Scaffolding St. Agatha – St. James Church, 38th and Chestnut
Working on St. Agatha – St. James Church at 38th and Chestnut is one of those rare opportunities where we get to help renovate an historic landmark.
St. James was the first Catholic Church on the west side of the Schuylkill River, founded 1850. St. Agatha, 3813 Spring Garden Street, was founded shortly thereafter in 1865. In 1976 after St. Agatha suffered a second fire the two churches were incorporated into St. Agatha-St. James.
So what does it take to be able to work on an historic structure like this? It takes skill, patience, customer service, more skill, and the ability to adapt quickly and think outside the box.
This particular job took three years to come to fruition. Yep. There are many unforeseen things that can happen when trying to negotiate a contract like this, changes in management, economic issues, ideas on how to best approach the job just to name a few.
But in the end, it’s all worth it. Superior Scaffold got to say that we were an integral part of bringing back an historic building to its former glory.
It’s our job to safely get the restoration crews and their material to where it’s needed.
There are so many challenges on these old buildings like where to tie-in without damaging masonry, where to stage equipment and how to scaffold impossible alleys and chimney areas.
This was a 100% restoration including window repair, pointing, repairing damaged artifacts and more. Look closely at some of the photos.
Another aspect of our work is to make the job site presentable and keep business as usual at the church.
Services, meetings and weddings were still being held each day.
We did have to move our equipment staging area at least 3 times to tidy up the place while they hosted these big events. We worked with the restoration crew and the Church when those events had to be put on.
We built a canopy out of bridge columns at the base of the structure to protect the pedestrians. We erected scaffolding around the entire building and then added debris netting and decked it in at every level to give crews complete access.
The really cool part was getting crews to the top so they could work on the giant stone artifacts. I just love seeing the tops of these old churches close up!
We used a patriot 1000 material hoist and a rack and pinion on one side. Crews used the Patriot to hoist stone and masonry up and down to the roof.
The east side next to the house was one of our biggest challenges.
It was narrow and difficult to get to and almost impossible to build a scaffold in there. But we did it.
It’s really going to shine again once everything is completed.
We are proud to have played a small role in helping renovate this historic structure. Thanks to both St. Agatha – St. James Church and Mara Restoration for bringing us along and trusting us.
If you need access, scaffold or scaffolding call the “King of Swing”, Bob Sarkisian at 215 743-2200 today and let him get you “up air” or visit www.superiorscaffold.com for more jobs.
And I just felt that this song was perfect for today’s post – from the Church – Enjoy!
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