Macy's Façade Restoration Recaptures the Look of 1865 with Winco's 1450 Hung Replica Window Series
Abraham & Straus was one of New York’s most lavishly decorated department stores with a beautifully ornate iron-front façade, Mansard-style roof, and an interior filled with the golden vestiges of a bygone era. Built in 1865 in downtown Brooklyn, the department store was a shopping draw for more than a century before becoming a Macy’s store in 1995.
While the original building at 422 Fulton Street never received landmark status, it was just too beautiful to destroy. Prior to redevelopment of the property, a preservation plan was hatched: remove and restore the old façade for later use on the new building.
Allen Architectural Metals and WINCO Windows teamed up to give the new building the old façade. Allen Architectural Metals was tasked with dismantling, cataloging, and
transporting 69 tons of iron to their Alabama base for restoration. The original windows were to be replicated by WINCO using their 1450HR
series Historic Hung Replica windows.
The reinstallation of the restored façade required the engineering of a substructure to marry it to the new building’s windowless front wall. WINCO used monolithic glass with a tinted, reflective infill to hide the contemporary building’s weather wall and present the facade’s original sightlines to passersby on Fulton Street.
The final touch? The windows are set in metal frames finished with a 70 percent Kynar paint that perfectly matches the lily pad green of the surrounding framework. The finished 98-footwide expanse of ornate architectural iron is truly a masterpiece reminiscent of the store’s former grandeur.