 New Metal Crafts completed in 2007, the restoration of historic lighting fixtures for The Blackstone, a Renaissance Hotel. This Hotel was formally called the Sheridan Blackstone and is located on Michigan Ave and Balboa St. near the Conrad Hilton Hotel.
Main Ballroom
This was the grandest space in the Hotel and held the most fixtures in one space. There was the main 5'-0" wide x 8'-0" tall bronze chandelier with 36 lights and hundreds of hand cut hanging crystals, beautiful cut vases and crystal spears. This fixture was surrounded by four smaller chandeliers with 24 lights on each and the walls had 102 sconces on the ground and balcony levels. All the fixtures were carefully disassembled, cleaned, rewired and reassembled. All the crystal trimmings were cleaned and rehung. Once restored the chandeliers shone with all the original finishes coming to life and all the wiring redone to meet today's standards.
Prefunction, Common Areas and Stairwells
Over 40 historic sconces were fully restored for these areas.
Balbo Lobby
The Balbo lobby had 21 original monumental sconces that were fully restored. These sconces were a unique challenge in that the majority of the sconce was made of plaster. This was not that uncommon in fixtures from this era and the Blackstone had several areas that had plaster fixtures. The decorative plaster components had however suffered damage over the years with some being rather crudely repaired over the years. Once in our factory we determined which parts were salvageable and where we could not repair we had new parts recast to match the originals. Once reassemble, fully rewired and refinished with a new coat of Venetian gold paint the sconces looked the same as the day they were originally installed. In addition to the sconces we restored a crystal basket located immediately above the main stairs and 5 surface mount plaster fixtures.
Barbershop
The barbershop had 6 wonderful plaster bowl pendants. They had a unique decorative pattern of laurel wreaths and steer's heads ( Stockyards reference???) on the outside. These were fully restored, repainted and the insides received an updated compact fluorescent lamping system.
Roof top
New Metal Crafts provided 30 new custom exterior cast aluminum post lamps with globes that sit atop the parapet wall. It is my understanding this was original to the building design but missing for many years.
Exterior Façade
The Michigan and Balbo facades held four monumental exterior lanterns in the Beaux Arts Style. The fixtures had suffered from many years of alterations and layers of paint atop paint. Once removed from the building and brought to our workshop the sheer scale was impressive. These fixtures were all cast bronze each weighing in the area of 450 - 500 lbs. Once stripped of all the layers of paint the beautiful cast detail began to come out. The fixtures were repaired as was necessary and new globes were fitted in place. The fixtures were fully repaint and redelivered to the jobsite where a crane was awaiting for their careful reinstallation
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