After more than two years of renovation and restoration, McGraw Tower is finally free of scaffolding. Above all - literally and figuratively - is a brand-new roof.
"Everyone - from the designers and contractors to our campus roofing experts - expects it to last us another 100 years," says Jon Ladley, director of facilities planning for Cornell University Library.
The steel support structure was visible during the renovation.
The $7 million project included not only restoring the roof, but numerous other repairs and weatherproofing to the tower, masonry and adjacent Uris Library.
It had taken longer than anticipated, due in part to uncooperative weather, as well as the challenge of hiring roofers skilled in the required detail and craftwork.
(Specialist subcontractors were brought in from Ottawa, Ontario, in Canada.)
From a distance, the 173-foot-tall landmark seems much the same, albeit cleaner: the masonry is brighter, the four clockfaces crisper. The new roof retains its historic chevron pattern and deep gray hue.
The most time-consuming part of the project, Ladley said, was the removal and careful replacement of the roof's lead-coated copper sheets, soldered pans and wood decking that form its pyramidal shape.
The roof had last been replaced in the 1930s - followed by decades of repairs to leaking seams.
