Common brick: Common brick, also known as backing brick or bonding brick, is a less expensive and less finished brick intended for interior usage in thick brick load-bearing walls or on the less-visible portions of buildings. It is often found on the sidewalls that abutted the walls of neighboring buildings in closely packed urban blocks. Brownstone colored Terra Cotta: baked clay of any shape (in molds) Terra cotta is hard, semi fired, waterproof ceramic clay used in building construction. Used mainly for wall covering and ornamentation as it can be fired in molds. Oftentimes James Starks Jersey, white or colored glaze is applied on the face of the brick. Terra cotta is widely used in the decorative arts, especially as an architectural material, either in its natural red-brown color, or painted, or with a baked glaze.
Architectural terra cotta became very popular at the turn of the 19th - 20th century. From 1900 to 1912 the US production of terra cotta quadrupled. Atlantic Terra Cotta Company was one of the important producers and its output accounted for 40% for of the terra cotta market in New York City. By 1908 Atlantic Terra Cotta Co. was the largest producer of Architectural terra cotta in the world with four plant including Rochy Hill, New Jersey; Staten Island, New York; Eastpoint, Georgia; and especially Perth Amboy, New Jersey that was famous for its perfect texture for making terra cotta.
In the case of the Orlando Potter Building, Norris G. Starkweather used brownstone terra cotta from The Boston Terra Cotta Co. that was in business from 1980 till 1893, they were one of the first terra cotta companies on the east cost mostly serving Boston, Chicago and New York City. The Boston Terra Cotta Company used the Orlando Potter Building in its 1885 catalogue to promote their work, demonstrating the load bearing strength in which the terra cotta was integrated into the exterior brick bearing walls. A total of 540 tons was used (over 1,000,000 pounds) The Boston Terra Cotta Co superintendent James Taylor (1839-1898) that was considered as "the father of the American Terra Cotta." His work as of today is considered as masterpieces of Terra Cotta.
In his hands the ordinary terra cotta was worth its weight in gold. James Taylor was frequently in New York supervising the work preparation of the terra cotta for Orlando Potter's building and had a lot of opportunities to meet Potter himself who always followed the construction of his buildings. Potter and Taylor got along well together and seeing the rising needs and demand for terra cotta in New York City Potter decided to create his own Terra Cotta Company "The New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company." that was created in January of 1886 with Walter Geer and Asahel Clarke Geer. James Taylor was hired as superintendent and worked for the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co until his retirement in 1893. The team was perfect to create the finest in terra cotta in the United States. The New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co. was the only major architectural terra cotta company in New York City and it grow to be one of the biggest in the United States but all things have an end and the demand for terra cotta started to decline in the end of the 20's and the company went bankrupt in 1932 because of the lost of interest in terra cotta Packers pro shop, a change in style and in materials.
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