Cast Iron Fence: We Can Rebuild It
Here’s a fun guest post from a Clinton Hill brownstone owner… The story: Our 130-year old iron fence was in terrible shape, barely standing at all—the last of the five identical houses in our row to have even pieces of the original. I had Vinnie from Italian Art Iron Works on Bergen Street out to…
Here’s a fun guest post from a Clinton Hill brownstone owner…
The story: Our 130-year old iron fence was in terrible shape, barely standing at all—the last of the five identical houses in our row to have even pieces of the original. I had Vinnie from Italian Art Iron Works on Bergen Street out to look at it, and was still skeptical that it could be saved. It was missing 17 arrows and five of the seven post-end caps. Fortunately, previous owners saved 16 arrows, so at least we had those. Vinnie says to me, “You gotta spend-a the money.” So I did. Here’s a photo of Vinnie’s guy putting the pieces together along with one of what it looks like now. But that spikey finial you see below was one of only two that we had. I scoured the salvage places, emailed photos to Olde Good Things and all the rest—nada. Vinnie ballparked that it could cost us $4,000 to have new ones cast—yikes!
And then…
…my architect found these guys: Tomahawk Foundry in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, of all places. I sent them a picture and described what I needed. They said they’d do it for $150 apiece. I sent them one of the remaining finials. Three weeks later, they sent me the parts—gray iron, cast in sand. Original on the left, replica on the right. Perfect.
So if you’re looking to bring your iron fence back to life and can’t find all the pieces, there ya go. Fence should be complete again within a couple of weeks. And Bob’s yer uncle.
We used Vinny and he did some great work for us. I agree with the following in this context:
1.old world = shorthand for high quality craftsmanship, not a put down. You can’t be knowledgeable about home reno and not know that.
2. Vinny speaks in such an iconoclastic and barely compehensible way that after a while, I couldn’t avoid a bit of mimicry when talking about him. It just entered my blood and he is such a unique character. He doesn’t speak in a stereotypical old world Italian accent, but something quite a bit stranger and unique to him. Most brownstoner regulars who’ve done some home reno know about him if they haven’t actually used him, and his idiosyncracies are well-known to the old-timers here.
3. You can’t quote him without the accent. If rehab wrote “You’ve got to spend the money,” it wouldn’t be accurate or Vinny.
4. But it does read like a stereotypical Italian accent. I think offense can be taken. Always good to think over what you’ve written before posting. But as offenses go, this one’s pretty minor, given that it’s Vinny. Not worth a big to do.
5. Vinny would think we were all nuts for this discussion.
100
Kinda puts you in a bit of a pickle, actually.)
Posted by: bxgrl at September 16, 2009 2:44 PM
I disagree Bxgrl, you continue to hurl contrived insults at me because I exposed you earlier. As you and your ilk laugh it up now, here and on the OT, keep in mind that my original comment on the post was quite sincere and fairly accurate. The undertones of the original post followed by the transparency of Rehab’s later remarks are self evident. I am thankful to have become aware of his history via another poster.
Sings – “I like to be, under the sea, in an octopus’s garden…”
There was a girl on my hall in college who played Piaf non-stop for a year – working out her post-adolescent, existential angst. Put me off Piaf for-EVER.
It’s a fine line, denton. She’s not such a popular and glorified icon like Babs, Shirley and some of the others. The younger crowd largely doesn’t even know her name, just the old queens. 🙂
Love Piaf, dibs. Is that like drinking a pina colada?
Me too dave- you can’t take a guy like that seriously. All you can do is hope he doesn’t hold some important job somewhere that depends on his “judgment”.
Arkady- bring your swimsuit? 🙂
(Obviously cresent, you have been very bothered by your erroneous assumptions or you wouldn’t keep posting. Kinda puts you in a bit of a pickle, actually.)
you two.