A Life Built in New York
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Tour 6

Buildings with Second Acts

Buildings whose masonry shells or structures found new lives through conversion, recladding, expansion or careful construction around them.

6 stops · 1967–1990 · 6 identified

Thematic. Each stop links to the full project record, where the sources, construction team and archival evidence are set out.

The former Manufacturers Hanover operations centre during its 2023 conversion to housing as SoMA at 25 Water Street.
Current view · 2023 · Photo: SnowFire · CC BY 4.0
The former Manufacturers Hanover operations centre during its 2023 conversion to housing as SoMA at 25 Water Street.
Current view · 2023 · Photo: SnowFire · CC BY 4.0
01 · 1967 · Manhattan, New York

4 New York Plaza / Manufacturers Hanover Operations Center (now SoMA at 25 Water Street)

Joseph helped build a 408,000-brick banking-computer fortress whose original 1966 DOB plans still survive in the Municipal Archives; today the same structure has been transformed into 1,320 homes.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — The official DOB plans survive, the original masonry is unusually well documented, and the current conversion physically rewrites the very envelope Joseph helped build.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Manufacturers Hanover Bldg. — 1967

Transcription: Manufacturers Hanover Bldg. — 1967

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
The Cooper Union Foundation Building today. Joseph's list points to interior work; the exterior is shown for identification.
Current view · 2024 · Photo: Kidfly182 · CC BY 4.0
02 · 1973 · Manhattan, New York

Cooper Union Foundation Building — John Hejduk interior renovation

Joseph worked on John Hejduk's celebrated modernization of Cooper Union's 1859 landmark.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Probable

Why this stop — A beautiful preservation story: radical modern interiors were built inside one of New York's oldest landmark educational buildings without erasing its shell.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Cooper Union — 1973

Transcription: Cooper Union — 1973

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
375 Pearl Street photographed in 2013, before the 2019–2021 recladding: the windowless switching block Joseph's 1973 list points to. Not a construction-period photograph.
2013 · Photo: Beyond My Ken · CC BY-SA 4.0
03 · 1973 · Manhattan, New York

New York Telephone Building — 375 Pearl Street

Joseph helped build one of Lower Manhattan's most notorious windowless fortresses; forty years later, New York literally cut open its upper walls and turned them into glass.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Unresolved

Why this stop — The physical transformation is unusually literal—masonry walls opened for glass—and the afterlife is equally New York: the converted tower now houses both digital infrastructure and city government.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: N.Y. Telephone - Pearl Street — 1973

Transcription: N.Y. Telephone - Pearl Street — 1973

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
7 Hanover Square / 50 Water Street photographed in 2018, after the complex was extensively transformed.
Current view · 2018 · Photo: Tdorante10 · CC BY-SA 4.0
04 · 1982 · Financial District, Manhattan, New York

7 Hanover Square (now 100 Pearl Street / 50 Water Street complex)

Joseph helped build a 1982 red-brick office tower on a block where archaeology uncovered colonial and early Federal New York—including property once associated with Captain William Kidd.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Corroborated
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — A rare chance to tell masonry history vertically: colonial foundation ruins below, Joseph-era red brick above, and a 21st-century office transformation layered onto both.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: 7 Hanover Square — 1982

Transcription: 7 Hanover Square — 1982

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
712 Fifth Avenue photographed in 2008.
Current view · 2008 · Photo: Americasroof · CC BY-SA 3.0
05 · 1988 · Midtown Manhattan, New York

712 Fifth Avenue

Joseph worked on a Fifth Avenue skyscraper whose shape was changed by a public preservation fight: dozens testified over whether the older buildings underneath it should survive.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Family source
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — The record makes the preservation conflict tangible—not an abstract 'fight,' but a public hearing with sharply divided testimony that helped determine what Joseph ultimately built around.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Office Building - 712 Fifth Avenue — 1988

Transcription: Office Building - 712 Fifth Avenue — 1988

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →
The Warburg mansion on Fifth Avenue in 2009. Not every facade element visible here belongs to the 1990–1993 expansion.
Current view · 2009 · Photo: Americasroof · CC BY-SA 3.0
06 · 1990 · Manhattan, New York

The Jewish Museum — 1990–1993 expansion and renovation

Kelly’s 1990 entry lines up with the start of Kevin Roche’s major Gothic Revival expansion.

Project identity
Verified
Kelly connection
Corroborated
Masonry scope
Strong

Why this stop — Kelly’s 1990 entry lines up with the start of Kevin Roche’s major Gothic Revival expansion.

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Jewish Museum — 1990

Transcription: Jewish Museum — 1990

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Full project record →

Buildings whose masonry shells or structures found new lives through conversion, recladding, expansion or careful construction around them.

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