tell you what we're seeing we're seeing before and after pictures here

when this gets enlarged the picture on the left is what the building looked like in early 2006 and even in this picture you can see the extent of efflorescence that's the white powdery material on the upper right hand side of that picture. And this was really a sign of what was going on inside one of the things I want to emphasize in my little presentation is that you really have to take apart a building of this age to understand what's going on. And we really have a lot of high expectation for this building now. This building functions as a museum and has climate control it has humidification it has light control and it stores artifacts. We're really expecting this building to perform in a lot higher level than it probably was built to perform. So a lot of the deterioration we're seeing now really in a way was built to into the building but also over the years

many of the restorations including the one I participated in in 1991 was very much a what can I say a light touch. We wanted to save as much as possible. And one of the things that Bill Barlow will speak about later is we've actually become more aggressive over the years recognizing that we're asking the building to perform a lot better than anybody was willing to tolerate before people willing to tolerate a lot more before on the right you can see really what the building exterior looks like. Now we did reach points at full size. And Don and David will tell you about the changes that were made invisibly on the inside to keep the water out. Is this this order. Oh it's only a pointer. OK. But now we're going to take it. No no I'm not going to point to a laser it affects the eyes and things. This is the room opposite you. This is the council chamber. This is the northeast corner when you go for refreshments you'll

see downstairs diag. Now this is downstairs I'm sorry the upstairs room look just as bad this deterioration. This is this was painted virtually every year prior to this was taken in 2006. But when I saw the building in 1991 it looked like this I've recently given Matt some pictures that were taken in the early 1970s. It Like This. This was a recurrent problem. And our job here was to figure out how to deal with it. And one of the things I'll show a little bit in my photographs I'm not going to give you the solutions. It's Dawn's role but the investigation you'll see in the upper left hand corner we peeled away the plaster to see the condition of the masonry underneath. And as we went further into the process we peeled away more and more in saw before we actually started construction we had to limit what we can peel away and you'll see during

construction we really became very aggressive. To understand what was going on I think that's the wrong way I'm not. Well let's keep going. OK. I don't know why that was in there but that's OK. The water penetration as Pam said was really bad. I don't know if you noticed in the last flight I'm going to go back. You. Got. That. That was one day we were called over in the spring of 2006 and basically an emergency basis and this is what the attic in the. This is what the tower looked like that day. And the plastic tarps were up and the plastic tarps were regular condition. The staff got very good at dealing with this. If you were a. With. Touring.

Projects we've already spoken to the famous day when I got done up in the lift and I guess that's something I do quite a bit and I'm going up to the balustrade and seeing how it had been put together. And again this was the result of an earlier restoration and beginning to understand that some of the things that were done in the earlier restorations didn't work some day. The bannisters were in good condition but the rails themselves were in terrible condition and I became good. At that song. OK. You'll you'll see in a couple of times but we found an awful lot of really weird that we didn't expect to be rodded was rodded and a lot of this was very surprising because the paint was intact. The building looked fine. The paint was acting as a shell and underneath the wood was soaking wet. This

was in many many locations. This is right outside the window in the other room where the flagpole sits. This was on the base of the flagpole. And again the wood was entirely and completely rotted. We look like we're upside down so we're not. We're actually up right under the dome and in the second phase of the project as we started poking on the lead roof and again that gilded roof is made out of lead. We found parts of the corners were soaked. And this really I give Matt a tremendous amount of credit because those of us who are consultants in we are in here every day we have snapshots of the building that kept saying towers slaking domes leaking the tongs leaking and you know we pursued that next. And here's

how one of the ways we pursued that people said I said they looked at me and said What are we going to do going a water test and how are we going to water test that. And this was a very effective water test because you know why. It was very straightforward and this chick out there with the hosing we're protecting the surfaces underneath and we started working our way up from the bottom of the lead dome to the top and the next slide what we found was in fact every single seam in that roof leaked and we thought it was really good because it wasn't very old and it had been installed by the Park Service using their best knowledge and it turned out none of those. Seams were sealed. And we wound up as we've said opening each one and reselling them and then going back and water testing them to make sure that we probably had a better system. And

now with the last slide I'm going to turn it over to the architects and the big deal was that scaffold on the tower was actually in storage for almost two years. Those huge beams there because we got slow down a bit by the city but we roared forward this spring to try to finish the work on the tower and I don't know I think I probably have Don and David speaking next of the disciplines of preservation restoration or rehabilitation preservation is literally the most conservative in that you really save as much of the existing fabric as is technically possible. So the architects role in the preservation process really is to weigh in with the team gone to team discussions with creative physical solutions the details that preserve and maintain the integrity of the

structures authentic fabric yet continue to allow it to function as a structure and a building in a real environment and serving real programmatic functions and requirements. This is a living building. It needs to function for us all. So David I will offer a couple of examples as I think Pam indicated the genesis of Phase 1 of this effort in 2006 was born of the dramatic and rapid deterioration of the interior finishes of the northeast corner at all levels. And you can you can see the indications and as you probably know photographs of existing conditions never really show it quite as bad

as it really is. But what happened was that at first the paint surface was peeling and the wood wainscot karting was was cracked and actually within within months the plaster was spalling Baddeley and the wainscotting bow and distressed quite badly to the point where the more wall mounted exhibits as well as environmental control within the building was severely in jeopardy as architects. I mean we we design new construction as well as design and engineering new additions to and retrofit and generally care for landmarks structures. So when we saw this condition our our immediate mental reference was a more modern masonry wall system called the cavity wall where the interior finishes are

physically separated from the exterior masonry wall whatever its age as you undoubtedly know unit masonry and mortar will always absorb moisture. So eighteenth century brick and so off line mortar on the northeast corner of the old state house in a modern urban canyon facing Boston severe weather patterns. Well the result was no surprise. So what's the solution. Without getting into too much detail we knew what not to do. Don't spray the exterior Masonry was so cool waterproof coatings and sealers. And don't try to insulate the wall in this application. They would create other issues and frankly they'd probably create unintended consequences in

reviewing. And actually this is interesting in reviewing the forensic study on this issue of moisture intrusion that was prepared by Simpson Gompertz and Hagar in 1999. This line of analysis was indeed confirm so consistent with our initial reaction we just needed to separate the interior finishes from the theory or solid masonry wall. And of course the key to that possibly working was the need to circulate some air within that void. Perhaps Bill Barlow may be expanding a bit later on on the distinction between preservation restoration and rehabilitation. But aside from those definitions and the philosophical nuance as you may imagine retrofitting the interior of the old statehouse with steel studs and sheet

rock with brick fence on the exterior brick walls was not in the cards. We weren't going to do that. Fortunately with an old fashioned three coat plaster job we had about it inch and a half from the interior surface of the masonry to the finish plain of the existing plaster. So we were able to achieve a solution that introduce the concept of air circulation between masonry and plaster and the wood wainscotting without changing dimensions which was very important and to allow the quality and nature of the original finish material. The real plaster so to make a long story short we took inch. We actually we took half inch pressure treated wood grounds

pieces of wood and we attach them to the inside face of the masonry wall of brick wall and we install these staggered vertically and horizontally so that air would always circulate and not get trapped in any particular area within that void. And then with metal lath and to coat plaster finish with air circulation coming in at the wood baseboard or at the base of the window see downstairs base of the base the baseboard and this level we were able to get air circulating a bit inside. And then you will see in the other room and you will see that there is a discrete

slot above the metal picture hanging Rod where we managed to get the air to circulate through an outward and so far it seems to be doing its job. I'd like to turn this over David and he'll talk about a couple of other examples. The troubles with the Northeast Corridor and moisture getting into the wall were relegated only to the interior finishes one of the other things that happen outside of mold of rotting windowsills which Judy showed us was and maybe can you skip ahead to today. Oh was that some of the masonry was being displaced by up to about two inches through rust jacking now. This. This is a term that you may not have heard of before but the problem is really that rust takes up more room and steal that.

So when water gets into a wall and the rust expands it just pushes whatever's in the way out of the way. And in fact the steel beams that you see over here which were put in back in 1993 when the subway was put underneath the old state house had been sort of collecting water for a long time. So we we carefully marked the bricks took them out and then took a look at the steel beam. This is one of three actually there's two behind it. In fact they even cut a hole in the center of this being to see whether the rust had gotten beyond and to the other two beams. It's a safe place to cut a steel beam as long as you cut it between the top right in the middle and right in the middle. You don't want to fool around. Luckily it hadn't gone beyond the first beam so we scraped it all waterproofed it put it back together and I don't think you could figure out where it is right now. Let me see. Let's get one more slide of Judy's famous

investigative screwdriver. Which we use which was used an awful lot. So this this building has stood up to the north the nor'easters for almost 300 years. The winds funneled up state street. This is the building in the middle of the street actually it's always been in the middle of the street. There's never been anything around it. So it's borne the brunt. Beyond the the the northeast corner of course the other section that's borne the brunt has been the tower. This is a drawing actually of one of the things that we found out in the tower that we didn't get a weather problem but it's actually a bit of a misguided detailing problem. I won't try to point out exactly where it is but these railings which were not very good shape you'll see a couple of pieces in the other room that are not original. They've been replaced a number of times over the years. The last

time that they replaced instead of detailing the bottom rail with it with a single piece of wood and carefully making sure that it drained water it was made up of a couple of pieces of wood. And it really created little bathtubs. Donald thank you very much. So and then there were little wood filler pieces which were actually much the screwdriver worked very well so that those railings were completely compromised and we we replaced them in total. One more thing. Oh there we go. This is what actually the water over the years plus in fact the problem with latex paint that latex paint which was hiding some of what all going on had done to the body. One other thing though that I was going to mention is that no no you can keep

on going. You can go forward. This is just you know back one before that wood structures often have water problems where the wood comes together the joints come together and this tower was no exception. That's where temperature when it gets colder and warmer opens up joints and that's where buildings rock when the wind blows. Well the wind certainly blows down here. We actually found out how much it blew for how much the building swayed. When we got the scaffolding up in order not to put any loads extra loads on the roof. The the the scaffolding was actually spanning the whole state house and you can go forward and that that that's a photo actually of people who very carefully guided 60 foot steel beams over the top of the state house one early Sunday morning with a lot of fun to watch it happen. It took

quite a while and they did a wonderful job. But once we had a stable platform up there and we got up on it we noticed that the scaffolding seemed to be moving just slightly. It wasn't dangerous. It wasn't uncomfortable but it was noticeable. But then we looked again and it wasn't actually the scaffolding that was the tower. And now I could push the tower from the top about an inch you can actually push the tower about an inch. So I had involved our structural engineer Collin Simpson who wasn't able to be here in all the work done especially with the beams or subway entrance. And I asked him to come over again and he came up and he and chicken I was nice. They pushed the tower back and forth. He ran the calculations and it and found that if things were reasonable. He did

suggest a few hold downs be tightened up to compensate for some of the fire damage over many years. But in fact the flexibility of the tower while it's it may have led in a little bit more water over the years. It's probably been more positive than otherwise because in some cases especially with some older churches a very stiff tower has caused more troubles with the structure below. So I guess you can say the old state has always known which way the wind is born and it's a county that is so very well. I think I'll let somebody else speak a bit. You can see that we have a very large group here that put a lot of thought into the planning and deciding what methods and means to fix a lot of these things how to address the situation to take a look at everything from an intellectual standpoint and all of that then gets turned over to the contractor to actually put that all in place.

We we were lucky enough to in some ways it's the fun part of the project. So after hearing all the intellectual and technical side I'll turn it over to chicken. Got to be here every day. My name's Chickenfoot and I want to thank everyone for being here. Actually contract is we don't get a whole lot of chances to do this and it really feels like fun as a superintendent. I'm the day to day rep. Which to me on this project is the luckiest guy in the world because everyone has their ideas and what they want done. I'm the facilitator I'm here every day. I get to look at the changes. Call people up. David was just down the street. He'll be here in hours and we worked our way through the project. What I want to talk about first this from a contractor's point of view is what you see here is the staging and everybody's touched on it but it's what I want

sleep at night about. So I'm going to give you the whole load of that to stagings come up this side of the building. The only thing tied in we're tied in right to the gutter line and then down. It's perfectly legal but the restrictions were we couldn't put any weight on the building. So we were here Sunday morning. The four beams that you see going across the 60 feet long each one weighs six thousand pounds and Brian gave you the history of the tower. And I would be responsible if one. I wouldn't be doing it. But if a beam hit the tower I'd get buoyant. Luckily we had the crackerjack scaffolding do it. They had actually done it in 1991 which was great to have them with a different system. But the four beams were set and then about one two three four five working lives put on top so you have about nine levels of staging

which I got to climb up every day which was good to find of the complications of this project was working above everyone wear it. There's always been talk about the edges of the below zero state street is downtown Boston. We have a Freedom Trail. We have a TV station. We have a working museum so we were always up above taking this building down piece by piece lowering it down a rope into trucks and getting it out with oh 200 kids walking down around us. And it was something that we didn't we weren't going to do a job at night because there's not enough light. So it was always in my mind. And just to tell you a few quick stories I'd be up you know walking around watching people and all of a sudden I hear somebody go up and I hear a boring boring boring. And I my heart falling and I would go and I would just wait because we had safety nets and always caught in the net. But it was always that thing that

well what's going to happen. Luckily nothing did happen or upset as I said I I was the one who identified the conditions which is what I like doing dynamically changing preservation. I wasn't an expert at it. I certainly know about it now is we don't do things in a rush and this group I can tell you it doesn't do anything in a rush. An. Acting. That came out wrong I didn't mean that. I meant it. I meant it in a very good way that that we. We wouldn't be on the ninth floor or the other building. We could see the tower. We would sit there and talk. And we'd go down and we'd go back up and we'd take the tours. The one thing I loved about this job was I was the tour guide. I toured everybody you know that was I had the piano guy up there one day. We had North Bennett school came by Pam's relatives who were in town came by.

And it was great because I got to see people's eyes. When you don't get close to a seven you know 23 17 18 an old town you can touch it your you're up someplace with not many people are up. I get that every day. But it was great for me to see the glow in everybody's eyes. We did live through a tough time a keeper. But there was a water main break that way. There was a water main break in town. I don't know anyone might have heard it but it was literally 25 feet from the staging. It was a lot of water. It was a large hole. We are actually saved. Shouldn't they say the water was funneled away from staging by the tunnel. Probably the orange. And so that gets you blood flowing a little bit. Everyone was great. And the next the next

interesting part to me. You know I told you that the staging being up was taking it down because now we're doing it. We did it at night and we got crowds together and it was wonderful because the guy just gets to walk around and make sure everything is OK. And to actually talk to people they would sit there and look and it was amazing that they in Matt Matt was here every night. I was and it was amazing to see the people watch it because the towers started to emerge where I had seen it in 13 weeks and then nobody saw and it started to emerge it was beautiful. And so from a personal point of view from a contract it was great working with everyone. There's something about this building and Pam kind of told me about it before. Once you work on it it kind of draws you in. And every time I walk by that I feel pride. You know I've been here when that pain at night just for fun.

So it kind of draws you in. And it was a very rewarding project and I hope I get another chance to do anything like it. So this is a great group. So and if we're let's go in the other room after this. That's nice. Thank you. Well as Chick said I was here every day and most every night with him and I started my mornings by coming down the plaza from taking the T in and stopping and talking with Chick about what was happening. The workmen started earlier than I came in and he and I always had a little meeting in the morning just to find out what was going on what was scheduled for the day and any new discoveries that may have been made from being inside the museum and the work going on outside. There were quite a few visitors who were curious about it. Most often I

found that it was people before they even entered the building wanted to know what was going on. Once you got in the building you didn't know that there was any construction happening. For the most part the crews were pretty quiet. And for me I have a great job I'm here every day. I get to work with this amazing building. But right now my job seems a little boring after the tower project. I went up on the scaffolding probably I guess about three times a week if not more. And I was always seeing new things and climbing around. And as Chick said actually touching the tower and feeling like I was interacting with a piece of history which was very important to me. One of the things that I'd like to talk about which was

a big project for chiken I was the issue of the weather vane and guilding that's been touched on earlier and chiken I had the job of taking it down which wasn't as easy as it sounds. We had to climb all the way up to the very top and lift it off its perch. We brought it in and we had a team from Evergreen painting studios came in and they stripped it right in this room. Yes. As some of you know we did offer it in the middle of the day so the public could come and see. And they spent an afternoon building it and it was an amazing process to watch. It was a lot of fun. But before that happened after chicken I took it

down we had Myrna Kay who was in New England weather vane expert come in and examine it and she threw her course of study had always thought it was made by sham drowne who has made the whole grasshopper. And it was after she really got her hands on it and could examine it that she was positive that it was a sham drowne original and that it dates to 1713 as well as the Bourke's on the building. So it was a very exciting time and I think that's probably my most favorite story was just dealing with the weather vane and and after we brought it down realising that it was something that was original to the building had always been there. We were putting it back and hopefully it will always be there. So I'm going to turn it over to Bill Bar-Lev now.

I just wanted to point out that chick has alluded to the decision making process involved in this project. It's actually it was the process of decision making which is really what added so much to it it. Really is the basis of the whole philosophy of Bill Barlow is vision architects and Don and David are part of the professional architectural team but they they do not of our everyday deal with 300 year old buildings the way that Bill Barlow does and the way that. Judy so one does who is a nationally known preservation expert who deals with the details the the the fabric and the structures of these buildings. And we're fortunate to have it here in New England. People who actually do know more about these kinds of things than almost any other part of the country perhaps because we have moral buildings perhaps because more of them are falling down here than in other places. But we have the people that can keep them standing up to and right here in this room are some of the best of them.

Don't tell that I am not. But I have a 30 year history with the National Park Service. As a preservationist. And the Park Service is responsible for the generation of the preservation programs and philosophy within United States for the last 17 18 years I've been involved with the preservation of this building on behalf of the National Park Service. But one of the things that that has always been challenging or frustrating for me is the fact the reconciliation between the preservation philosophy and the realities of a restoration in the sense of affording what really needs to be done and being faithful to the integrity of the building and but also being faithful to a philosophy. And one of the interesting things and pride the thing that really I enjoy the most about this project I think been

hit on several different ways is the fact the way we worked as a team we all bought a great passion to the project and one of the underlying dynamics is working with Judy. I've known Judy and we practice together one way for probably for a lot longer and we're going to each one going to miss. But but Judy in many ways was always my conscious want to project because I'm probably more an architect than I am. Historic Preservation is one of the things that hasn't been talked about is that we are restoring this tower here and and year 2008 and Julie and I were involved with the restoration of this tower and 1991 and 293. Part of that the power was restored by the Park Service in Haiti. And so this is one of the frustrations a lot of the failure you've seen here and the various different slides were products of us not able to deal with the issues at hand that we knew about for the fact

we failed at dealing with them. So this really kind of set up a whole dialogue that that was very interesting here with regards to how aggressive we were to do the restoration because one of the difficulties in preservation especially where you have funding either from the private sector or from from the public trough is that it doesn't come easy. And so the whole idea of having to stage this grappling as Jake was showing you earlier which was a substantial part of the cost. Almost seems like every 10 15 year basis made little sense. And so in this project we really sat down or set out to to understand what really was happening to the building and why the deterioration was occurring on such a rapid at such a rapid rate and so that really kind to set up a discussion as to how aggressive and and so this was the real challenge and Judy on one hand was was was saying well this is all this is historic and we need to preserve it. And I'm saying

no it's going to rot on us the next 10 years. Let's take it out now and let's do it right. So that there's a chance of surviving for for at least 30 years. So this is this is this interesting philosophy going on or for attention. One interesting thing and what I really find fascinating about this building and this project is that it's history and it's evolution. This is one of the first restoration and preservation efforts in the country and it started as Brian mentioned earlier in the 1880s when there was a conscious decision to say you said this just being a regular building being used for various issues. It now became a cultural icon. And the fact that there was a responsibility to preserve it and to take it back to a period of of its significance in the 18th century and during the Revolutionary War. The problem is that being very early restoration is that it was more of an invention or

recreation. So what we have here in this building is a wonderful late 19th century interpretation I call it an invention of what the 18th century should have been and think we all know who are very different research as to what this building was like and where we are now at it. It has little resemblance to the 18th century that present the problem we had with the tower is exactly what a story. And as we dug into it we really realized that what we had here was the first restored of effort of the 1880s 1881 under the city architect George cloth and he's now replaced renewed most of the power that the only thing that really truly is original to the 18th to the 1747 tower. The tower only burned even though and in the 18th 17th 40s and was totally reconstructed and went through several fires. And so what we have here now is a

late Victorian recreation. And so it was really quite difficult or or what our objective was to begin to to distinguish as to what was done what we had left over from the 18th century what we had in in the from the 1880s and then subsequent restoration. So this was more of trying to preserve for a restoration more than original tower of the 18th century. And one of the problems that was once again shown so frequently is the fact that in these previous restoration efforts they got it wrong. They didn't understand. First of all. What was the proper detailing. They in many cases create many of the problems. Who this. This as David said misguided detailing. And so that's one of reasons why we had all these problems so under

this effort we really made. Decisions that some people say would be aggressive you know in the sense of a wonderful slide where we showed because we had all these corners opening up on us as the building moved in and wanted to to respond to to the surrounding buildings. I think David also had a wonderful saying that I love is that the state house the tower so it's like being in a car wash. Any time you have a good north eastern going on water operates in every direction but going downward. So we had to do a lot of things in the sense of modifying details and all this seems to the point I'm trying to say is this kind of runs counter to to the underlying philosophy of trying to preserve things and where you can't preserve those replace them in kind. So it's always this this very interesting tension going on.

I can go on for hours about the conflicts but this is a wonderful example of where philosophy evolved based on all the challenges and the realities. So I'm open for any questions later on in the evening. So this is this is again in light of the preservation of buildings throughout the nation. This is a very special structure and so I consider myself very lucky to have opportunity to work on it with a wonderful cadre of friends father. Well you definitely can see that we've all been sucked in by this building and we all have a special place for it. Would love to hear any questions you have. And also after we finish up with many questions here at number the artifacts and pieces are in the other room. The major timbers for all the floors the roof the tower and so

forth. Go back to that 1747 period. All the interior finishes the windows the Dormers your chairman the tower and so forth have all been subject to various campaigns of of remodeling and then restoration day when this went from being the provincial house for the for the colonies and then early state house. It changed when the government formed changed rooms got shuffled around you really didn't need to have a governor's council back then and so and then it went through a major remodeling in the 1830s. When you became a city hall then the city hall became a commercial structure so it went through great. So it went through a whole series of remodeling things and then when it came to the restoration era it got in which is where we are now. The interiors we have is a ninth is in 1880s effort to recreate the 18th century based on

on a remodeled 1830s foreplay. If that's making sense to you. So. So this building a wonderful victory. The question is why is there a subway here. I mean the subway underneath that. And then what's the effect of having that too. Well the building was preserved because of the subway really the two subway tunnels onto the building. Don't ask me for the exact dates between nineteen hundred and 1910. Two separate efforts. And in fact if you go downstairs to the room that explains the 1991 restoration you will see a vibration meter there which. Tells you the impact of the subway going through and as part of the 1991 work extensive engineering was done to understand the impact of the subway on the building. And in fact it was decided that in fact the impacts were tolerable. But if it was not for the effort to place the subway onto the building the building

would be in Chicago. But let me add something to that. The vibrations are definitely felt throughout the building. As anybody who's visited the building can appreciate. And it's it's not benefiting the building. Sitting up on the third floor as as as frequently does you can feel the vibrations there. And that's where some of our collections are maintained. It's not good conditions for a storage of display of museum objects and the kinds of details that we attempt to present to the public are not benefited by these kinds of vibration so it's it's an odd It's an odd combination of things. On the one hand is as Judy says it did facilitate the preservation the initial salvation of the building for for public use but it certainly has not been a suitable kind of public facility to maintain under one of the nation's most important landmarks.

I just wanted to add that the lead rope that we have on the building now was in fact installed by the Park Service in the 1980s and one of the things we had to deal with in trying to do the forensics on understanding why it was leaking was the fact that the roof for that which may have been were only. It may have been from the 1750s a piece if it still remained at the very top. And when the work was done the new roof was basically inserted under the fragments of it right under the weather vane. I wanted to add one other thing probably the last remaining a large scale red roof in the city was removed from the Somerset club only about five years ago the two domes early 19th century domes on the front of the Somerset club will lead until as recently as five years ago. Now in fact they all lead coated copper replicating the appearance of the lead but in fact our

roof is installed very much the way it would have been early on. The question was what was the fatal flaw with the dome. Back to Judy. Well it was last but it was a single lock and we found through water testing that we could make every one of those seams leak in 30 seconds including ones that were basically on the flat surface so we have opened up every seam and double soldered them so that they are soldered twice and then retested they're not leaking now we still have a small problem because we could not take down parts of the bottom of the weather vane and there still may be a small area that was untouched that of wood that water may still be coming further and this is private This is extrapolation on my part is that you know the typical Locsin would work perfectly most conditions with the fact that you're in this canyon if you may with 40 story buildings and you have water going

in all sorts of different directions that that that typical detailing just couldn't perform the way. So I mean that was one of the constant reframes is in a sense of what would water act horizontally and going up vertically instead of just going downwards. The question was the cost of the project. And Brian I'll answer it together. When you talk about the actual. Said the first project we did in the northeast corner. That. Total was that $480000. The second project the tower restoration was just over a million. Nearly 12000 and Pam is talking about the hard cost the sewers the bricks and mortar so to speak the. Maybe I should back up just a moment and take us back to the the origins of this this particular

restoration larger project which began with the crisis in the northeast corner when water began puddling up around her ankles in the northeast corner. And at that time the responsibility theoretically for the maintenance of the physical fabric of the building resided with the official owner of the building the city of Boston and with the National Park Service which under the 1970 some 74 legislation establishing the Boston National Historical Park. So the the the ultimate responsibilities were shared by organizations outside the Bostom Bostonian society which were had been in the intervening years you've been experiencing financial difficulties and the Bostonian society's board. God bless them stepped up to the plate and agreed to take on the responsibility for meeting the

costs whatever they may be for the immediate crisis and dealing with the the moisture intrusion in the north the northeast corner the Bostonian society and then with this excellent team we have here commissioned a study of the other parts of the building that needed to be addressed and in consultation with our our able colleagues in the park service particularly Bill. Bill Barlow determined what other parts of the building needed to be fixed. And after the northeast corner project which we ended up ended up the total total cost about three quarters of a million dollars supported in large part by funds from the National Park Service our ironically funds were redirected toward the project and it allowed us to do much more than we had earlier anticipated. We absolutely had to do as a minimum. The next phase that we the the conditions report

revealed had to be addressed was the tower and other ancillary wooden and masonry areas. And we it it involves an extended period of discussion and negotiation with the authorities in City Hall until a new agreement was reached that provided the Bostonian society with the full authority to do the work in exchange for assuming the full responsibility including financial responsibility for the remaining work on the building till today the funding for the additional parts of the restoration particularly for the phase that's just been completed we're provided from a number of different sources. Some state money there is a long long term one called the Massachusetts preservation project fund that the Society received funding from and a new fund also the

cultural facilities fund both of which provided some substantial resources in addition to that a major new fund on the federal side the the centennial fund which as was designed to provide national parks with the full funding to meet their needs by their centennial year. And when what year is that Bill. 2016 and actually two different tranches of that's that fund were provided to the society in addition to that there were about 10 different foundations that provided this kind of support a significant gift was provided by a brand new foundation the men Foundation which provided more than a million provided us with a million dollars for part of this work. The total work today. We're estimating it was costing slightly more than $3 billion. And by the time that we finished it we're

estimating and it's going to cost more than five million dollars. Plans have been put in place with with our architects to do a number of other types of projects that have to concern this building. And one of them that will concern our publics most directly will be new entrances to the building. We all recognize that the current one is a bit nonsensical.