Bird Guano And The Early Undulators

Big Bird = Big Guano. So what is bird guano and what does it mean for me? Well, guano is a polite term for those semi-petrified piles of bird poo that one finds all around the city. Today the local news was a twitter with reports of Operation Bird-B-Gone–a plan by State representatives and the MTA to equip the ceilings and undersides of some elevated subway stations with electrically charged strips. The strips give the birds a mild shock when touched and are supposed to deter them from getting too comfortable (comfortable enough to, well, you know) high above our heads.

Bird guano did not always have the bad rap it does today. In fact, during the nineteenth century fortunes were built on the thriving guano trade. Ships from New York set off to the outlying islands of Peru (which because of their climate were particularly conducive to the preservation of high quality guano) to bring back huge shipments of fecal gold that could be used as fertilizer.

One of those who cashed in on this trade was William Russell Grace. Grace immigrated to the United States from Ireland when he was still a teen and worked his way through New York business until he followed the guano trade to Peru. There he amassed a great guano fortune and finally returned to New York to found W.R. Grace & Company. Grace eventually entered politics, and with Tammany’s backing became the first Irish-Catholic mayor of New York in 1880. His relations with Tammany soured, for among other reasons, trying to reform the city’s corrupt and ineffective sanitation services. He did not run for reelection at the end of his term (mayors served two years), but ran again on the reformist ticket in 1884 and was reelected. In 1885 he had the distinction of accepting the Statue of Liberty from the nation of France. Grace’s company continued operating after his death in 1904, and still bears his name today, although it deals mainly in industrial chemicals rather than guano. One of New York’s more unique Midtown buildings also bears the Grace company name.

The W.R. Grace Building and its plaza on 42nd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues was completed in 1971 by Gordon Bunshaft and the team at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and reflects earlier SOM work on 9 West 57th Street. Both buildings feature a flared base (derided as bellbottomed–but such a cute conception of it) that rises dramatically to a standard cubic form.

Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s undulating (maybe not technically undulating since the flare does not repeat, but hey) towers preceded some of today’s more dramatic (and somehow more grating) curvilinear developments like the Sculpture for Living and Frank Gehry’s creation by the Hudson.

The curving facade was intended by its designers to conform to light/air zoning regulations without utilizing the common stepped, ziggurat-like setbacks so commonly found on New York towers. The Grace and 9 West 57th towers were not well received by critics who found the interruption of the flat and solid street wall disconcerting. In addition, their relation to neighboring buildings was also geometrically troublesome (the neighboring buildings now–gasp!–had their side-bits revealed because of the gradual, curving setback of the new towers). The towers’ immense scale (particularly 9 West 57th’s) in relation to their surrounding neighborhoods was also a concern, but in comparison to today’s sometimes massive and/or undulating developments, the two seem stolid and restrained. Another plus is that the single, sweeping, upward curve of the towers offers no perch for pigeons to land on and do their business!

Grace Building (Left) by mdumlao98 on Flickr.
Grace Building (Right) by alistairmcmillan on Flickr.
9 West 57th Street towering over the Plaza by Infinite Jeff on Flickr.