On many older Manhattan rowhouses the front is not the same brick as the rest of the building. It is pressed brick, laid with joints so fine they are called butter joints, and it cannot be repointed the way the back of the same house can.
In the 19th century the best brick went on the front. Pressed brick was dense and uniform enough to be laid with extremely thin joints, while the other walls of the same house were built in ordinary brick with ordinary joints. NPS Preservation Brief 2 notes that pointing styles often differ between facades, with fronts getting the most careful mortar work.
As a brick pointing contractor in Manhattan we identify pressed brick before scoping any repointing in Manhattan, because it changes both the method and the price. A butter joint has to be found and cleared carefully by hand, and the front is pointed to a finer standard than the other walls, which are quoted as a separate piece of work.
Four things that follow from a front built to a finer standard than the rest.
Pressed brick was expensive and reserved for the part of a Manhattan rowhouse people saw from the street. The other walls were laid in cheaper brick with thicker joints, so one house carries two quite different kinds of pointing.
Many cutting blades are thicker than the joint itself. On a pressed brick front in Manhattan the joint is located first and cleared carefully by hand, since cutting would chew into the edges of brick that cannot easily be replaced.
A preservation guide to butter joint repointing fills all the bed joints before the head joints. That narrows the vertical gaps before they are filled, keeping every fine line on the Manhattan front consistent.
The front is pointed to the precision it was built with, and the other walls to their own standard. Quoting them separately stops a Manhattan owner paying front-grade rates for walls that never needed them.
Front, sides and back are looked at separately. On most Manhattan rowhouses of this age the pressed brick stops at the front, and the scope is split at that line.
On a joint this fine the first job is locating it precisely along its length. Only then is old mortar eased out, a little at a time, keeping the edges of the pressed brick on the Manhattan front intact.
Bed joints first, then head joints, finished to the same slender line the Manhattan front was built with. The other walls are pointed in the ordinary way to their own standard.
The quickest way to spoil a pressed brick front is to repoint it like any other wall. Cut out with a blade, filled with an ordinary joint, it loses the fine lines that made it the most expensive part of the house when it was built. The other walls can take that treatment. The front cannot. On an older Manhattan rowhouse, ask whether the front is pressed brick and how its joints will be cleared and filled before accepting a single price for the whole building.
Rowhouses with pressed brick fronts run through Harlem, Hamilton Heights, the Upper West Side, Chelsea and Greenwich Village, among the older blocks across the island.
See brickwork contractor Manhattan for our other brick work on the island, or brick pointing NYC for how joints are cut out and filled.
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A very thin mortar joint used with pressed brick, which was uniform enough to be laid almost edge to edge. On 19th-century Manhattan rowhouses, butter joints usually appear only on the front, where the finest brick was used, while the other walls carry ordinary, thicker joints.
Because builders saved the expensive pressed brick for the front. It was denser and more uniform, so it could be laid with much finer joints. The other walls of a Manhattan rowhouse were built in cheaper brick, and they are pointed quite differently as a result.
Yes, but not with the same tools or pace as ordinary joints. Each joint is found along its length and cleared carefully by hand rather than cut, then refilled to its original fineness. On a Manhattan pressed brick front that work is slower and priced accordingly.
A preservation guide to butter joint repointing fills all the bed joints first, because doing so narrows the vertical gaps before they are filled. On a Manhattan front with very fine joints, that order keeps every line consistent and reduces the material needed in each head joint.
Usually not. NPS Preservation Brief 2 notes that pointing styles often differ between facades, with fronts receiving the most careful work. On a Manhattan rowhouse the pressed brick front and the ordinary brick walls are best scoped and priced as separate jobs, each to its own standard.
