Blog

Slate Break­ing News

Mar 31, 2009 5:09 pm

There is so much hap­pen­ing on the ground on Gov­er­nors Island from bik­ing to con­certs to art instal­la­tions, we tend not to look up. Above our heads there are over 3 mil­lion square feet of roofs, over 65% of which are his­toric slate roofs. Last year, GIPEC under­took the repair of these his­toric roofs. Luck­i­ly for us, slate is an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly durable roof­ing mate­r­i­al with a life span of more than one hun­dred years. This means that we were able to keep our roofs safe and effec­tive with a series of repairs and lim­it­ed replace­ment and did not have to under­take a whole­sale replace­ment of all that slate. Over on Wheel­er Avenue, the School Con­struc­tion Author­i­ty is busy on their ren­o­va­tion of the for­mer ​“new” hos­pi­tal build­ing for use by the New York Har­bor School. As part of their plan, the non-his­toric asphalt tile roof (a Coast Guard era replace­ment of an orig­i­nal slate roof) will be replaced with a com­pos­ite tile made of recy­cled syn­thet­ic mate­ri­als; this prod­uct is craft­ed to look just like slate and has a long life cycle at a much more approach­able cost. Thanks to these projects, are build­ings are stay­ing dry and the beau­ty of the his­toric build­ings with their impres­sive slate roofs can be enjoyed by our visitors