Help with ID on a York or Remington Sherman Round Vault Door

Huw Eastwood

Hi guys- think this ones for Doug and Wylk- you guys know your doors! :o:

I’ve had a clear-out in my workshop and come across some offcut discs of steel and aluminium- with them I’ve found a model door I’d started years ago but unfinished. I’ve got some basic notes I’d scribbled and taped on it, but it’s just scaled dimensions to what sizes the model needed to be.

Here’s the bit I’m stuck on- I can’t identify what door it was!

I’ve searched the net last week but can’t find anything on it. The models at quite an early stage so it’s not really much help to ID- I’d done most of the rough turning though, so I’d like to get it finished.

It’s a York or RS round door- similar to the One King West and the Cleveland Fed doors, but it seems a mixture of the two:

Unlike the Cleveland Fed door with 16 locking bolts, I think it had 20 locking bolts like the King West door, but-
only a single step where the locking bolts project like the Cleveland Fed, whereas the One King West has several.

The Cleveland Fed door is very ‘tidy’ and modern looking with no fixing bolts around the back of the door, whereas the King West door has the bolts around the outer ring. Unsure if this one needs them or not….🙁think):

The more I think back I seem to remember it may have been one of the old banks converted to a restaurant, and the couple of photos I seem to remember were very dark and unclear, but I’ve tried loads of searches and nothing shows up.

Anyway it would be great if you guys do know which door it might be so I can do a more direct search- I don’t expect you to go trawling all over the net, a place name or restaurant name I can search would be great 🙁party):

wylk

How about the Capital Grille in NYC (120 Broadway, the Equitable Building). It has 20 bolts and a plug-style door.

Huw Eastwood

wylk- your’re a genius and a gentleman! didn’t think I’d get a response to this for weeks!

Just a quick look was all I needed- that’s the one mate- I’ll probably be able to finish it just from the pics you’ve posted, but having the name and location as well is tops 🙁clap):

I’d searched York vault doors, RS vault doors, vault doors in restaurants, restaurants with vault doors etc etc and it didn’t show up-

BIG thanks buddy 🙁y):

Paul Prescott

That is a beautiful door and looks to be in superb condition too. Very nice indeed.

wylk

I find the building’s history interesting as well.

The first Equitable building was opened at the same location in 1870. It was seven stories and somewhere I read it was touted as being fire-proof, at least until it was ravaged by a devastating fire in 1912. An account with pictures is at http://mcnyblog.org/2012/01/10/100-years-ago-the-equitable-building-fire-2/. Although the building was virtually destroyed, burned, and frozen, the vaults survived. Safe deposit box holders were allowed to retrieve their property and many of them walked across the street to open a new safe deposit box in the US Realty Building, housing the Carnegie Safe Deposit Company which is now the Trinity restaurant (Hollar doors).

The 1870 building was then demolished, and the new Equitable building was constructed with the vault under discussion, and possibly others. The new building cast such a large shadow it outraged New Yorkers and was the last skyscraper built before regulations were put in place (http://www.emporis.com/building/equitablebuilding-newyorkcity-ny-usa).

Doug MacQueen

As always, a good post and a quick find on that door. Regarding the seeming irony, the term “fire proof” was commonly used and was very misleading, in both safes as well as buildings. With safes, at least with most makers, it was fire “proof” up to a point, given a typical fire and a typical response time of a fire department. That building contained a lot of fuel, paper, drapery, etc., as well as gas piping, which will make for a real good fire, regardless of how resistant the rest of the building is constructed. Based on other big city fires from the era, it could have been much worse. Great pictures in that article. I read in some areas the ice was 2 feet thick. The old water pumper blowing smoke is a great photo. Doug

Adrian Weber

Interesting that the vaults survived the fire and also proof of the quality of them right?

Very nice doors 🙁nerd):

VaultDoors

…..

VaultDoors

wylk wrote
How about the Capital Grille in NYC (120 Broadway, the Equitable Building). It has 20 bolts and a plug-style door.

The York plate on the time lock door appears to have been added after the vault’s construction as this early pic shows the time lock door without it.

[unknown]

wylk

VaultDoors wrote
The York plate on the time lock door appears to have been added after the vault’s construction as this early pic shows the time lock door without it.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10784[/ATTACH]

As remarkably similar as that door is to the one at the Capital Grille, I’m not sure it’s the same one. The caption states this is a Federal Reserve Bank vault, but I don’t believe Capital Grille (Equitable Building) ever housed one. The ceiling and wall are different, too.

The image looks like it came from Google Books, could you provide a URL? I’d be interested in reading the article.

[unknown]

wylk

I did some poking around and I now agree with VaultDoors.

The image appears to be from 1917 (or earlier), based on its appearance in a 1917 issue of Bankers Magazine. The URL is http://books.google.com/books?id=PXs4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA747&dq=%22the+45-ton+door+and+main+entrance%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=F3DtUu_XIuHXygHr1YDIAg&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%2045-ton%20door%20and%20main%20entrance%22&f=false and the article is about a new type of concrete. But it doesn’t state the location of the federal reserve bank (other than implying New York because another image, of the interior, does state New York).

The NY Fed’s current building was constructed in the 1920s (1921-1924 per http://www.emporis.com/building/federalreservebankofnewyork-newyorkcity-ny-usa) but prior locations weren’t as easy to come by. I finally did find http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/about_the_building.html which states:[INDENT]
As the Bank’s need for space grew, new quarters were secured. By the end of 1918, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was housed in six locations. It occupied several floors of the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway, the entire building at 50 Wall Street, 37 Liberty Street and miscellaneous facilities on Liberty and West 44th streets.[/INDENT]

So it does seem reasonable that the vault in question was in fact occupied by the Federal Reserve prior to their move to 33 Liberty Street in 1924.

My hesitation was based in part on a detail of the ceiling immediately left of the upper hinge. There is a sort of step that isn’t there in contemporary pictures. This might have been for ventilation and/or pipes, for example, and removed later.

Back to the original point, yes, it’s interesting that the builder’s plate was apparently added later. Good find!

Huw Eastwood

It’s not exactly a makers plate that does it proud either! I’m sure they could have come up with a better one for the centre piece of such an impressive door as that.

That’s interesting about the Equitable Building housing part of the Federal Reserve- also explains the need for that York door in preference to an average 25 or 30 tonner. On the subject of similarities and differences- isn’t there another York almost identical to the Equitable elsewhere? I’ve seen old black and white photos somewhere of another door which could be mistaken for it, but for the fact it has a different boltwork hand-wheel on the frame. Everything else from what I remember looked the same- although possible its the same door but was changed at some point 🙁happy):

wylk

MaxVaultage wrote
On the subject of similarities and differences- isn’t there another York almost identical to the Equitable elsewhere?

I believe 23 Wall Street looks like the Equitable Building door-wise. This was JP Morgan’s bank built in 1913. Here are old/newer images:

This is a Frederick S. Holmes design. In 2003 the building was converted to condominiums.

[unknown]

Huw Eastwood

That’s probably the one wylk- I remember the curved spokes in the hand wheel on the frame. Looks like it might have less of a taper on the plug compared to the equitable, but that’s often down to perspective and the photography with these big doors 🙁y):

VaultDoors

Here is JP Morgan’s Emergency Door with a mini combo viewer and light-weight door that covers the opening. Does anyone know the purpose of this additional door? It looks like it belongs on a spaceship… The images came from the Museum of the City of New York.

wylk

And here is a more contemporary view of the JP Morgan emergency door:

I did not realize there was originally a hinged cover (now missing) as shown in one of your images.

VaultDoors

The Capital Grille vault door appears to have 4 electrified locking bolts with varying contact patterns -

The 10:00 locking bolt has 9 contacts:

The 11:00 locking bolt has 6 contacts:

The 1:00 locking bolt has 6 contacts:

And presumably, the 2:00 locking bolt has 9 contacts. That’s a lot of juice for one door… The One King West vault door only has 2 electrified locking bolts, each having 2 contacts. What is the need for all the power?

wylk

Good spotting on the contacts. Normally, for an alarm circuit, I would not expect a lot of power as a requirement. Rather, I’d expect a number of contacts if the alarm is designed to distinguish between several alarmable circumstances. For example, one circuit might indicate that the time lock has expired while another circuit indicates that high temperature limits have been exceeded, and so on. But I have to admit that’s just educated speculation; what a 1910s engineer might have done may be difficult to establish. Requirements might differ from one customer to the next, hence a different number of contacts. Bill Gates would be perfectly happy with a single circuit that says “An error has occurred.”

wylk

Looking at the pictures again, I noticed especially in the 11 o’clock image that two of the holes are smaller. I’m thinking we are seeing an insulating end cap and that the two smaller holes are mounting screws that hold everything in place. It’s not as clear what’s going on at 10 o’clock. This would reduce the count of actual contacts to something less surprising.

VaultDoors

Yes, the 10:00 bolt appears to have 5 larger holes in a cross/x pattern and 4 smaller holes in a square/box pattern.