From small things Baby, big things one day come.
It’s the title of an old Dave Edmunds song, but it’s also a classic story for our firm.
One day I got a call from an old client and friend that I had lost track of a few years ago. Mistake number one- never lose track of where past relationships move on to, and stay in touch.
But he called to tell me he was now working for the Gilt Group in NYC. He very apologetically said he had a very small project and sort of assumed I would not be interested in it. He said it was a very small set of bathrooms that he thought needed some interior “decorating”. And it was all the way over in Brooklyn. And it was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with its own arcane set of rules and regulations. Long experience said : go for it!
What started as a small decorating project grew to a small bathroom renovation, and then grew to an office reconfiguration. Small mind you, at 4000 sf, but a nice creative little design project. Then it died. Then it revived. Then my friend left the firm. But not until he connected us with his successors.
We then got the call that they had now decided to relocate most of their Brooklyn staff and photo studios to their headquarters space on Park Avenue in Manhattan.
Now we have the good fortune to have just completed a 16,000 sf complete gut renovation, fully exposing all the concrete structure and duct work system, with finely polished smooth concrete floors, photography quality curtain dividers for ready to wear photo studios, set design facility, and shelving space for all the handbag, shoes, and jewelry accessories that go into each carefully crafted photo taken.
All in a historic Art Deco Building a couple blocks from Grand central Station! From small things….
And by the way, I’m going to make sure I stay in touch with my past client now.
Paul Newman, AIA, CID
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