SALVAGING ORIGINAL FIXTURES, P.2

"Having your board and you managing agent and your super all on board is very important," Wood advises. "They're the ones on the front line, who know when people are renovating, and they need to be vigilant and make sure people know what to do in order to donate something or to take something out of the salvage program. We emphasize with our super it's important to be very careful" with the antique fixtures.

The program is as elegant in its simplicity as Boak & Paris buildings are elegant in their iron and brass-trimmed window grilles, multicolored, geometric terrazzo floors and molded-plaster ceiling decorations. "People donate [fixtures] to the program. Then if somebody want something from the inventory, we give it to them." It's all free, "with the understanding that they would not then get rid of it — that they would give it back to the building" if they later renovated anew without the old fixtures.

Then, too, there's also the matter of: What happens if someone gets a free antique fixture and puts it up for sale on eBay?

"That is a bridge we haven't crossed yet," Woods says thoughtfully. "We kind have a community of trust."

Photo by Henrik Olud