The building across the street from work. It’s a 6-story building, large, takes up a block north-south. This is one of three garage doors on the same side of the building. This is a recent addition, and they sacrificed a garage door to install it, wondering what the heck it might be for? Drainage from the roof? The pipes go all the way up and bend over the top from what I can see from the street. The building has been around a long time, this was just installed a month or so ago.
Looks like some kind of temporary heavy drainage from the roof. Is any work going on on the building?
Hard to tell, the garage doors are always closed. The loading bay is empty, no sign of rehab dumpsters or work trucks or anything like that. Though they could be parked underground.
There was heavy rainfall this spring and early summer. I know quite a few people who got water who normally don’t. Just seems weirdly specific to the roof of a building that’s been there for decades.
Hm, what else. It is largely unoccupied right now. AON Insurance moved out in 2010 and it’s currently listed with multiple commercial rental spaces available and only 31% occupied. Oh, I forgot half of the building (the far side from pictured) is 10 stories. (It’s true, city people don’t look up in their own cities) It was originally constructed through its current exterior look from the 30’s to the 60’s. There has been talk of turning some of the space into senior housing, but I haven’t heard anything but rumor at this point. The marketing for it is all commercial.
Those sure look like vent pipes from something in the basement. Is someone building a brewery in the basement?
I’ve noticed a large machinery sound coming through the garage doors sometimes.
Maybe someone went all Walter White!
Looks like water mains to me – suggesting that they’ve had to cut the interior piping because they are doing renovation work.
Around here, the pipes would probably actually be labeled, and the only thing in a black pipe like that would probably be gas, but no way they would leave gas supply pipes exposed like that around here. Is there any fine print on the pipes?
Temporary pipes to allow them to replace internal pipes and other infrastructure.
The way the way they go to the top sounds like they are fresh water supply.
Nothing else would go all the way to the top like that. waste water is dropped by gravity - how would it go up and over ?
Are they connected to a hollow metal sphere?
It’s the Internet!
Not just one – I count four, count 'em, four Internets.
they look like cast iron pipe(s) …
those could be steam pipe(s) entering or existing the building …
does the building have a sub level …??
If it were the internet the tubes would be interconnected. I’m going to say it’s a fire sprinkler system retrofit.
Because of how they’re situated I’d guess temporary fire sprinkler risers. But fire suppression usually has red colored elbows and fittings. Yellow usually signifies natural gas, but again the way they are situated with no protection leads me to believe otherwise.
Here are a couple additional pics. They’re definitely PVC, not cast iron. There’s writing on the pipes, but just manufacturer stuff, nothing that says what they’re for. In taking a closer look, there is a small amount of water pooling underneath the fittings, and it’s cool here today with a low dew point so I don’t think it’s condensation. Leads to believing they’re full of water, but nothing to say for what exactly.
Preparing for major renovation makes sense, though, if the rumors are to be believed. It’s been four years at this point, plenty of time for zoning and new plans.
The 1st picture gave me the impression they were cast, so thanks for additional pics to clear that up.
The supply side is cast, so it would be water (sanitary or fire suppression) the face that they have pvc on an exterior elevation like that with no protection what-so-ever is definitely a temporary structure. Natural gas, like I said earlier, are also cast, but you would not have them switch to pvc.
Ppneumatic mail!
nm (double post)
As yoyodyne said, sprinklers and fire mains.
They want to bring building up to code to attract new tenants (they likely would have had to the do the work sooner if a tenant were actually interested.) If you could, would you post a picture of the man hole cover in front. The concrete looks new, so they likely tied into whatever it accessed by that cover.
Now that you mention it, that section was dug up and re-concreted over winter, along with a section of the driveway. I didn’t connect the two until now because that was last year and they just did the pipes a few weeks ago. At first I thought they had something to do with drainage because they’re situated right over that storm grate, and they were installed right around when we had torrential and record rainfall, but that didn’t make sense because it looks like something that would have taken some time to plan and contract out.
I’ll post another pic on my way to work tomorrow when it’s light out. I’m weirdly intrigued by this kind of stuff.
I went ahead a took a lovely orange glow night pic on my way home instead, I had enough time before my train. Two manholes, the top of the pic and closest to the pipes is electric, and the bottom of the pic is water.
