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May 28, 2007
Treasure Found Under Concrete
We recently chopped up all the concrete in our backyard and found tons of interesting items. To our surprise, there was a full bluestone patio and walkway that ran the whole perimeter of the yard. Also, we found a beautiful old cast iron sign. Its about three feet long and six inches high w/ a lion head in the middle. It seems to be the sign left by the company that built our house. The lettering says Branch Houses, it lists an address on Water St in downtown manhattan and at the bottom, it lists all the cities where they had offices, chicago, cleveland, ny...Does anyone know anything about the history of this company, etc? Also, the sign is very beautiful but its completely covered in rust. Any idea how to get it off? I really don't want to damage it. Thanks for any tips.
Comments
I still have my cast iron stove in my kitchen and it has and the address on it is 2 water st nyc the company name is Richardson and Boyton.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 28, 2007 11:40 PM
Fascinating! Can you email us some photos of the yard and what you found? It would make a great post on the main page of the blog. Send pics to brownstoner@brownstoner.com
Posted by: Brownstoner at May 29, 2007 9:10 AM
If the sign is cast iron with no paint, I'd try using Naval Jelly to remove the rust. Maybe WD40 and some fine steel wool if it's surface rust.
I hope you'll send pictures; I'd love to see it too!
Posted by: houseowax at May 29, 2007 10:38 AM
i would love to know exactly how common it is to find bluestone under a concrete patio. if it's common, i'm taking a pick-axe to my back yard!
Posted by: Jimmy Legs at May 29, 2007 11:46 AM
Jimmy, I think it's fairly common. We have a bluestone patio (full width of house and about 15' deep). Plus, over years of gardening, we continue to dig up bluestone pieces -- usually 2-3' out from the fence. We snagged a couple of large rectangular slabs early on but mostly it's just fragments. But I've certainly heard of people finding pretty much the whole path 8" to 2' down.
Posted by: NeoGrec at May 29, 2007 12:19 PM
We just found not one but two layers of bluestone under our broken concrete patio. There was also some slate and marble. I'm guessing the bluestone was moved from the sidewalk. Don't know what prior owners were thinking.
Posted by: Trudy Lou at May 29, 2007 6:13 PM
I know exactly what they were thinking!
They were thinking "it's gonna suck to drag this through the garden apartment and throw it away!"
Posted by: Anonymous at May 29, 2007 6:41 PM
My back is killing me right now because of all the gorgeous bluestone I dug up today while trying to plant stuff. It sucks indeed to carry it... but I ain't complaining. The stuff is everywhere in the backyards of these old stones, apparently. It's worth its weight in gold--have you priced it? Get some help laying it out in a nice patio. That's our plan.
Posted by: Bob999 at May 30, 2007 1:32 AM
Jeez, we should all be so lucky. When we dug up our backyard all we found was buried plastic bags, several garden hoses, broken glass and bricks, bricks, bricks!
Posted by: anon at June 1, 2007 11:52 AM
I dug pretty deep in our backyard until I struck a huge rock. I lifted it to reveal that underneath lay Bush's credibility.
Posted by: Billy Reno at June 3, 2007 1:22 PM
I dug pretty deep in our backyard until I struck a huge rock. I lifted it to reveal that underneath lay Bush's credibility.
Posted by: Billy Reno at June 3, 2007 1:22 PM
I dug pretty deep in our backyard until I struck a huge rock. I lifted it to reveal that underneath lay Bush's credibility.
Posted by: Billy Reno at June 3, 2007 1:23 PM
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