Step 4 of five

A Lot With a Foundation Still In It

Nothing stands. The building is still legible in a low wall, a step to nowhere and a scar on the neighbor, and that is more information than most standing buildings give up.

The five questions

The same five questions, asked of every front
What it was built to do	A four story commercial block filling the lot to both party walls, with a basement under the whole footprint.
What happens there now	Rough asphalt used informally for parking, with the basement filled and the foundation wall left standing about knee high along one side.
What you can still read off it	The party wall next door. It carries the ghost of every floor, every roof pitch and every chimney breast of the building that leaned on it.
Where you can stand to see it	The sidewalk on the far side, where the whole party wall is visible at once, and then the lot edge for the foundation.
What has gone for good	The building, entirely. Also the basement, which is under your feet and full of the building that was above it.

The neighbor keeps the record

This is the single most useful thing in this paper and almost nobody looks at it.

When a building comes down, the wall it shared with the building next door stays up. On that wall you can read:

Floor levels, as horizontal lines of different mortar where the joists were pocketed in.
The roof pitch, as a sloping line of flashing scar near the top.
Chimney breasts, as vertical panels of different brick.
Fireplaces, sometimes, as small arched patches.
The stucco line, where the wall was never meant to be seen and has been sealed since.

Four floors, a pitched roof and two flues, read off a blank wall in ninety seconds. That is a plan section of a building that no longer exists.

An empty lot of cracked asphalt and grass with a low brick foundation wall still standing along one edge, and the blank party wall of the next building rising behind it — An empty lot, a low foundation wall along one edge, and the blank party wall of the neighbor behind it carrying the whole record.

Dating the demolition

Roughly, and roughly is enough:

Bare brick scars, no sealant. Recent, within a few years.
A painted or stuccoed seal over the scars. Older, and somebody expected the gap to stay.
A mature tree in the lot. At least fifteen years, probably more.
Asphalt over the whole footprint, with a curb cut. The lot was formally converted to parking, which means a permit, which means a date somebody could look up.

The step in the sidewalk

Where the entrance was there is often a granite step still set into the sidewalk, or a rectangle of newer concrete where one was lifted.

Granite steps are heavy, valuable and awkward, so they are frequently left. A step to nowhere is the most direct thing on the site: it is exactly where the door was, at exactly the level the ground floor sat.

Practical

The lot is private even when it looks abandoned. Read it from the sidewalk.
Vacant lots collect glass. Look down as well as up.
Overcast is better than sun: the scars on the party wall wash out in direct light.
If the lot is in use for parking, do not stand in the aisle.