Renovation

Old properties may need some repairs or maintenance for a fresh facelift. Renovation works are sometimes a necessity to improve the living conditions of a home or work environment of an office. A little touch up on parts that have gone through wear and tear will do wonders to your property.

A little facelift will increase the market value of your property. From basic touch ups to complete make-over, the renovations done will affect the value of your property differently. Renovated "old" properties will make it easier to sell as it has been restored to a "fresh" look.

Finishing can be as simple installation of new carpets to extensive whole house rewiring, piping and room extensions. The whole point of renovating your place is to have a more comfortable living/working experience. If you are planning to sell or rent, following trends is one way, another is matching your target buyer’s requirements. If you are selling or renting to an expatriate, wood floorings are something you should look at. Expatriates favor having wood floorings as it reminds them of their home countries feel.

Decorating Your Residence Hall Room

Need some creative ideas on how to decorate your residence hall room for next year? Coral Nafie, About.com Guide to Interior Decorating, has an entire list of great resources for college students. Her article is definitely worth a read (and a bookmark!).

Before you go out and buy too much stuff for your room, however, make sure you're aware of what you're allowed to bring. Additionally, make sure you touch base with your roommate about who's bringing what. With limited space, two of everything will quickly become a huge problem.

News About Decoration for Hall

Echoes of Carnegie Hall on Fifth Avenue

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Published: August 3, 2008

Q There is a handsome orange brick building at the northeast corner at Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street that looks like the son of Carnegie Hall. Who was the architect? What was its original purpose? Is it a landmark? ... James Duncan, Manhattan

A This lovely light-orange building was built in 1890 by a carriage manufacturer, A. T. Demarest & Company, and designed by Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell. The Demarest concern was established in 1860, and by the 1880s its factory, in New Haven, had 300 workers.

The Renwick firm is best known for its founder, James Renwick Jr., designer of major works like Grace Church, at Broadway and 10th Street, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. By the late 1880s, the office was producing many relatively small commissions of very high quality, often for socially connected clients.

Clockwise from top left: American Architect and Building News/Office for Metropolitan History; Andrea Mohin/The New York Times (2); Architectual Record/Office for Metropolitan History

SMALL BUT NOTABLE The Demarest building, at Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, looks much the same today, left, as it did in 1891, far left. The Babies’ Hospital building, at Lexington Avenue and 55th Street, below right, is little altered from its appearance in 1903, below left, shortly after its completion.

These include the small apartment houses at 9 East 10th Street and 39 East 10th Street, the fraternity house of St. Anthony Hall at 29 East 28th Street, and the loft building of the 10th Church of Christ, Scientist, at 171 Macdougal Street, which is now being reconstructed as a condominium.

Both the Demarest building and Carnegie Hall were designed in 1889, the latter by William Burnet Tuthill, so it is not very likely that Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell borrowed from Carnegie Hall.

For the Demarest building the firm used mottled iron-spot brick for a facade made impressive by the giant four-story-high arches.

This urbane design in a light palette has much in common with other high-style buildings of the period, like the 1890 Madison Square Garden (when it was actually on Madison Square) and the 1892 Judson Memorial Church, on Washington Square South.

Despite its notable presence, the Demarest building is not a designated landmark.

In 1893, The New York Times said the Demarest company had some 200 carriages, valued at $150,000, in the building. Demarest moved up to Broadway and 57th Street in 1909, and the 33rd Street building was converted to offices.

In 1913, The Times reported that a doctor from Berlin, Freidrich Franz Friedmann, had an office there and offered free treatment for tuberculosis. A thousand patients showed up, including 15-year-old Leonard Curatolo, who walked up from Elizabeth Street with his father, a shoemaker, and mother. Census records list the family as Italian. Only the boy spoke English. But the leasing agent prohibited Dr. Friedmann from treating anyone, and the Curatolos and everyone else were turned away.

It is not clear if Dr. Friedmann had a real cure for tuberculosis, but he was back in Germany in 1934, when The Times reported that the Ministry of Agriculture had denounced the “worthless” work of “this Jewish physician.” Dr. Friedmann lived until 1953 and died in Monte Carlo.

That Beaux-Arts Building

At Lexington and 55th

Q What is the date of the building I work in, at the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 55th Street, and who was the architect? ... William Zinsser, Manhattan

A Babies’ Hospital, established in 1887, built this intriguing Beaux-Arts-style building in 1902 and constructed a seamless addition in 1910.

The architects were Edward York and Philip Sawyer, then just beginning their careers. They would become New York’s pre-eminent specialists in bank architecture. Later, they designed the Central Savings Bank at 73rd and Broadway.

Comparing their work with that of another more prominent firm, the classicist Henry Hope Reed said in a 2003 interview, “Oh, McKim, Mead & White were good, but they were certainly no York & Sawyer!”

The babies whom the hospital treated were usually seriously ill. In 1900, it reported that it had admitted 386 patients: of these, 178 were cured and 145 died.

In 1915, The Times reported on its front page about a disagreement at the hospital over the course of treatment for the “hopelessly deformed daughter” of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Roberts. The child was born with her spinal cord protruding from her back — apparently what is now known as spina bifida — and she was paralyzed below her waist.

A physician at Babies’ Hospital, Dr. L. Emmett Holt, advised Mr. Roberts that the child would die soon, and recommended that no surgery be performed that might prolong her life. The Times said the father agreed. But Dr. Maurice Rosenberg, who had been called in as a consultant, protested that “the mission of a physician is to save life” and that any and all measures should be taken to help, even knowing the child would soon die. Dr. Holt’s opinion held sway, and the baby, named Mary Margaret Roberts, lived for only nine days.

Babies’ Hospital was later absorbed into the Columbia-Presbyterian medical complex in upper Manhattan, and the building was ultimately converted to offices.

Now, a century after its construction, York & Sawyer’s building has been only moderately altered. It still has most of its heavy rusticated limestone on the lower two floors, with an intricate frieze and complicated Parisian-style brick and limestone decoration above.

Even the cornice and delicate iron balconies are intact, making it an unusually civilized gesture on a jangling stretch of traffic-choked Lexington.

E-mail: streetscapes@nytimes.com