If you count the time a sidewalk shed has been in place at a particular location, not considering that the shed at that location has been replaced several times, I think St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, at Montague and Clinton (photo) may hold the record hands down. I could swear that when I moved to the Heights in July of 1983 there were sheds along the full extent of the Clinon and Montague sides. The shed along the Montague side, except for a small portion over the Court Street subway station entrance which remains today but is obscured by trees in the photo, came down after most of the church’s facade on that side had been repaired and stabilized.
That work, which was done under the supervision of experienced stone workers by students learning the trade, was funded by “Arts at St. Ann’s,” a series of concerts, plays, poetry readings and the like which, from 1980 to 2006, raised approximately $4 million for restoration of the facade and stained glass windows. A previous Rector of St. Ann’s decided that the arts program had become a distraction from the church’s primary mission, so gave notice it could no longer use the church’s premises. Arts at St. Ann’s then decamped for DUMBO and became St. Ann’s Warehouse.
I was hoping that the designation of St. Ann’s as a Pro-Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island might bring some funding for facade restoration, but so far no luck. Hence, the sidewalk sheds remain under a city statute that requires them to be in place next to any building exterior wall not deemed safe from ejecting potentially injurious or deadly chunks of stone or terra cotta.
So, there it is, but I sense some of you shouting, “What are these ‘sidewalk sheds’? Don’t you mean ‘scaffolding’?” Well, no. As this Untapped Cities article points out, the temporary structures that jut out over sidewalks to protect pedestrians from falling debris are properly called “sidewalk sheds” (I’ve also seen them called “sidewalk bridges”). “Scaffolding” is a structure that sometimes, though not always, rises above a sidewalk shed. It supports workers as they work on the walls of buildings.
