Grilles, Frills, & Obama

Yesterday was an exciting day at the site. I arrived with the hoist shut down and our construction administration team staring out the windows. "What's going on?" I am thinking. My team tells me that the construction site is shut down from 11am to about 1:30pm for the Presidential arrival at Cooper Union. Cooper Union is adjacent to 2 Cooper Square. As we proceed with our meeting, we hear sirens. We watched as 15-20 vehicles pass us by, carrying the President and his entourage. An hour or so later....our meeting still going-on....the President leaves Cooper Union and we watch it all over again.

After the construction meeting, I walked the site to inspect the installation of our decorative grills and glass railings on the 7th floor. The pictures below illustrate the new installations.

The continuous glass railing detail provides optimum viewing down the bowery and up towards midtown's Empire State Building, while also meeting building code's required parapet height. The glass railing is not visible from street view.

The decorative grille above is an aesthetic piece that conceals the PTAC louvers that allow fresh air intake. The pictures above show the grille concealing a blank off panel (where there are no PTACs or louvers under window unit). To be consistent we located decorative grilles under every window unit.