Finally Making Real Progress With The Staircases

Posted on July 19, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

The staircase in our unit has been a bit of a hassle. The guy fabricating it does good work, but he’s not a big fan (or follower) of plans. Explain what you want to him and he’ll get it done, but when the architect insisted on shop drawings he resisted. I remember one time there was a panicked call about the stairs (“the architect miscalculated”) and I rushed down to the job site just to find that the confusion was easily cleared up by looking at the plans where it was all quite clearly laid out. Stuff like that has happened more than once – now I just take it in stride.

Anyway, when the stair guy resisted shop drawings it was with the proviso that if he didn’t have shop drawings he’d have to correct whatever we didn’t like. So in round one he did the stairs the way they were laid out on the original plans and delivered them to the job site the day after the architect had figured out there was a design flaw and they couldn’t be done that way. So the stair guy just put everything back in his truck.

In round two we discussed doing them one way but in actuality they couldn’t be done that way because the steel had to be cut at one point and it was cut so much it was too weak. It was something that would have been discovered with a shop drawing, so 2 of the 3 runs of the stairs had to be removed and redone.

Yesterday they put in their third attempt – and indeed the third time is a charm – only minor changes needed. Here’s what they look like…

You’re looking from about the entry way. To the right in the foreground is the kitchen. Under the stairs against the wall will be a powder room which is turning out to be surprisingly big. Beyond the stairs is the dining room and then the living room.

Now that we’ve pretty much resolved the issues with the stairs, the rest of them should go much faster since all the other floors are pretty much just like the first floor. I think initially they were saying he could do one floor a week. So we could have them all in by the first week of August. Actually, as soon as this first flight is done the workmen can get the bath tub up to the guest bathroom and install it. That will be cool…

Last time I mentioned the stairs I said Dan wanted them done in gun metal blue. That’s a really fussy thing to ask for. It has to be finished on site and it’s prone to rusting even after you put the finish on. This morning our architect mentioned another possibility and Dan and I both sorta like it… Paint the steel white (instead of having a gun metal blue patina), then have milky white plexi side panels (instead of clear). The side panels will be in these swoopy organic shapes, so the architect’s approach de-emphasizes the structural components (the steel) and puts the emphasis on the panels. We like that change. We also like that it reduces the color palette in the stairwell (always a good thing). The downside is that at the top when the stairs go up to the roof the milky white panels will block more light from the bulkhead windows than clear panels would. And at the bottom on the parlor floor the milky white panels will make the space feel more chopped up. So we’re thinking about it for a couple days…

They’re also starting to make progress on the staircase in the rental unit. That will just be a standard wood staircase – nothing complicated about it…

You can see the platform has been framed in. There will be stairs going up and down from there. You can also see that the stairs are open to the cellar “storage area” (media room / work room).

There will be a door to a closet / storage area under the stairs (barely visible in the photo), and a small door to get to the less accessible space under the stairs (which is quite visible in the picture. One huge plus about the rental apartment is that it will have tons of storage. There’s a huge laundry room with plenty of space for storage, plus all the space under the staircase, plus two closets on the ground level. Hopefully that will make it stand out compared to most New York apartments that have just tiny amounts of storage space.

Harlem Tavern vs Bier International

Posted on July 16, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

And the winner is… Bier International (IMHO).

After bombing out trying to get into Harlem Tavern last week, we tried again early this afternoon and had no problem getting a table. Unfortunately it was sorta what I expected (based on the pics I saw on Harlem Bespoke) – very middle America – sorta dull actually.

The beer that comes with brunch is Bud Light (yawn). And they have every other standard beer you can think of. Other than a selection of IPAs (which my niece likes), I didn’t really see anything beer-wise that came anywhere close to Bier’s beer selection.

As far as food, it’s pretty to look at (I should have taken a picture), but pretty bland too. I had the turkey burger with fries, Dan had the beef burger with a salad. Despite putting some interesting cheese on it, the turkey burger just didn’t stand out. Dan noted that the lettuce for his salad had been chopped with a knife – that promotes oxidation and just makes for a less interesting salad. He also thought the food was less fresh than it is at Bier. In comparison, everything I’ve had at Bier has met or exceeded expectations. In fact at Bier things are unexpectedly good – there’s always a slight flavor kick to the food at Bier that makes it interesting.

Harlem Tavern’s decor is the biggest turn off for me… It’s like you’re at Applebee’s or something… Like the food and the beer selection – it’s incredibly bland.

And honestly, I was a bit disturbed that they had the A/C on full blast inside with a huge wall of french doors completely wide open – it’s just wasteful for no good reason. Well, there was live music – but just keep the doors by them open and close the others…

So if you want bland decor with bland food and bland beer – go to Harlem Tavern. If you want a well-designed space with an unusual selection of interesting beers and surprisingly good food – go 2 1/2 block south to Bier International.

Where “The Gays” Are In Harlem

Posted on July 15, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

I used to hate the term “the gays” because the only people I heard saying it were bigots. Now it seems everyone uses it, and it’s shorter than “gay men and lesbians” so it fits in the title, but I still feel weird using it…

Anyway, that said… I’ve heard for a long time that you can tell when a neighborhood is going to gentrify by whether “the gays” move in… Specifically gay men – since we don’t have the same level of safety issues that women have, and we don’t (traditionally) have kids, so we aren’t worried about how good the schools are. Some of us learned how to fix things from our fathers, and some of us have a sense of style. (I’m always amused by the ones who don’t.)

If you subscribe the the “gentrification follows gay men” theory, then you’ll find the following interesting…

WNYC has done a map that plots where gay and lesbian couples live. Here’s the results for Central and South Harlem…

I’m not quite sure what to think of the fact that we dominate Morningside Park, but you can see that the Mount Morris Park neighborhood is pretty popular with gay men and lesbians. Somewhat surprisingly South Harlem doesn’t have all that many gay and lesbian couples – just right on the border with the Upper West Side. The area between Lenox and 5th Avenue around Astor Row seems pretty popular as well.

Now if we could just get a gay bar somewhere near Red Rooster – that would be perfect 🙂

Apparently West Harlem is much less gay…

It seems that the new condo developments just off Bradhurst are popular with gay men and lesbians, but otherwise the neighborhood is pretty average. What’s interesting also is the low number of gay men and lesbians in Hamilton Heights west of Amsterdam Avenue. That neighborhood isn’t as well established as the historic district which is mostly east of Amsterdam.

So the take away from this is that gay men and lesbians seem to gravitate towards quality… Areas with new condos and historic districts have a greater concentration of gays, while areas with large housing projects have far fewer gay men and lesbians. Personally I think the “gentrification follows gay men” theory is generally proven right by the maps above…

Cellar Storage Area Gets Walls

Posted on July 11, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

We stopped by the house yesterday and noticed the cellar storage area now has walls. We have this unusual arrangement where there are two entrances under the stoop – one to the cellar and one to the basement/garden apartment. That means we can have a storage area and a utility room in the cellar and not have to go through the tenant’s apartment to get to them.

The boiler/utility room feels huge – probably far bigger than it needs to be. The storage area feels a bit small – I probably should have pushed the architect to take space from the boiler room and given it to the storage room, but that is what it is… Unfortunately the utility/boiler room is too far from the lot line to have things like sprinkler control valves – they’re (unfortunately) going in the “vault” area (the area with a vaulted brick ceiling under the “front yard”).

Here’s a picture looking back. That’s the new cinder block wall between our storage area and the boiler/utility room.

We’re leaving the rock walls (foundation) pretty much as they are – not framing them out or anything. That will make it a bit chilly down there in the winter. The wall to the right is actually has air on the other side since the apartment building next door has a below-grade alley way.

There’s graffiti on the rock foundations. In the boiler room there’s a stick figure of a person. To the left in the picture above and to the right in the picture below there’s the words “NO DOPE” – from back when it was a drug house. I think we’ll leave those – just clean the dirt off gently. It’ll be a pretty grungy looking space – but all those layers just give it character. We have to Sheetrock the ceiling (with fireproof Sheetrock). We’re thinking of painting it medium to dark gray – the space is just too grungy for a white ceiling.

And here’s a picture looking forward – you can see how the stairs come down into the cellar from outside. (There will be a wall in there soon.)

The door was one thing the architect didn’t quite get right, but the contractor caught the problem. The architect had the door in line with the wall, which would have put it in the middle of the stairs. The contractor caught the problem and said we need 36″ of clear space at the bottom in front of the door. The last two steps are a mess and will be rebuilt. It’s a bit of a spooky space to walk down into, but we’ll have a light at the bottom that’s on a motion sensor.

Here’s an somewhat older picture of the other corner of the room and looking into the vault area. There’s a lot that’s going to be going on there. We’ll have gas and electric meters on those boards (we refused to have them outside the building for aesthetic reasons). Then in the vault room along the wall you see will be this huge contraption for sprinkler control. Hopefully all of that will get installed in the next few weeks.

UPDATE:

Yesterday I realized the wall wasn’t constructed quite right. There’s supposed to be a 4″ concrete dam at the bottom to prevent something like a hot water tank failure from flooding the rest of the cellar. But it’s too late (unless we ask them to tear down the wall and redo it). On the plus side we were able to get a floor drain into that area (which was unexpected), so maybe my fears of flooding aren’t really an issue. We’ll let the architect make the final determination – but I’m guessing no 4″ dam…

UPDATE #2:

The walls are now complete. Here are some pictures… First the new wall and door at the bottom of the stairs to the outside of the building (under the stoop)…

And here you can see the actual staircase…

They reconstructed the bottom three stairs – there were only two originally and we lowered the cellar floor a few inches.

Here’s the completed wall between the storage area and the mechanical/boiler room…

Notice there’s no lip below the door – that entire wall should rest on a 4″ high concrete dam that prevents flooding of the entire basement. We’re now not too concerned – there’s a floor drain in the mechanical room which will prevent any real flooding. If we need to we can put a dam inside the room to keep any leakage from the hot water heaters and boilers from flooding into the rest of the cellar.

Harlem Tavern Is Crazy Busy

Posted on July 10, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

After dropping by the house today we decided to check out Harlem Tavern – it opened a couple weeks ago while we were away in Toronto. It’s still crazy busy – there was a pretty big line to get in and the bouncer manning the entrance couldn’t tell us how long the wait would be. He guessed it would be 45 minutes (!).

I guess it’s a good thing that people are patronizing places on FDB. In the end that will encourage more businesses to open up and make the neighborhood a better place to live. But I gotta say the love for this one particular place sorta mystifies me.

We wound up going to Bad Horse Pizza instead. It was about half full and the kids that were there were very well behaved (unlike the first time we went there).