The history of preservation and modernization of old buildings is like two steps forward, one step back. At Carnegie, the city negotiated window improvements for allowing the Convention Center construction team to use the property. Someone specified an insulating glass conversion to the hundred-year-old sash. It was this work and not the 100 years of service that basically destroyed the windows. Here, the insulating glass is set in the historic window with careless and irregular machining and worse, set in traditional glazing putty. Of course, as the paint film decayed, capillary action occurred, and moisture got to the seal in the insulating glass precipitating its failure.

After 115 years, this building has found its ideal app. Vibrant in the mid-century, automobile traffic soon isolated it from pedestrian access. In 1977, the library was moved to what is now a vital landmark building as well, and since that time, various museum plans have come and gone. This Beaux-Arts structure is honestly not the best-built monumental building we have helped restore in this town, but a good cleaning and good fix-up have wiped the slate clean, and now this will be one of Apple’s best stores.

North elevation—we reproduced all of these windows that had been destroyed through neglect and bad insulating glass retrofit.