Reading a Builders Plate

wylk

There is a nice round vault door at 100 State Street in Albany, NY. The area is used as an event venue. I recognize the boltwork as Benjamin F. Tripp’s US patent 816,049 (1906), what I have nicknamed the “twisty” mechanism. Most of these were built by Herring-Hall-Marvin but some were also built by Diebold.

Today I found a better image and ran it through Photoshop Elements to lighten it up (and I flipped it left/right) but the image is just blurry enough I can’t do more than pick up a few words. So I thought other peoples’ eyeballs would help.

Can anybody make out the builder and/or other text, or recognize the shape and style of the plate?

Doug MacQueen

Looks like the second line from the bottom says Diebold Safe & Lock. Canton Ohio. Strange it is not a Diebold time lock though.

wylk

I think you’re right about Diebold.

The fourth line from the top seems to begin “Benjamin F. Tripp” and maybe the word “Patent”.

The last line may begin “New York, NY”.

00247

PM sent

wylk

Ray (00247) suggested a different image, in a private message that arrived just as I was about to post more explanation of my own. So it’s a tie! Thank you, Ray.

I took the original and ran it through a different program, “Digital Photo Professional” which is a Canon product. I ended up with something better than from Photoshop Elements (I’m not claiming one program is better, it could easily have been operator error):

My interpretation (with Ray’s help) is:

(something) McCormack (something)
Bank Engineers, New York
Built Under
Benjamin F. Tripp Patent
(small print, can’t read; or it’s just an artistic line)
Diebold Safe & Lock Company
New York, NY (something else, possibly Canton OH)

Here is the original in case others want to try their hand:

I may work on this some more, tomorrow.

Safeone

I find the tattoo on her shoulder has my initial interest / attention !

wylk

Oh, I hadn’t noticed. There are people in the picture!

I can read the plate better than the tattoo.

wylk

00247 sent me another image:

I adjusted the brightness and contrast:

This would have been a better image except the plate is out of focus (can’t blame the photographer, he’s got a job to do). The main thing I got from this is that the third line up from the bottom says New York.

00247 also suggested the top line might say “Halsey, McCormack & Helmer” which was a firm that constructed bank buildings in the New York area.

So it appears the plate is in three sections (engineers, patent holder, and builder) and probably reads as follows:
[INDENT]HALSEY, McCORMACK & HELMER[/INDENT]
[INDENT]BANK ENGINEERS, NEW YORK[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2] BUILT UNDER
[/INDENT]
[INDENT]BENJAMIN F. TRIPP PATENT[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2] NEW YORK
[/INDENT]
[INDENT]DIEBOLD SAFE & LOCK COMPANY[/INDENT]
[INDENT]NEW YORK NY AND CANTON OHIO
[/INDENT]

wylk

Quite by accident I found another Diebold Halsey-McCormack-Helmer door, supposedly installed in 1933, in the Bronx, New York:

VaultDoors

Do the small hand wheels on the jambs of both doors control the door platform or the locking bolts? I suspect the door platform because no locking bolt pins are visible on the sides of the doors.

Safeone

Pleased to see that couple practising ‘safe’ sex 😃:

wylk

VaultDoors wrote
Do the small hand wheels on the jambs of both doors control the door platform or the locking bolts? I suspect the door platform because no locking bolt pins are visible on the sides of the doors.

While there does appear to be a movable floor section, it seems too small to be for the door. Perhaps it is part of the ramp that provides a smoother path for the customers, than walking across the stepped door frame?

[unknown]