The $100M Promise: How This Museum is Redefining Harlem's Architecture

In Part Two of our discussion on the Studio Museum in Harlem, we move from vision to execution and explore the realities of delivering a complex cultural institution on one of New York City’s busiest corridors. Jessica Busch is joined again by Andy Bast, Jaylen Henderson, and Lakya Roberts to unpack the logistical, structural, and sequencing challenges of building on 125th Street, including overnight construction windows, zero on‑site storage, façade installation staged like a nightly puzzle, and underpinning next to occupied and landmarked buildings. The conversation examines how full‑scale mock‑ups reduced risk and cost, how teams navigated unforeseen conditions with neighboring structures, and what it takes to maintain safety, quality, and momentum through COVID disruptions. This episode also highlights the project’s commitment to MWBE and Black‑owned business participation and reflects on the deeper personal and community pride that comes from delivering a public institution built not just for a neighborhood, but with it.

Transcript

Welcome Back: From Vision to Execution

0:00

Because of those stipulations, all of the work had to be done uh 6 p.m. to six a.m. in the morning. We were looking at the studs of the building next door. So there was there was no structural wall in their in their building. Which was news to them as well. Which was news to everybody. And there was about in terms of black owned businesses, 20% of 2022. Yeah, a little more than. It is interesting what those moments did for our line of work. We had to get really creative. Well, I'm from Queens. So I live in Queens now. This is the Construction Insiders Podcast. I'm Jessica Bush, bringing you the newest trends and strategies in construction, essential to anyone in the industry. So to continue our conversation about the studio museum, I'm gonna start with location. I know we touched on it in the first part, Jalen, but 125th Street. Buses everywhere, pedestrians, neighboring buildings, you name it. It is busy as all be. Yes. Before construction even begins, though, what are you up against from a logistics site management standpoint? Sure. So we are on 125th Street. You have the M, uh, I guess the M66 bus that runs right through it, and we're right in front of a bus stop. Um, you have to deal with that in pedestrians, so you have to get lane closures. And what happens is the DOT normally has stipulations. Because of those stipulations, all of the work had to be done uh 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the morning. So there were cranes that were essentially put together uh at 6 p.m. at night, and then we put up pieces of the facade, and then it had to be put back together, taken down uh by 6 a.m. every night. So that had its own challenge and it also extended the time. But that was one of the logistical items that we had to deal with. So when you said a chess match, that was a very positive glass half full way to describe. Yes. I mean, if

Building on 125th Street: Logistics and Night Work

2:10

you're building in New York City, you have to think of everything as the glass half full because New York City is busy everywhere. So there are those challenges on every project, but 125th Street was definitely a challenge. And of course, you have the moratoriums, um, which essentially during holidays and special occasions, you can't do any work or you can't have cranes. So we had to schedule the project to uh make sure we did those operations as far as like lifting equipment to the roof um outside of those uh time frames. A scheduling dream. Yes. This logistical puzzle that you alluded to in part one, what does that look like? I mean, how is it actually executed? How are you planning for this? Um, you know, was this known in the original playbook? Um, how did how did this kind of all evolve and how'd you how'd you get it up? Yeah, sure. So there's a few parts of it. So you have the facade, but then you have the support for the side for the facade. So the stele structures one is the first thing that goes up. So during the design process, you have your still members, um, and then you have connections to those still members and you have anchors in the facade. So not only are you navigating the design of how those pieces are gonna interact to essentially connect to the building, you have to figure out when you're going to fabricate these pieces, where you're gonna store them. So that's only a bit of the puzzle. Um, the pre-cast members actually came from Canada. Um, and then we needed to figure out when was the best time to bring them to the job site. Um, being same, I'm sure there's a lot of storage on this job site. Yeah, no, not at all. Storage is something that we did not have the opportunity to have here. But um the pieces were actually stored in New Jersey. So they came from Canada, were stored in a uh a warehouse or or yard in New Jersey, and then they came to the job site as needed. So you had a truckload of maybe 10 pieces that came um at a time. Again, those need to be bought on site at 6 p.m. You put the pieces up, and you put one. You put as many pieces as you can put up on uh in before 6 uh a.m. So once that was done on 125th Street, and if you notice, none of the pieces are the same size, so they're all different pieces. So it was almost like, or I would say exactly like putting

DOT Restrictions, Cranes, and Overnight Installation

4:45

a puzzle together in the middle of the night. In the middle of the night. So it took it took a while, and um also on 124th Street, you had the same pre-cast facade. So once that was done on 125th Street, uh, the team moved over to 124th Street. Um, and that was just the exterior. When you get into the interior, New York City and Code has a lot of requirements for fireproofing. Um, and again, to Andy's point, you have an overall vision of how the building is gonna look like, but uh the devils are always in the details. Um, in this project, one of the details that was a particular challenge was how to maintain fireproofing on the interior of the building at the building corners. So that at the building corners. At the corners of the building. Okay. Uh that prompted a whole engineering study, and we had multiple people get involved in how to maintain fireproofing, fire rating throughout the whole building. It required multiple layers of sheetrock. You had additional spray foam on all corners. So that's just one of the challenges of this unique facade that needed to be addressed, and we needed to work together to uh to make sure it worked out. Who knew the corners would be so important? That's right. I mean, one of the other things that we didn't mention earlier was you know, it's it's hard. Sometimes you try to put this in the back of your mind, but we did a majority of this construction during COVID. Yes. That's right. So there were you know limitations on we're talking about the pre-cast facade. There were limitations on our ability to travel to Canada to actually inspect the material that was being fabricated before it was shipped. So we had to to find in-country liaisons to actually go there, take photos, do an inspection, because you know, the the quality of the product needed to hit a standard before it was shipped to the site. Because it if you're in the middle of the night, you're putting up a facade, it it's going up no matter no matter what happens. It is interesting what those moments did for our line of work. We had to get really creative and you know, find inspectors up north. Or what I just, it's it's really interesting the things we've learned from some really challenging times and how it's now impacting what we do today. Right. Yeah. Right. Um and this was a conversation off-camera, so I'm gonna quickly go back to that. But we have talked about um there were several large-scale mock-ups of this, talking about the puzzling in the middle of the night and logistical challenges that this beautiful building had. Um there were a lot of mock-ups made to make sure that when it came to reality it worked. Why was that so critical in

Façade Sequencing and Zero On-Site Storage

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this situation? I think it's so important in this situation because I think the building itself is a piece of art. Not only are is the building housing art, it is a piece of art if you were to look at it from the street. Like it's amazing. It's beautiful the way it was designed. It's a beautiful building. So having those mock-ups, just to make sure at the end of the day, uh the museum, right, is getting what they envisioned. Uh, the designers are actually getting what they envisioned. So some of those full, those full-scale mock-ups included a ceiling, flooring, walls, 20-foot-high ceilings, like that we're looking at in a warehouse that was built just to make uh just to have the design team and the student museum come in, look around, and just make sure they got that feeling that they were looking for. So that was extremely important. And it even went to like the details of the particular curtain that they wanted to have in the museum, making sure that fit, uh, making sure it looked like how they uh how they wanted it to look. It was a stage almost set up in a warehouse, very theatrical. Almost. Yeah. Almost. But the one thing that's different about that from a from a scene set is that the other big advantage for when we're building these, and this is applies to the Sudan Museum in Harlem, but also a lot of the projects that we have the opportunity to work on, is that when you we can utilize these mock-ups to take to understand the construction details of how these bespoke things are gonna come together. And what that does is it then has an opportunity to take away some of the risk and uncertainty, and therefore gives us an opportunity to help control the cost side as well. So like the cur the cathedral ceiling and the curve of that, like how we were gonna build it, it wasn't just on a piece of paper. We actually did it, learned from that, and then we're able to translate some of those lessons learned into the documents before we bid it. I was gonna say those lessons learned with risk mitigation, I mean, that just make has to make all the difference in the world when you're able to do that. And I think that's a term, you know, lessons learned, we throw around a lot in our line of work. But when you really get to do a trial build beforehand, well, I mean, you you find ways to utilize these what seem to be big investments, but they're small in relation to the context of the overall project. But if they can serve two, three, four, five different purposes, then there's real benefit to it. It's not just about uh a look and feel, it's also about constructability. It's about detailing, what's important to the design team, to the client. And those are things that we really try to tease out in that whole process to make sure that if we're spending $100,000 to build a mock-up, which is a lot of money, that we're really getting the full benefit of that value. Just the little bit of knowledge I do have on the actual construction side of this project, um, there was mention of some underpinning. Yes. Um sounds technical. Um, but it has enormous real-world consequences. Um and when you're dealing with a neighboring foundation, can even be a little more tricky. Um so

Interior Fireproofing and Corner Conditions

10:55

can you walk us through that specific challenge? Paint the picture, what were some creative solutions? How do we keep that glass half full? Yeah, sure. So I think you know, part of it is first of all, to go back to what Jalen was saying, I mean, underpinning is a pretty standard process here in New York and elsewhere too. But you know you're building a lot of buildings next to other buildings. And it is a process by which you're lowering your foundation or you're bringing your foundation lower than the your neighbor. So, you know, we do it all the time. Uh, I think the challenge becomes where you're dealing with areas of fill and you know where the soils aren't as um as stable. And when we were building next to a landmark. So, you know, all of that becomes part of that challenge. We did end up dealing with some one might consider, depending on if you're glass half full or glass empty, whether or not they were minor settlement issues. But we we crossed certain thresholds that were set into a neighbor agreement with our neighbor. Uh that were And this is the landmark. And this is the landmark building next to the wonderful. Okay. So, you know, there were certain very stringent uh benchmarks that we needed to stay attuned of and came up with some unique situations or unique solutions, excuse me, unique solutions for how we can then stabilize the soils underneath while we were going through the underpinning activity. So it put us back a couple of months, but you know, at the end of the day, we were successful in getting that foundation poured and putting the vertical structure up. And if you don't mind, what did some of those solutions look like? So there was a bunch of there was a new slurry mixture. So we were pumping in new concrete underneath the neighboring building. We were looking at different underpinning sequences. So there was a it was a combination of several things. In fact, we went we went through and tried two specific types of solutions before the third one. So there's plan A, plan B, and then plan C. It was actually like B prime. B prime. Okay, I like that. But yeah, but it took a little while to make sure that we were able to do this while the building next door was occupied and and being you know run just like any type of commercial building. Right. I mean, there's just a lot of sensitivity. And then what is our like responsibility when you're dealing with the neighbor's wall? What how do you navigate something like that? Our underpinning challenges were on the east side of the of the site, and then on the west side, we ended up with curveball number number two, which was the fact that when we took our our structural wall down, we were looking at the studs, the finished studs of the building next door. So there was there

Building Through COVID and Remote Inspections

13:40

was no structural wall in there in their building. Which was news to them as well. Which was news to everybody. Yes. So, you know, it we went through and had to negotiate uh an interesting sequence of going back in with the neighbor, you know, looked at cost share in terms of where those responsibilities were. There was very there's very little records when you go back to the 60s in New York City in general, but specifically in Harlem. Uh, so there was a lot of dialogue with the property owner, uh, and we ended up coming up with a sequence that went in, removed some of their finishes, put a structural wall back in, and then put them back in, uh, all while you know a majority of their building was occupied. Wow. And uh, you know, again, that was uh, as I said earlier, when you think about tenacity and perseverance, there's a couple people that could have just throw their hands up in the air with both of these issues, but nope, we're we're charging forward, and everyone was marching in the same direction, which is sometimes you know, there's construction details, but then there's construction philosophy and psychology. And you know, what made this project easier from that perspective was that everyone was following that thelma vision that we talked about earlier. And everyone knew where this project needed to go. So when those problems came up, there was a lot less tension and there was a lot less, I'll call it in infighting between the the natural sort of tension between construction and design. And everyone just rolled up their sleeves and figured it out because we knew where we needed to get to, where we had to get to at the end of the day. Well, it's a difference maker when everyone has the same belief and the same goals. Absolutely. Um, and that's when you see these huge successes come to life. And talking about the team, um we needed to mention how strict the guidelines were for the museum to have black owned businesses uh and MWBE enterprises was up to 50%. It was almost 50%. Almost 50%. And there was about, in terms of black-owned businesses, 20%, 20, 25, 40, yeah, a little more than. Yep. So that was a big deal. And and also handling that with the GC, making sure they understood that assignment, you know, and when we're looking at these, you know, subconsultants was a huge part of the process. Yeah, there was a a large geography that was canvassed to make sure that we uh found as many of those opportunities as possible, both at the subcontractor level and at the sub-sub level as well. So the whole team was on board. The whole team was on board. The mantra was clear. And again, similar to what we were talking about, everyone was working towards the same goals. It changes everything. It absolutely makes our job a little bit easier. And just to jump back, Likaya, we we had talked about the diversity of partners and companies involved in the build of this project. But one thing we didn't now thinking back about, one thing we didn't talk about

Full-Scale Mock-Ups as Risk Mitigation

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was the approach to get those diverse companies. What worked, what didn't work, what have we learned moving forward, and what is maybe the construction industry as a whole, what do we need to do to move the needle? Honestly, I think it we work with a lot of the same contractors. And I think it's that you're used to certain people. So comfortable. You're comfortable, and there's not a thought about branching out. But I think there has to be some lead way, some way to say, let's, you know, in terms of what that project entails, let's look a little bit above and beyond. Let's try for these smaller companies that are trying to get, you know, their their part in it, trying to get their footprint in the city. In their perspective. Yeah. And and for a lot of these projects, these big community projects, that should be mentioned. What are we looking for in terms of, you know, how we want this project to look in terms of every aspect, not just the building itself, but who's working on it? We rarely do this because we deal with construction, right? But I wanted to end this one a little bit more on a personal note before we wrap up the episode. With a purpose-built cultural institution like this, what does it mean to you professionally, personally? Um, and and what do you take away from this moving on to your your next big adventure? Well, I can start. Yeah. So uh professionally, this is a building that's going to be around for a long time, is gonna have that same impact as like the Apollo theater of all of those different buildings around it. So just being involved in that is a tremendous accomplishment on my end. Personally, uh being black and being in construction is something I take a lot of pride in. Um, and just being to say I was a part of this project is extremely important to me. And I have two young girls and a child on a way, and being able to take them to this museum, not only are they looking at the art, but say to say to them, hey, I helped or I had my hand in uh building this is amazing uh feeling. And uh that's w what I take away from it. And then just again, the design of it and how it just fit into the culture of Harlem. Um, and I mentioned before I'm from Brooklyn. So Harlem and Brooklyn, they have separate cultures, but at the end of the day, it's still that same black culture. So just having to have that, and with the design and how you can see the aspects of like a uh brown stones and how that was incorporated is it's so cool to me. Well, I'm from Queens. So I live in Queens now. Um, for me professionally, um gosh, it's hard to explain. I was I'm very proud, you know, to

Underpinning Next to Occupied and Landmark Buildings

19:55

be in the project. And uh personally, um in controls, we're dealing with numbers so much. We don't like I'm listening to Jalen and Andy, and there's some things I don't get to hear about. And because I'm always head down in the budget. But uh personally, for me to see it, to be inside of it. And I think the biggest thing for me is I saw it before it was renovated, I saw the shell. You know, we were able to have these walks of construction and to finally be in the building when it was open. I think for me, it was just listening to the sound of people, just listening to them talk about the art and just hear it, the life of the building now. So that was amazing to me. Yeah, I think that when we talk about pride of our work, from my perspective, is the pride of the community. Like, you know, it's not that often you get an opportunity to build something like this in your backyard. And, you know, one of the things that was so resonant, and going back to the story I was talking about with Thelma in the park, one of my neighbors uh in my building, the guy who lived actually just below us, um, was on the community board. So we would present to him every month, and you know, he would come to me, he would pull, you know, stop me in the hallway and say, you know, I can't wait till this is done. And you know, that you don't get a lot of projects that have that consistent sense of pride in a community and in a neighborhood. And you know, that is really what kind of resonates with me. Wow, just what an incredible conversation. And thank all of you for taking the time out of your busy days to come sit down um with me today. Thank you for having us. Yes, absolutely. This is this is great to talk about. It's been wonderful. I mean, we've talked about the history, the legacy of the studio museum, to all the very complex work that it took to get it to where it is today and to bring it to life. But um it really reminds us like why we do the work we do and the pride we can get from it. So it's been absolutely fabulous. And to our guests, thank you for joining us. Um, if you like it, listen more, subscribe. Um, and we will be back very shortly. But until then, just keep building the future. Thank you. Thank you for joining us for the Construction Insiders Podcast. You can continue the conversation by leaving a comment, asking a question, or participating in our poll. You can also visit us at coming-group.com for more great resources from the most trusted team in the built environment. And don't forget to subscribe to stay up to date on our latest episodes.

Unexpected Neighbor Conditions and Structural Solutions

24:33

We were looking at the studs, the finished studs of the building next door. So there was there was no structural wall in their in their building. Which was news to them as well. Which was news to everybody. And there was about, in terms of black owned businesses, 20%, 20, 25, 10. Yeah, a little more than. Yep. It is interesting what those moments did for our line of work. We had to get really creative. Well, I'm from Queens. I live in Queens now.