43
Terra cotta arrives at courthouse
YOUNGSTOWN
The first shipment of terra cotta has arrived and awaits installation at the Mahoning County Courthouse.
The terra cotta is fired, ornamental clay masonry that will be placed at or near the roof of the 105-year-old building, whose $6 million, two-year restoration is to be completed this fall.
The first installment, consisting of 124 creamy-white glazed pieces, each bearing an identifying number indicating where it is to be placed, was delivered April 28 encased in foam in 16 plastic-covered wooden crates.
Shipments will continue during the summer.
A total of 730 pieces of terra cotta, made from 105 molds, will be delivered from Boston Valley Terra Cotta of Orchard Park, N.Y.
“Most of them are the balustrades – the pieces that sort of form the rail at the top of the building,” said architect Paul Ricciuti, the county’s project manager.
“Those were the things that were in the most-serious deterioration,” he added.
Other pieces of terra cotta will cover a band of brick near the roof.
“It’s world-class,” he said of Boston Valley’s work. “We’re very fortunate that the people that are making the terra cotta are the best in the United States.”
Boston Valley is one of only two makers of terra cotta in the country.
“It’s an amazing process, and it goes back centuries,” Ricciuti said of the manufacturing he saw when he toured the company’s plant late last year.
All of the pieces are replacements for broken or otherwise damaged original pieces of terra cotta, and all are exact replicas of the pieces they replace.
“They’re exactly what was there in 1909,” Ricciuti said.
“BVTC works to maintain the integrity of the craftsmanship that went into making the original pieces,” said Patricia Herby, sales administrator for the terra cotta company.
“The glaze is a granite replicate, such as we have done before,” she said of the courthouse terra cotta.
However, she added: “The original terra cotta on this building has a unique rake texture not commonly seen in our work.”
The terra cotta, made from southern Ohio clay, is decorative, but it is also functional in protecting the building from the elements, Ricciuti said.
The new terra cotta will be secured with stainless-steel anchors, unlike the original carbon-steel anchors that rusted and caused some pieces to fall into the alley behind the courthouse, he said.
Besides terra cotta replacement, this year’s work will include roof replacement, reinforcement of the statue pedestal and return of the copper statues to the roof.
“The project’s going very smoothly. We’re on schedule. We’re on budget,” Ricciuti said.
“The weather is now favorable” for the project to proceed, observed James Fortunato, county purchasing director.
The statues are undergoing restoration at the McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory Inc. in Oberlin.
If it’s feasible, Carol Rimedio-Righetti, chairwoman of the county commissioners, said she favors having a public viewing of the statues on the ground in front of the courthouse for several hours before they are hoisted to the roof in September.
The courthouse, which has a granite exterior and a marble interior, opened March 6, 1911, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.