SAVING THE FOUNDATION STONE OF AMERICA

	New England Architectural Center and Peter G. Hill Designs together are leading the effort to reclaim “the foundation stone of America,” the primarily bluestone and sandstone sidewalks and curbing from the 19th and 20th centuries.    New England Architectural Center, under the direction of Peter G. Hill, is currently at work saving the stonework in Riverside Park, the largest park in Manhattan. Riverside Park, including all its classic stonework, was designed by Frederick Olmstead, the acknowledged father of landscape architecture in the United States. The magnitude of the stonework industry in the 1800s represented 25% of the entire labor force in New York State. The process of creating in stone, by hand, was actually an art form and took an astounding amount of labor and creativity.
“When I saw the overall beauty in these steps,” says Peter G. Hill, “I knew they had to be saved. The contractor who was removing and replacing a large section of steps in Riverview Park between 96th Street and 100th Street contacted me. He thought it a shame to throw away these steps. He invited me to see if I might be interested in saving the steps. Upon close inspection, I couldn’t imagine why these steps were being removed and replaced by concrete. They had already been in the ground for over 125 years and probably could have survived another 1000 years or so. At the time I knew nothing about the park and its origin. On close inspection I noticed the stones had been split on four sides.
Two sides were not chiseled and were buried in the ground- they still show the rough natural original splitting. The other two sides, the stepping side and the step risers were both all hand chiseled. Knowing how laborious the chiseled surfaces had to be worked on to make them flat, I was amazed to see the patterns they chiseled into these two surfaces. They were absolutely beautifully hand chiseled. The chisels themselves were hand made and designed to create a pattern in the stone. One of the primary purposes was to prevent slippage, especially in rain and snow, while walking up and down steps. The other purpose was to create an attractive flat walking surface.”

   “Right then I knew these steps had to be preserved,” Peter G. Hill says. “The patina, wear, coloration, hand chiseling and warmth in these stone had to be saved and repurposed. I feel blessed to have taken these steps to save these foundation stones of America and am repurposing them into residential steps, fireplace mantels and statuary park tables. One will most likely never have the opportunity to rework functional art forms from any of Frederick Olmstead’s original landscape designs.”