Windows
“The windows look to be in very good condition,” Jim wrote back. I had sent him a note and a photo of the exterior side of the living room window at our home in Aquinnah. Nevertheless, I removed the trim, exposing the weight pockets, then took out the old window and unceremoniously threw it into the trailer backed up in our driveway.
Jim and I had restored many double hung wood windows during the time we worked together. We had also become pretty good friends, and then partners in a small but fairly successful restoration business in New York City. I detected some disappointment in his words, admonishing me for being unwilling to put the time and resources into the old eight over eights original to our house.
At the Dakota on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, built in 1884, we had restored wood windows, the sash there made from old growth cherry. The lead counterweights, chains and bronze pulleys on both sides of the heavy sash comprised a simple mechanism for operation. We restored windows in fancy townhouses and brownstones uptown, and others in less tony neighborhoods around the city.
Yes, our windows in Aquinnah were intact and in decent shape, despite being sixty-three years old and facing the brunt of winter gales wailing across the sound and up the hill. The harshest winds, coming directly at us from the northeast, would blow out the glazing.
“I’m afraid the windows had to go,” I wrote back, adding that the winters here are harsh and we are too exposed to be sentimental about old, single pane, rattling, leaky windows. It was an argument Jim and I would often have, since he always insisted on saving whatever could be saved, while I tried to be more practical, arguing that just because something was old didn’t always make it worth saving. Jim was, and continues to be, a bitter critic of our disposable throw-away society, arguing that our craft and willingness to repair, to fix, and to restore amounts to a worthy pursuit.
Jim had initially hired me to clean his woodshop on West 21st Street. It was my first job in the spring of 1984, having just returned to the city of my birth after twelve years abroad — three on a boat in and around Belize, and nine working on boats in the Mediterranean, based in Malta. My boat skills transferred well to fixing almost anything in the built environment, and later in navigating the intricacies of working for exceedingly wealthy and picky clients. Soon I was running the crew, and became Jim’s partner in the business in 1990.
We have new windows now. They are tight and do not rattle like the old ones. There are no drafts up through the meeting rails or around the parting stops. The weight pockets are gone, replaced with flashing and insulation. The old house is now easier to heat and quiet in the wind. I am told that other than requiring cleaning, the new windows, which have a proprietary outer coating, will be maintenance free.
It is not always possible to fix things, or to reconcile one’s political beliefs with practical solutions. So after twenty-five years, my partnership with Jim was over. Our friendship, too, was damaged by business and personal disagreements and angry words accumulating over the years. And just like the discarded window in the trailer, it is probably beyond repair.
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To read Anthony Lefeber’s essay “At the Dakota,” his memoir about working as a contractor at that site, click here.