Email #18 - Breather Walls Revisited

One of my luckiest photos this summer was this color view (on right) of a section of the “Breather Wall” revealed during demolition in late June. I’m sending it again now to set the context for the photos in the next email (#19).

Hollow red clay tiles, like those shown here, once carried air upward through the center walls along the entire lengths of the north and south wings; i.e. the interior n-s walls of all the studios and the Frieze Rm. 135, etc. In the subsequent building renovations, this natural ventilation system was sealed up. We never knew it in our time there.

Frustrated at not being able to get good photos of the other breather walls (they went down fast!), I settled on salvaging two of the hollow tiles from the rubble, one of which is 100 percent intact. It’s outside my office at the Photo Lab if anyone would like to see it.

The other photograph on the left is a post-demolition view of a similar section of breather wall at the north end of the 2nd floor. Note there are only three square tile holes in the ceiling for this breather wall. That’s because in the end bays like this one, doors once connected the east and west sides. These doors were covered up in the subsequent renovations, but were revealed briefly in June, as shown in photo on right.

I took the photo on left mainly to show the bricks still wedged into the steel channel. Presumably bricks like these and the clay tiles provided sufficient fire proofing for these columns. However, most steel columns in the building were fire proofed in 1909 with a hefty coat of concrete, as will be illustrated in a later email (#20).

John Stamets
Aug. 19, 2006

See also #3, #19 and #20