Update: Conservation at the MMO

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 18, 2022

Conservation of historic buildings is a slow process. Much of it comes from trying to match the original materials so that we can make sure the conservation work is done properly, that it matches in color, and that it works with what exists. For example, painting latex paint over a lime-based paint: not a good idea. It is not historically accurate but also that latex is not going to adhere to the lime wash properly and at some point, you will have a mess that you are re-doing the right way.


In the case of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory, the grout (cement) is very coarse. It’s full of small pebbles and broken pieces of stone (see image). The main dome was built in 1908 and the addition to the right of it was completed in 1922. When I joke that it looks like they went to the beach to make the grout mixture, I am not entirely sure it is a joke!


In any case, this is not something – the lime or this particular grout – that you buy off the shelf. The mason has to make it – match the color, the texture/coarseness, the pebble-like material and colors in it, the mixture. Thus, the amazing island mason, Wayne Morris – who has been working on this project and also did our conservation work at the MMA Research Center – has spent countless hours collecting stones and digging through stones he has in his masonry yard. Once he has a good amount and ones that match what is on the MMO, he pulverizes them to match the size of the pieces found in the existing grout on the building. He actually created a special tool to do this. Because, that’s how he works.



So, now that he has a good supply, he has been focused on the back side of the building dealing with the cracks and places that the grout has spalled and fallen out. He is now attending to the front of the building, thus more staging. Once those areas are dealt with, he will replace the iron lintels above the windows. These have rusted because of water getting in. They will be replaced with steel that will not rust, expand, and then cause cracking. He will also be addressing the “parapets” – rebuilding them where needed – and attending to the copper and the flat room on top of the 1922 addition.


JNLF

 


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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 19, 2025
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 12, 2025
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