The staging area for final review needs a lot of natural light.
Question: Why did someone replace the top floor of 116 Saint Botolph (on the Durham Street corner) with a large, angular, metal enclosure?
Answer: Because this was a stained glass manufacturing facility, and it needed a proper assembly space to create magnificent, over-sized stained glass windows!
116 St. Botolph, 3/4 View
116 St. Botolph, Front View
Until 1987, there were two of these unusual and ungainly structures in the Saint Botolph neighborhood. The Connick and O’Duggan workshops both had these top-floor staging areas.
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They needed well-lit displlay spaces to assemble, display, & quality-check large pieces before shipping.
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Many church windows are too big for most stained glass workshops. The Connick and the O’Duggan workshops along Saint Botolph both upgraded their top floors, and produced thousands of colorful church windows.
Side View Diagram:
#1) window position during assembly, & #2) during review
Gothic Monk, Front window Detail, 116 St. Botolph
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Craftsman's son Charlie D. described his experience:
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"I clearly remember the top-floor room where they assembled large windows. They needed natural sunlight to see them correctly.
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​It was amazing to see the scaffolding and how they assembled the window for review.
I was there once when the artist was reviewing a church window. He called out sections that needed glass replaced because the colors were wrong.
​Then he took the panels with the bad pieces out. Made new pieces, replaced them, and reassembled them to be reviewed again. It was quite amazing."
These workshops were national leaders in crafting large, top-quality, stained glass windows between 1913 and 1986.
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This business required the unusual top-floor modifications of 116 St. Botolph Street and just four blocks down the street at 9 Harcourt Street.
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Together, these two buildings were a key part of the engine that created our Stained Glass Row. St. Botolph windows are installed as far away as Honolulu, Paris, and Manilla.
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Who knows, could the last remaining third-floor stained glass display space be eligible for designation as an historic monument of some kind?
Heinz Memorial Chapel,
North Transept, 73 feet tall
Charles Connick Associates