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- Manhattan Remodel and Cape Cod Affordable > Episode 1: A New Lift for a Manhattan Brownstone
Touring Central Park in New York City
Project: Manhattan Remodel and Cape Cod Affordable, Episode 1, Part 3
Bob is on Manhattan's Upper West Side to renew a 2,000-square-foot Brownstone apartment. First, he looks at what made Brownstones significant, including their details and façades.
Inside the building, Bob shows how the space was cut up in the 1940s to make a warren of rooms. These walls and finishes will be removed as the space is gutted to prepare for new studs, walls, plumbing, and finishes.
Pieces will be salvaged for architectural resale, including the pink sink from the bathroom and the retro cabinets in the kitchen, but everything else will go. Bob also visits Central Park, its caretakers, trees, and monuments.
Inside the building, Bob shows how the space was cut up in the 1940s to make a warren of rooms. These walls and finishes will be removed as the space is gutted to prepare for new studs, walls, plumbing, and finishes.
Pieces will be salvaged for architectural resale, including the pink sink from the bathroom and the retro cabinets in the kitchen, but everything else will go. Bob also visits Central Park, its caretakers, trees, and monuments.
- Part 1: New York Brownstone Development & Design
- Part 2: Reviewing the Architectural Floor Plans for the Brownstone Remodel
- Part 3: Touring Central Park in New York City
- Once just a swamp with rocky outcoppings and indigent shanty towns, Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park is a natural treasure shared by all New Yorkers.
Bob visits the Bethesda Terrace, where he is joined by Doug Blonsky of the Central Park Conservancy. Bethesda Terrace is the formal center of the Park, Blonsky explains, where formal meets natural. Blonsky goes on to talk about the history of the Conservancy, which was founded in 1980 and has since raised more than $300 million and restored more than 70 percent of Central Park.
Bob and Blonsky walk down the Mall, or Literary Walk, the only straight path in all of Central Park, and discuss the great stand of American Elms that provides the canopy. Blonsky explains that there are 26,000 trees in Central Park, many of which are third generation American Elms.
This project deals with two very different notions of home. Bob begins on New York City's Upper West Side, where an 1890s Brownstone is revitalized through high-quality craftsmanship and sensitive design. New York's past meets its present, as the entire floor is recaptured and refurbished to create a spacious urban apartment on the doorstep of Central Park.
At the same time, Bob works with a Cape Cod developer to apply Massachusetts land use statute 40B to create affordable housing, and a neighborhood of homes in Mashpee, MA. These Energy Star certified homes show how quality building practices and reasonable asking prices can work together to provide livable, affordable homes and neighborhoods to those who work in our communities.
At the same time, Bob works with a Cape Cod developer to apply Massachusetts land use statute 40B to create affordable housing, and a neighborhood of homes in Mashpee, MA. These Energy Star certified homes show how quality building practices and reasonable asking prices can work together to provide livable, affordable homes and neighborhoods to those who work in our communities.
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