The Bronx
Window Restoration in The Bronx
Art Deco steel casements, corner windows and multi-light configurations that replacement vinyl cannot reproduce — plus Mott Haven's rowhouse terraces and Riverdale's freestanding houses.
The Grand Concourse and the Art Deco stock
The Grand Concourse Historic District holds one of the densest concentrations of Art Deco apartment buildings in the United States — a continuous run of 1920s and 1930s elevations in brick and cast stone, with the streamlined massing, banded brickwork and geometric ornament of the period.
Those buildings were glazed with steel casements, and the windows are not incidental to the architecture — they are the architecture. Art Deco design used the window as a graphic element: horizontal bands of glazing running across a facade, corner windows turning the angle of a building with the minimum possible interruption, and multi-light configurations subdividing an opening into a deliberate pattern. All of it depends on how slim a steel section can be made.
This is the honest technical reason replacement so often fails here. A corner window’s whole point is the near-absence of structure at the corner; reproduce it in a heavier profile and the effect is gone. A banded run of casements depends on consistent sightlines; interrupt them and the horizontal reads broken. Landmarks caps glazing diminution at 10% for metal windows, and a multi-light Deco casement re-made in a thicker section will often exceed that on arithmetic alone.
Restoring Bronx steel
Steel casements deteriorate by corrosion, and the sequence is predictable. Glazing putty fails, water reaches the steel in the rabbet, and rust starts at the glazing line. Rust expands well beyond the volume of the metal it replaces, so it cracks glass, bows sections out of plane and, in masonry openings, pushes against the surround. Hardware — stays, handles, hinges — seizes or breaks, which is frequently why a sound casement has not been opened in decades.
The restoration runs: controlled removal, strip to bright metal, cut out and let in new steel where section has been lost, treat and prime properly, reglaze with correct bedding, rebuild or match the hardware, and refit. Where an original unit is genuinely beyond repair, a landmark-grade replacement is specified to match the historic material, operation, configuration, details and finish.
Art Deco buildings also carry a fair amount of decorative glazing — leaded and patterned lobby and stair-hall glass — which we handle in-house alongside the casements. That work is covered on our stained glass and leaded window restoration page.
Mott Haven, Longwood, Riverdale
The Bronx is not only Deco, and the other districts each set a different problem.
Mott Haven and Mott Haven East are designated rowhouse districts — intact mid-to-late nineteenth-century terraces in the borough’s oldest built-up area, with brick-opening double-hung sash, arched and flat heads, and the same repairable failure pattern as any brownstone: bottom rails, sills, putty, cords, paint.
Longwood is a designated district of speculative rowhouses from the turn of the twentieth century, unusually consistent, where individual out-of-character replacements are conspicuous across a whole street.
Riverdale is different again: freestanding historic houses on generous plots, a much wider mix of dates and styles, and windows that vary house by house rather than repeating along a terrace. Every unit is effectively its own survey. We also work in Morris Heights and elsewhere across the borough.
Who we work with in the Bronx
The Concourse and its surroundings are largely multi-family, so the client is usually a co-op board, a condo board, a managing agent or a general contractor rather than an individual owner — and the work is usually capital work, planned and budgeted over a cycle rather than commissioned on the spot.
That suits a per-opening survey. Every window recorded, tagged, photographed and given a scope of refurbish or replace produces a document a board can budget against and a package Landmarks will accept, and it keeps a large project from turning into an argument about scope in month three.
For a building doing phased replacement over several years, LPC’s master plan route is worth raising early: a one-time approved plan for window and door replacement across units, with no expiry, under which individual unit filings then process faster than starting each from scratch.
Common Questions
Questions we get asked on this work
Can Art Deco corner windows be restored rather than replaced?
Yes, and they are the strongest case for restoration in the borough. A corner window works because there is almost no structure at the corner, which only slim steel sections make possible — reproduce it in a heavier profile and the effect the architect designed disappears. Restoring the original steel keeps both the appearance and the daylight opening, which matters because Landmarks caps glazing diminution at 10% for metal windows.
What is actually wrong with our steel casements if they look rusty?
Almost always the glazing putty failed first, letting water reach the steel in the rabbet, and corrosion then started at the glazing line. Because rust occupies several times the volume of the steel it replaces, it cracks the glass, bows the section and can push against a masonry surround. The repair is to strip to bright metal, let in new steel where section has been lost, treat and prime it, and reglaze properly.
Our Grand Concourse building is planning window work over several years. Can that be approved in one go?
That is what LPC’s master plan provision is for. A building can file a one-time master plan covering phased window and door replacement across units over time, and it does not expire — once approved, individual unit filings made under it process faster than filing each from scratch. For a large multi-family building replacing windows over a capital cycle it is usually worth considering before the first filing.
Free Assessment
Get a free on-site assessment.
We visit your building, inspect the windows one by one, discuss any board or Landmarks requirements, and walk you through the options — restoration, replacement and approvals. No cost, no obligation.